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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.)
I'm a UK citizen and I have little sympathy for him. HIs defence played the old suicide card with a side serving of poor-little-me aspergers sufferer. As if that somehow makes him innocent of his crimes. If thats alls that needed to get someone off going to prison then most prisons would be empty.
This sends a very bad message. And yes, I know I'll get modded down for this by all the self righteous teen keyboard warriors but I have karma to burn to knock yourselves out.
Even a stopped clock gets it right twice a day.
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
A good decision on its own merits, I think. His crimes were made out to be first degree murder by the US side, and he was going to go down for a LONG time for something that script kiddies do quite often.The guy obviously has something wrong with him, and he'd unlikely get a fair hearing in the States, where the favourite sport of the rich and powerful is to inflate claimed harm in court cases to crucify people they don't like (e.g. Kevin Mitnick causing a billion dollars damage and able to start nuclear war with a payphone).
That said, in context, it looks terrible. After what happened to Abu Hamza and friends, it says that if you're brown and Muslim, you're going to get thrown to the wolves. But if you're white, you're all right. I have zero sympathy for sub-human shit like Abu Hamza -- but the apparent double-standard is a very bad look.
Does the US citizen - Average Joe (or above average) know or care about this?
On a personal note, I'm shocked the government made a choice for a person over a corporation/lobby group/foreign power. First time In my life I think I've agreed with a home secretary?!?! must be getting old.
If you want to listen to the music, pay the artist!
All you god damn tree-hugging lefty pinko fags wanting to live off the government and get free music and pot.
HOW DARE YOU! I work for a living. I pay for my SUV myself. Every tax credit I get *I*EARN*. You parasites should be paying MY taxes. I have 14 kids, so I am definitely a good person.
Fucking hippies.
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.
When he was in opposition, he scored a lot of political points by defending Gary MacKinnon, accusing the Tony Blair/Gordon Brown Labour Party of being US lapdogs.
If he hadn't blocked the extradition, it would have been a PR nightmare for him and the Conservatives.
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."
Hey I just hacked you, and I may be crazy, but I was looking for ET, so don't extradite me...
Sorry someone shouldn't avopid trial on teh basis that they are will commit suicide. However if someone commits a crime they should be tried in teh jurisdiction they were in when they comitted a crime. lets seperate the fact that this involves computers from it and examine a less recent communication method. If i had in 1979 phoned an individual in the us and made credible death threats would i have been extradited to the us, or would i probably have been prosecuted here in the UK. he was not subject to us laws when he commited teh crime, he was however subject to uk laws where what he did was also an offence. Teh problem for me seems to be that the powers that be were concerned that under UK law his aspergers woudl have been ( and IANAL so the precise nomeclature i use may be incorrect) used as a mitigating factor or defence whereas US law pretty much allows people with the mental age of 12 year olds to be executed. therefore rather than prsoecute him here where it may have failed and then ttry to extradite him where the fact he had already been tried for teh crime may have allowed him to invoke double jeopardy, they decided to ship him off to the states. Can we extradite George w bush to the Uk for war crimes ( ignoring the fact we haven't even prosecuted our own politicians for this). basically he comitted teh crime here and should have been tried here and if the powers that be didn't like the result of that trial then change the laws or try to.
I figure most Brits will be for this, even if it's just for them sticking it to the US.
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
I am not too familiar with Mc- and Mac- names but I thought it makes a difference in spelling in that the two can't be interchanged. I'm not trying to be the grammar police, I would just like clarification on this.
Whoah, the British finally found some amount of courage ? Who knew, who knew. Maybe there's hope after all.
No one is saying he's innocent.
Indeed - he is guilty of embarrassing the pentagon which might be a truly terrible crime in the US but is somewhat less so in the UK.
are they still harassing this guy?
If they had decided that it was because of the possible disproportionate sentence, or that the years of indecision had punished him enough then this would be fine. But a decision where "the sole issue she had to consider was his human rights", and the decision that "Mr McKinnon would be likely to take his own life if he was sent to face trial in the US" are bad news
I am just glad that this decision was made after we got rid of Abu Hamsa. In the UK we have a lot of Muslims who want to destroy our society and impose Sharia law. They will gladly kill themselves to do so. What's the betting that the next load of Muzzie terrorists that are due for extradition say that they will commit suicide if they do? If they attempted a suicide bombing or something it would be very hard to argue that they would not really do it. This president could be a real problem.
Oh the irony...
is not that Gary McKinnon is not going to be extradited, but that judges will have some discretion to decide whether an accused person should be tried in the UK instead of extraditing that person abroad.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Has a deal been done?
