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10-Year Gary McKinnon Case To End This Year
judgecorp writes "The ten-year legal quagmire surrounding Gary McKinnon, who hacked into U.S. military and NASA computers in 2001 and 2002, must end this year, a British High Court Judge has ordered. McKinnon has been appealing against extradition to the U.S., and two medical experts must report in 28 days on his mental state, ruling whether he would be a suicide risk if deported. This ruling could short-circuit an extradition appeal hearing in July."
Maximum sentence 70 years, so no, not necessarily.
Lots of people 'give a shit', myself included. Go back to Reddit or 4chan with the rest of your kind (trolls)
Yes, because we have nothing better to do than prosecute curious kids, this is more of an honor thing for the states. If there was such a thing as justice, you'd be standing trial for your worth to human society (troll), as well as paying the piper yourself.
Lots of people 'give a shit', myself included. Go back to Reddit or 4chan with the rest of your kind (trolls)
I give a shit. - J Assange
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Essentially, 10 years in fear. Granted guy was a wee bit paranoid and nutty before, not holding that against him here, but 10 freaking years!
How does one live with such a thing looming over them for that long? Not knowing if your country can see reason with regard to your case.
I have some sympathy for him, due to the fact that justice would be usurped if the Brits actually extradited him, but how can any Brit. look at their justice system after this and think it isn't one, big, sad joke.
and just what is "justice"?
Can a country like the US even claim the moral high ground on "justice" anymore?
America has over the past 10+ years detailed persons without trials, executed it's citizens, subjected it's population to invasive searches, and worked to curtail free speech, free expression, and peaceful lawful assembly.
No sir, I submit to you that this man cannot get "justice" in America, and I think it would be better if more counties stood up to the United States and blocked extraditions. As a mater of principle, countries should not seek to enforce their laws on persons who are not their citizens or in their physical territory.
Maximum sentence 70 years, so no, not necessarily.
The UK has a reciprocal agreement with the USA. He could be convicted in the US but then be deported to serve time in a UK prison.
The fact that the NSA, CIA, FBI and DoD had open modems connected to the PSTN doesn't seem to bear any significance in this. Why aren't there some US folks being proscecuted for leaving the door wide open? Why aren't there any courts martial for the DoD folks who didn't stop this security breach?
Some poor kid with a computer and a modem and a random dialer gets the blame for all the ills of this US national security breach is a travesty. That's before we consider the desperately bad unilateral extradition agreement that my lovely Labour Gov't (Bliar and that clown Brown) signed up to (for "anti-terrorist reasons).
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
Exactly right sir, the arrogance of the US is incredible. He should not be extradited to a country with such an applaing prison system and downright uncicivilsed legal system that has the death penalty, and has repeatedly been found to have executed innocent people.
I actually see a higher percentage of what I'd call trolling on slashdot than I do on reddit. Whether it's because reddit by default ranks comments by score and the trolls get buried, or whether it's that slashdotters are more fertile ground for trolling (Someone unfairly criticizing my preferred OS? TO THE BATTLE STATIONS!!!) I don't know.
But I agree with you outside of that. Don't click the links you're not interested in it's really that simple.
A) Because they didn't "leave the door wide open."
B) You may as well argue that people who don't lock their front door should be charged with a crime because someone steals from them. Because, that is exactly what you are doing.
C) Walking in and taking things is still a CRIME.
D) 35 is not "Some poor kid with a computer and a modem and a random dialer.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
It isn't the end.
It isn't even the beginning of the end.
But it is near the end of the beginning.
Apologies to Sir Winston.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Then his mother would have to convert the basement back into a bedroom.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Yes they did. Not to be an arrogant asshole but that's literally 80'ies security, people dialing in to networks and poking around. Whomever was responsible for setting up those networks had to know about the concept of wardialing or they'd be completely incompetent. Any system that can be broken into using a war dialer/port scanner and an appropriate brute-force program is insecure. We all know what happens to a server with an internet-visible SSH daemon that password-auths guessable username/password combinations, right?
And the door analogy breaks down quite fast, because most doors/locks AFAIK isn't designed to protect against actual burglary - real burglars mostly just smash a window or drill the lock open, or so I've read.
As for what he did, if the guards of a military base suddenly waltzes off for hookers and blow and some random nut looking for UFO's wanders in and peeks about the hangars before getting caught, would this even be an issue? Or would it just be laughed off?
Emotions! In your brain!
There aren't any ACs on Reddit. There's also an unlimited supply of downvotes (albeit one per comment/post).
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
Wow, this new escape clause should be even easier to wield than "temporary insanity." All you have to do is convince a couple doctors you MIGHT get suicidal if deported, and you get off scott free.
Clue in: If you violate a foreign nation's laws and your home country has an extradition treaty with them, you're HOOPED.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
nope - Gordon Brown tried to do that deal with the US, he was rebuffed.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/wikileaks_us_no_deal_to_gordon_brown_s_plea_to_keep_scots_hacker_in_uk_1_836400
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All he has to do is tweet a bad joke about getting drunk and humping Marilyn Monroe's corpse and DHS will deport his ass back to the UK.
B) You may as well argue that people who don't lock their front door should be charged with a crime because someone steals from them. Because, that is exactly what you are doing.
No, I wouldn't expect that. What I would expect, however, is that if they are at work and they fail to secure their workstation when they leave their desk, that they are held accountable for any data loss through that connection. The Military isn't a home user, it's a government entity which frequently deals with highly sensitive information (none if which was accessed by McKinnon, BTW). I would expect, nay demand that those responsible for maintaining the security of those systems be investigated for incompetence. At the very least, this should merit dismissal for gross misconduct (as it would in the private sector).
