Slashdot Mirror
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.)
He has an independently verified medical condition which makes him a high-risk for suicide. That doesn't make him innocent of his crimes; if you'd bother to read the article you'd see his case is now under consideration for prosecution in the UK.
This has stopped his extradition, not him being liable for his actions.
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
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.
If you've committed a crime in the UK then you should be tried in the UK. It should be as simple as that.
Blatant Advert: Android Apps!
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
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."
Unauthorised access to computer material contrary to S1 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990. The maximum penalty for that in the UK is 2 years in prison, although as this is not a very serious example of the offence, it is likely he would get a much lower prison term, probably in the order of a couple of months at most.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
Free Martian Whores!
Sorry, the constitution does NOT apply to foreigners in the US.
I am an immigrant (legal) and the documents specifically state that I am not allowed to present myself as a US Citizen since many constitution protections do not apply to me:
Second Amendment – Right to keep and bear arms
Fourth Amendment – Protection from unreasonable search and seizure - DHS and other police forces are allowed to seize and search me at any time
Sixth Amendment – Trial by jury and rights of the accused; Confrontation Clause, speedy trial, public trial, right to counsel - DHS trials are closed to the public, no jury, can last well beyond the time your alien status expires (at which point you have to leave and the case is closed) and decisions made by a DHS judge on my status as an alien resident cannot be challenged by state or federal judges.
Besides that I do not have the right to vote or seek political office on a federal level.
The same fate is slowly coming for US citizens as well and it has already started in airports and anywhere within 100 miles of an international border or airport.