In public rhetoric they claims McKinnon is a cyber-terrorist, who committed the biggest military hack of all time and did a million worth of damage, and left the US at risk.
In terms of evidence they offered, they offered nothing. Zip.
Nobody should be extradited without evidence. He's not a cyber-terrorist, the USA isn't facing cyber-pearl-harbor, they talked up his case a lot but they offered no evidence of any of it. Under that circumstance he should be extradited.
However, the UK-US extradition law doesn't require evidence of a crime, the US can say "We want Bob Smith, he's 6'2", blue eyes, last lived at 32b The High Street, Slough", "we want him for murder", "murder is a crime in the US serious enough to use the expedited extradition". But they don't have to offer any evidence that "Bob Smith" murdered anyone. It's not part of the extradition on the UK to US leg, the other way around, US to UK, the Americans insist on evidence showing that Bob Smith actually did murder someone.
Because the evidence isn't part of the extradition, Bob can't challenge it. Being innocent is no defense against extradition under this treaty. Innocent or guilty the treaty makes no distinction. Which is why no-one should be extradited under this.
The Parliament investigation explains in details the problems with it:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201012/jtselect/jtrights/156/15608.htm
189. Mr David Bermingham, argued that:
"if you are a United States citizen who is wanted for extradition by the United Kingdom, you have an absolute right to a hearing in a United States court where you can challenge the evidence that has been put in front of the court and present evidence of your own. If, by contrast, you are a United Kingdom citizen or somebody ordinarily resident here who is wanted by the United States, you have no such right."[195]
190. In Mr Bermingham's opinion, the UK extradited people to the US "without so much as a scrap of evidence being put in front of a UK court" which was "a grave disservice to our citizens and other people who may be the subject of extradition."[196]
195. Article 5(3) creates a two-fold problem because it allows the extradition of individuals on the basis of evidence which the CPS has deemed insufficient to prosecute in this country and the extradition of individuals where the CPS has decided there is no public interest in prosecuting.
His defence was that there was no case to answer for.
The case had been plumped up so that it fell within the parameters of the extradiction orders.
The crime he was accused of was changed to one that DID NOT EXIST at the time of the crime (no post facto law) to pass that parameter for the extradition orders.
The act had been looked at by the UK court prosecutors and they did not see a case worth prosecuting.
The extradition treaty does not require the USA to hand over ANY evidence for their claims, claiming it is all they need do. Verification is unnecessary. And this is a breech of his human rights.
Ah , standard defeated liberal retort #5. Imply other person is stupid and/or childish and has no idea of the facts.
Do try to be a bit more original instead of cut and pasting from the usual script.
Seriously, your straw man won't stand up for a microsecond. If Muslim terrorists in the UK managed to lob a missile to the US, they could be tried in this country and the question of extradition to a country with a backward judicial system would not arise. Even with Abu Hamza, the real issue is whether the US has got a case or not. The suspicion is that, just like the invasion of Iraq, they are just thrashing around trying to find someone they can punish for something - a popular mode of expression in the more backward parts of the US, from where we get "Lynching".
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
"McKinnon claimed that UFOs were the reason for his hack. Convinced that the government was hiding alien antigravity devices and advanced energy technologies, he planned to find and release the information for the benefit of humanity. He said his intrusion was detected just as he was downloading a photo from NASA's Johnson Space Center of what he believed to be a UFO." http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/the-autistic-hacker/0
A lot of people seem to think this is a good result because they don't think hacking should be outlawed, or they hate the US or think the US has to harsh a penal system.
The real fact however is that because a person claimed that Asperger would cause him to commit suicide, escaped facing trial a healthy person would have had to face for his actions.
I don't like the idea of 'get out of jail free' cards. I remember a case were a woman killed her husband and claimed temporary insanity because of her period. Fine, so her cycle makes her insane, so let her out of jail for murder. Just lock her up every month to prevent any more murders.
Oh wait, your disability/insanity/illness/bad drug use effect ONLY applies the once, not for the rest of your life? I see.
In Hollland we got something called TBS (Ter Beschikking Stelling/To be made available) it is sentence given to crazies on top of or instead of a prison sentence and it is basically forced mental care. And where prison sensentences have a fixed time (we do got real life sentences in Holland) TBS can last until a doctor says your fit to be returned into society. It is NOT a nicer option then jail no matter what people think.
If you suffer the disability of being blind in one eye, you can't drive a car. Plain and simple. Disability you can't help nonetheless has a permanent consequence to protect yourself and others.
If you are mentally unfit to make financial deals, you are protected by being able to have contracts undone BUT society is also protected from you by the consequence of you being placed under supervision of a caretaker so you can no longer enter into contracts on your own.