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Good point. Don't feed the trolls.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Hopefully the EU will ban all extraditions to the US where there is a chance that the accused may be killed or imprisoned inhumanely (Guantanimo, lack of medical treatment, average US jail etc.)
Sending someone somewhere you know they will be mistreated is as bad as doing it yourself.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"A) Because they didn't "leave the door wide open.""
There's no better definition of wide open on the internet than a public facing computer with blank, or no password. If you think this isn't wide open, then please, for the love of god, don't ever get a job in IT, or if you have one, kindly vacate it immediately.
"B) You may as well argue that people who don't lock their front door should be charged with a crime because someone steals from them. Because, that is exactly what you are doing."
No you may as well not, because people who don't lock their front door aren't being paid by the tax payer to look after national security. It's a question of competence, and leaving defence network computers open on the public internet can be firmly filed under gross negligence.
"C) Walking in and taking things is still a CRIME."
Well he didn't take anything - it was all still there when he left, but yes you're right, walking in is still a crime. Not the sort any sane person would expect you to get extradited to a foreign country to serve 70 years in prison over though.
"D) 35 is not "Some poor kid with a computer and a modem and a random dialer."
Yes you're right, but he's not fully mentally healthy like a typical adult either, the truth is thus somewhere in between.
there are "PasswordIsNoChance" type accounts
sag
True, but they aren't used anywhere near as often as AC is on here. I like the idea of AC but it makes spamming - or just talking crap without any repercussions - a lot easier.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
yup, not disagreeing with you, I think 'the kids' on reddit have a real account and a flame account
sag
That's before we consider the desperately bad unilateral extradition agreement that my lovely Labour Gov't (Bliar and that clown Brown) signed up to (for "anti-terrorist reasons).
So why don't Cameron and his lapdog Clegg do something about re-negotiating it then? And do you really think that a Tory leader after 9/11 would have told the US to go fuck themselves?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
And the door analogy breaks down quite fast, because most doors/locks AFAIK isn't designed to protect against actual burglary - real burglars mostly just smash a window or drill the lock open, or so I've read.
Not where I live (the UK). Most burglaries are through windows that are left open. Smashing windows and drilling locks tends to make the neighbours suspicious, though obviously it does happen.
You always get a rise in opportunistic burglaries during hot weather here, as people open their windows and forgot to shut/lock them later.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
And the door analogy breaks down quite fast, because most doors/locks AFAIK isn't designed to
The legal aspect is that there was a door and he kicked it down. The crime of 'breaking and entering' can be charged even if there was as much as a cobweb that was broken. Let me rehash my favorite 2 scenarios.
First scenario. A group of disaffected youth break into a business with a crowbar. They steal the cash box and trade the list of credit card reciepts to the local dope dealer for a couple of lids. They trash the inventory and take what they want. The local police later arrest the group trying to fence the stolen goods at a local pawn shop. They goto court and their defense is that it was the shop owner's fault that he didn't have an infantry squad guarding his store. They are sentenced to 1-3 years in the penitentary and the community is glad that the group of thugs are off the street.
Second scenario. A group of disaffected youth gain entrance into the computer system of a business with a script. They take the database table of credit card users and sell it online to the Russian mafia then go buy a couple of lids. They truncate the database's table of customers and have online system ship electronic goodies to their Mom's basement. They go online and claim that it is the business owner's fault that he didn't have the latest and greatest security system. The Slashdot crowd acclaim their skillz and anxiously await their next exploit.
Explain the difference to me.
There's not much, of course. I was gunning more for the admins of the system rather than trying to imply that McKinnon is somehow innocent of a crime. However, if he broke into a military base or contractors facility using a wire cutter to look for UFOs I'd personally view it as roughly equivalent to his current actions in a moral/ethical sense.
Emotions! In your brain!
Yes you're right, but he's not fully mentally healthy like a typical adult either, the truth is thus somewhere in between.
He doesn't seem mentally incompetent to me. It might be that he's stress-sensitive and unable to socially interact like a normal person, but Asperger syndrome doesn't affect moral perception as such. IANAL/IANAP, but I don't think this crime is remotely excusable in a legal sense by his condition even if he "lives in his own little world". Removing moral agency from individuals like that willy-nilly, especially for such a fluid and vaugely defined condition, seems inappropriate.
Emotions! In your brain!
"It might be that he's stress-sensitive and unable to socially interact like a normal person, "
That is a mental health issue though, and particularly in the likes of the US jail system thousands of miles from home and his family then of course he's a suicide risk at that point - some people kill themselves in jail even when they're otherwise mentally healthy based on that alone, the added trauma of facing that when you're socially inept surrounded by in your face prisoners is bound to make him higher risk than usual.
No one is saying his crime is excusable, just that extradition isn't the right form of punishment. Trial in a British court and detention in the much less harsh British system, or under house arrest with a ban on the use of computers is punishment enough for someone like this if he even needs to be punished any further. The UK focuses much more on rehabilitation, I think after 10 years of this being dragged out he knows full well he shouldn't have done what he did, wont do it again, and has faced enough stress from it all to be punishment enough.
It's not like he killed or hurt anyone, not like he leaked anything sensitive, really, the worst he did was embarassed a bunch of incompetent sysadmins and wasted the man hours required to sort it out. I think there's a fair argument though that it needed sorting out, and a security audit doing regardless of whether McKinnon had hacked in or not.