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Obama Won't Intervene Over British Hacker McKinnon
CWmike writes "President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that he can't intervene in the long-running case of a British hacker charged with breaking into US military computers. Gary McKinnon's case came up during discussions with British Prime Minister David Cameron in Washington. The UK Home Office is reviewing whether McKinnon's medical condition is grounds to block his extradition to the US, which was approved in 2006. McKinnon has yet to stand trial in the US, where he was indicted by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in 2002 for hacking into 97 military and NASA computers between February 2001 and March 2002. Obama said during a press conference with Cameron that by tradition US presidents do not get involved in extraditions or prosecutions. 'I trust that this will get resolved in a way that underscores the seriousness of the issue, but also underscores the fact that we work together and we can find an appropriate solution,' Obama said."
Indeed, it's interesting that this is posted on the same day as the the Senate unanimously decides to prohibit libel tourism. The idea there was presumably that if you do something in one country, you act under that country's legal jurisdiction. Extradition would make sense if he could only be prosecuted in the US, however what he did is an offense under the UK's Computer Misuse Act and he could be appropriately punished under UK law. The only reason to demand an extradition was to inflict a much harsher punishment than the UK courts would be likely to hand down (probably less than the maximum five years).
Than you don't understand how Extradition really works.
There is a reason there are Extradition treaties. Murder may be illegal in many countries but we generally still extradite them back to where the crime was committed to properly serve justice at a sentence deemed appropriate by those affected. (We'll also make note that there is no extradition treaty to Saudi Arabia, because their laws vary so much).
The ambiguity falls on where this crime was comitted, the individual was not in the States, but the information he was accessing was. The victims of the crimes are in the States and thats why it should be held there. (As there is no victim in Pre-marital Sex, it wouldn't make sense to extradite someone to the middle east either).
Not serving Extradition will only serve to sever the ties between the two nations.
The court itself was in the Netherlands. How is that not an international court?!
The trial was held under Scottish law. That was part of the compromise that led to him being handed over in the first place. The physical location of the court, in this instance, is irrelevant.
- and was also released under Scottish law - which, by the way, Cameron cannot legally interfere with, as it is separate from the English legal system.
What on Earth are you talking about? Scotland is part of the UK. David Cameron is the UK Prime Minister. And you're telling me he has no grounds to interfere? I must seriously be missing something here.
You are missing something. Scotland has a separate legal system from England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The continuance of the legal system was one of the conditions of the Act of Union in 1707. As the UK PM, David Cameron cannot directly interfere with decisions of the Scottish courts. He can't interfere by proposing Scottish laws either, since that power is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Since this is criminal law, the new Supreme Court of the UK does not have jurisdiction either.
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