Action => consequence.
But this guy did something and now wants not to suffer the consequence. He is saying "people with asperges shouldn't be sent to America". Not people in general, just not him, because he is special. Not so special that his Aspergers should have any consequence for him, like being barred from using a internet connection, not his disability should only give him a get out of jail free card and nothing more.
And that don't sound right.
If nothing else, it is a slap in the face of everyone with far more serious issues who don't go breaking the laws. I just don't like twats getting away with things because they throw a hissy fit and all the cry babies rush over to sooth him.
Simple sentence, community service and supervised internet access until he can prove he won't be acting like an ass again. No doubt this will be protested because people with Aspergers shouldn't be forced to have supervised internet access to ensure they behave. It should just be used to stop them from having to face the consequences of their actions.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
was found guilty of like 4 grand theft in the end. less then the value of most used cars
A whistle-blower is holed up because he will be extradited to the US, where they will lock him up, torture him and then throw away the key.
The US can go pound sand.
I have made little progress just discussing ideas with my countrymen and if I mention the idea is from Europe then I'm doomed from the start. I don't know why we have to dismiss everything more civil nations do; or merely dismiss something "foreign" and these are just ideas, facts, or logic which can have no ownership or nationality (despite the "IP" idiocy.)
We only have crime here and we have a broken legal system based upon terrorizing defendants to the benefit the legal profession. Crazy acts do not exist here. Some "crimes" are just insane and we really should reclassify many of our crimes as acts of insanity; possibly creating a separate system to manage them. In the USA we removed most our "nuthouses" and put "evil criminals" in jail with everybody else. It is not civil to lock up an antisocial person next to somebody who ate his neighbor; or in this case, next to an unsocial Asperger's guy who is harmless to society. His punishment here is not likely to be fair or cost effective or rehabilitating.
His actions embarrassed the USA so like Wikileaks he must be made an example of; his actions and intent was not harmful but in either case he was beneficial in the grand scheme. He not only shows the security holes but if he found something worth leaking he'd be doing society a service. His intent was to enter illegally and gather info; that is a crime but it is not the cold war spying the extreme laws were created for. Not that we can expect reason to enter our legal system now... they'll terrorize him with idiotic claims hoping he'll settle with something about on par and then give him the max.
In the USA they do not have equal punishment (just look up the racial stats) and 1st timers get it worst of all because they must be "made an example." This guy is positioned to be robbed of proper justice besides the fact the US system is just broken. This guys "crime" is the internet version of trespassing or "breaking and entering" although he didn't break anything, he just entered. A 6 month max crime here if you are a nun setting foot onto a military base (it happens more than you'd think.) He didn't do much actual harm nor is there evidence he had motive to do any such things.
Asperger's in the USA is only something parents pay to get their kids so they can get alternative treatment for their brat in school; any kid with specialize attention will do better in school. Everywhere else they dismiss that stuff as psycho-babble and you don't get jack unless there is a DRUG then it gets as much attention as it is profitable to do so... this means we have dangerous people running free so they can buy expensive drugs they can forget to take.
The Aspergers defense is just a typical slimy lawyer trick to exploit ignorance. If it was any defense it would be for his motives; although, forcing him to be social all the time would be extremely uncomfortable - like putting a normal person into a jail cell with limited social contact.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Theresa May is to be congratulated for her decision to not extradite Gary McKinnon to the USA. The real reason that the USA wanted to put him on trial is because he embarrassed them.
Mr McKinnon did not cause any damage to the Pentagon systems or take really sensitive information. He got into the Pentagon's computers by guessing passwords, many that worked were manufacturers' default passwords that had not been changed. What he did was the equivalent of walking down a street gently twisting front knobs to find a door that was unlocked.
Setting good passwords is the first thing that anyone with any clue about security will do. That the passwords were so easy to guess is astounding and makes me wonder about the quality of Pentagon staff. The claim that he cost them one million dollars is specious since they should have done this work in the first place.
The USA should not be castigating him but thanking him for showing them their poor defenses before someone really malicious broke in.
What Mr McKinnon did was wrong, that is without doubt. But the penalty was too high; the USA would not have played fair.
I make no comment on Mr McKinnon's condition of aspergers or the report that he would commit suicide; I do not consider those really relevant to the injustice that the USA would have done to him - as revenge for showing that their systems staff at the Pentagon are incompetent idiots.
he has a suitably low melanin content in his skin. An essential, though not sufficient, quality to ensure 'fair' treatment.
In the UK we have a lot of Muslims who want to destroy our society and impose Sharia law.
I bet they're vastly outnumbered by the micro-genitaled fascists like you though.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it