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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."
You're mixing it up. Free Mitnick was about the 3 years of no due process. It didn't matter if he was guilty or not at that point--the law states that a lack of due process means you go free. The gov't didn't do that, but should have, hence the outcry of support.
Citing Asperger's as a medical condition to prevent extradition is silly. Being socially deficient doesn't make you incapable of determining right and wrong, if in fact he really has the condition at all considering the ridiculous amount of self-diagnosis out there. Genuine Asperger's is a form of autism and deeply impacts your life.
As someone who works very closely with children diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, I can tell you that some of them are very incapable of determining right from wrong. Some of them are extremely violent, and will threaten to stab or kill the other children (these are kids in kindergarten, grade 1, grade 2). They don't understand why it is not acceptable to say and do these things.
I'm not saying that McKinnon should get away with what he did, because he shouldn't. But saying that his illness should not be taken into account is absurd and inhumane.