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Alleged Hacker Lauri Love To Be Extradited To US (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BBC: An autistic man suspected of hacking into U.S. government computer systems is to be extradited from Britain to face trial, a court has ruled. Lauri Love, 31, who has Asperger's syndrome, is accused of hacking into the FBI, the U.S. central bank and the country's missile defense agency. Mr Love, from Stradishall, Suffolk, has previously said he feared he would die in a U.S. prison if he was extradited. Earlier, his lawyer said his alleged hacking had "embarrassed" U.S. authorities. Tor Ekeland said the U.S. government "had very, very bad security and these hacks utilized exploits that were publicly-known for months." Mr Love's lawyers said he could face up to 99 years in prison if convicted of the hacking offenses. Mr Love's defense team argues his depression and Asperger's syndrome mean he should not be sent abroad, but U.S. prosecutors say he is using his mental health issues as an excuse to escape justice.
The ruling is that he can be extradited. He will be appealing this, and if that appeal fails he will be appealing to the EU Court of Human Rights.
He is not getting extradited just yet.
He would have been better off murdering a few people.
That's not how it works... that's not how any of it works.
If you want to be a non-criminal hacker, but can't get permission from someone who doesn't care about security, you don't hack them. Period. You don't get to attack someone without invitation and keep your shiny clean reputation. This guy is getting screwed because he allegedly broke the law.
I've worked with red teams. If you're going to ignore their findings, you're better off not hiring them in the first place. See, red teams keep records. Those records can be subpoenaed, and if it turns out that you were told about a vulnerability and chose to ignore it, it's your ass on the line. Insurance companies won't pay for damages, approvals get revoked, and SLAs start invoking their failure clauses. It's a huge price tag that's almost always bigger that the price to fix the findings.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
The issue isn't that what he did wasn't wrong, it clearly was. The issue is that the US judicial and prison-industrial complex falls way short of European standards. It's particularly bad for people with medical issues, and those accused of national security or crimes against the military.
We can't extradite people to places where their human rights are likely to be violated. The legal argument here centres on the fact that the US doesn't respect human rights, as defined by the European Charter on Human Rights (ECHR).
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The UK generally accomodates mental health issues in prison. It isn't a get out of jail card, but it means he gets access to counselling and support. And the UK authorities already investigated the crime, and decided not to prosecute.
The US, on the other hand, takes a perverse pride in how terrible their prison system is. The public there expects, even demands that prisoners should suffer as much as possible. There is an ongoing legal conflict about providing prisons with air conditioning, when temperatures can easily reach the point of prisoners passing out and occasionally being hospitalised for heatstroke, yet administrators still refuse to address the situation because it would be seen as being 'soft on crime.' Prison rape is so common it's a subject for comedy, and that's the way the people like it. The emphasis is on punishment, not rehabilitation.
The USA doesn't have a justice system.
It has a harsh and vindictive revenge system which seeks to utterly destroy people who embarrass it.
No, his defense is essentially that the US prison system is so inhumane that nobody should be extradited to it. Which is unfortunately a very reasonable defense based on facts. He wants to stand trial in the UK, where he has committed his crimes.