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MacKinnon Extradition Blocked By UK Home Secretary

RockDoctor writes "BBC radio news (2012-10-16 GMT 13:00) is reporting that the Home Secretary has blocked the extradition of Gary MacKinnon to the U.S. for (alleged) computer hacking crimes. Paraphrasing: the Director of Public Prosecutions is going to have to decide if there is sufficient evidence for him to be tried in the UK for crimes committed in (or from) the UK. " (Also at The Independent.)

9 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A pity by clickclickdrone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No one is saying he's innocent. The case is now going off to the DPP for appraisel. The issue is about using an extradition treaty designed to process terrorists for sending over people for other offences, especially when the sentence is FAR worse in the US than it would be in the UK. I don't think anyone, himself included thinks he's innocent, it's the process that's wrong.

    --
    I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
  2. Right, but for the worst reasons possible. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's the right decision, finally, but for the worse reasons.

    Suicide risk?

    Well, that implies that you shouldn't extradite because aof suicide risk. What about murderers? What about holding "terrorist" suspects for 10 years without trial? Does that lead to a suicide risk? Should you simply not incarcerate people who are at risk of suicide?

    He never left the UK and if what he did was illegal here, then he should be tried herre.

    It is simply not right that one must know the laws of an artibray number of other countries even if you've never visited them. Secondly, the guy has a mental condition. He should be getting help (on the NHS no less) than this treatment.

    Finally, the authorities should have been ashamed into silence that their systems were insecure. Instead, they are simply lying about the damage done. If sensitive systems were that insecure, then that amount of fixing/upgrading/replacing was already required whether or not they successfully detected an intrusion.

    In other worde they are also lying about the damage.

    Still, good for McKinnon and a weak blow for justice. The right decision for the wrong reasons is better than the wrong decisions.

    Now all we need is to overturn this ludicrous, one-sided and outright unjust act before too many more lives are ruined.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  3. Re:A pity by BenJury · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you've committed a crime in the UK then you should be tried in the UK. It should be as simple as that.

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    Blatant Advert: Android Apps!
  4. Re:A pity by vlm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So what exactly were his crimes? What damage did he cause? It's pretty much proven that he isn't a foreign agent and did not forward any information to other people.

    We needed a boogy man to scare people with now that Kevin Mitnick isn't so scary. The modern witch hunt... some individuals must suffer for the amusement of the masses and control games of the elite. Our lapdogs in the UK are not cooperating. Bush probably would have already started bombing the UK in retaliation, but Obama will probably think of some other way to screw things up.

    Its amusing to strip away the internet BS in his case and come up with analogies to breaking into a public library and photocopying stuff from the restricted collection. Yeah, he's a crook, but so small time as to scarcely be worth looking at, getting the USA witch trial treatment is a wee bit excessive.

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  5. I doubt it by Kupfernigk · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I very much doubt you are a UK citizen. Nobody other than Tony Blair, Mandelson and Alastair Campbell thought that treaty was a good idea; didn't John McCain say it was too one-sided?

    Blair would have handed over the UK to the US lock, stock and barrel in exchange for a word from Bush iii (and some lucrative "consultancy" from a US bank). And the others...while there are libel laws in the UK I can't trust myself to write about Campbell or Mandelson.

    Be carted off the the US without the US court having to show even prima facie evidence? There was a time and a place where foreign nationals could be extradited like that, but the time was prior to 1990 and the place was the satellite states of the Soviet Union.

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
    1. Re:I doubt it by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Doubt away all you like pal. Not everyone in the UK is a bed wetting lefty sobbing over a Guardian editorial about criminals human rights.

      Sigh.

      I really, truly hope you are not a UK citizen.

      Firstly, your comment about "snivelling" whatever, makes me sure that you are one of those who is capable of thinking about issues only interms of a team cheering us-versus them party political context, rather than trying to think and come to your own, reasoned, conclusion.

      People voting along your lines are basically what is wrong with democracy. Please, refrain from voting. You are personally respondible for making democracy the worst system (except all others).

      Frankly it's insane that you think that basic legal rights are a left-versus-right thing not a right versus wrong thing.

      You also seem to think that putting "criminal" in front of something automatically has some bearing. And if you think criminals shouldn't have rights, then why not have the death penalty for almost every crime? After all, who cares about criminal rights?

      The measure of a civilisation is not how it treates its conformists but how it treats its dissidents. (quote from someone famous...)

      I'd be willing to bet that you hate the European convention on human rights too.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  6. What were his crimes? by petes_PoV · · Score: 5, Insightful
    His most heinous crime was to embarrass the US government and to show that the security on a lot of the defense computers was paper-thin to non-existent.

    On top of that, he demonstrated that it was simple, to the point of trivial to gain access to them and the information they contained. He was never going to be given a fair trial in the USA (as nobody who is extradited to the US ever gets - the cost of mounting a legal defence in the country makes that impossible) and was going to be part of a show trial to make an example of.

    The biggest tragedy in this whole sorry episode is that it went on for so long and the next biggest tragedy is that so many other people were extradited to the USA and became victims of it's imprisonment (I nearly said "justice") system.

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
  7. Re:A pity by martinux · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As someone who has lived with a person suffering from a debilitating mental health issue I hope I'm not the first to say, "fuck you". Your opinion displays a lack of compassion for someone who was being disproportionately hounded by those who wanted to hide their own ineptitude by making him an example.

    Mr. McKinnon was formally diagnosed. Your perception that he's some pretender looking for an escape is grossly judgemental. He and his representatives have repeatedly asked for a trial on UK soil.

    I hope someone more objective and compassionate than you stands up for your rights if they're ever in peril.
    I don't have karma to burn, I don't need a shield to be a decent human being.

  8. Re:A pity by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm fed up of seeing people abuse provisions that are put in place to protect those with genuine medical/pschological needs and getting away with it.

    I've never met the man, have you? Odd how you can diagnose a person as "sane" with no medical background and never having met him. Personally, I tend to believe the medical professionals who actually studied medicine and who actally had face to face contact, rather than from some stupid newspaper reporter.

    TLDR: Why do you doubt the diagnosis of a health professional?