‘Play ball or else,’ US tells hacker Gary McKinnon
p2pnet news | P2P:- Gary McKinnon, the British hacker who faces life imprisonment after penetrating the Pentagon, has been bullied by the US, says his lawyer
He was yesterday to take his case against extradition to the House of Lords today and, “During a day-long session of legal nit-picking, five Law Lords heard McKinnon’s barrister, David Pannick QC, argued that the US had abused process by trying to strong-arm his client into accepting extradition and pleading guilty,” says The Register.
“If the United States wish to use the processes of English courts to secure the extradition of an alleged offender then they must play by our rules,” it has him stating
In 2002, McKinnon was accused of stealing computer files, damaging a protected computer, lifting secrets which might have been “useful to an enemy” and interfering with navigation equipment, says The Guardian.
“Negotiations took place at the US embassy in which it was said that if he would go voluntarily to the US and plead guilty, they would go for a minimum sentence and allow him to be repatriated, but if he did not agree, they would not allow him to repatriated,” it has his lawyer, Karen Todner, stating.
In exchange for compliance, “US prosecutors offered to withdraw a threat to block any application for McKinnon to be repatriated to serve most of his time in a UK jail,” says El Reg, continuing >>>
The bargain offered by the US Embassy’s Ed Gibson (who is now Microsoft UK’s chief security adviser) for a guilty plea would reduce his sentence from eight-to-ten years, to between three and four years. Combined with the UK’s more generous parole system, that would mean that McKinnon might have served only two years in prison.
In her evidence … Todner said that in their correspondence the US had told her that failure to play ball would mean “all bets were off” and that repatriation to the UK “would not occur”. This threat, charged McKinnon’s team, “sought to impose pressure to accept extradition and plead guilty”, and represented an unlawful abuse of the court process that was “disproportionate [and] reprehensible”.
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penetrating the Pentagon – Hacker Gary McKinnon stays in Britain …, October 23, 2007
The Register – Pentagon hacker vows to take extradition fight to Europe, June 16, 2008
The Guardian – US abusing extradition says hacker’s lawyer, June 16, 2008
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June 17th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
The term “Pentagon Hacker” threw me at first.
It’s no secret that the Pentagon/DOD is by far the biggest EMPLOYER of computer hackers in the world.
If extradited, Gary McKinnon’s only chance of avoiding a multi-decade prison term will be to accept a ‘job’ hacking FOR the Pentagon. This is why the US is so determined extradite him to the US instead of letting the British criminal justice system take care of the matter.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:11 am
I understand that the pentagon is piss off because an hacker penetrated their stuff.
However I believe that even two years in prison is way overboard for a guy that has just been doing this for fun.
Do they like better the chinese to expose the security flaw in the pentagon network?
June 18th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Actually, the government of CHINA is the biggest employer of computer hackers in the world. I’d say the Pentagon/DoD is maybe third or so (the jury is still out about how much Iran employs).