Gary McKinnon extradition
p2p news / p2pnet: A British judge says American demands that Britain hands over one of its citizens, accused by Washington of hacking government systems, should be met.
“A self-described ‘bumbling computer nerd’ who started his hacking career looking for evidence that governments had orchestrated a UFO cover-up, Gary McKinnon now spends his time reading, fixing friends’ computers and checking in at the local police station,” says the Guardian Unlimited.
But McKinnon’s supporters are afraid he’ll be rail-roaded if he’s tried in the US.
He’s admitted hacking the computers but says didn’t cause any damage and, fighting extradition, says he’s already been, “hung and quartered over there” and wouldn’t receive a fair trial, states the story.
UK home secretary John Reid has three months to decide whether or not to approve the extradition demand and, “Two other related cases also involve extradition and the decisions in these could be a strong indicator of how the request to extradite Mr McKinnon will be handled,” says the BBC, adding:
“Karen Todner, Mr McKinnon’s solicitor, said: “We’re proposing to appeal this to the Secretary of State, and if we’re still refused we will then appeal to the High Court for a decision to allow Gary to be tried here as a British citizen.”
Also See:
Guardian Unlimited – The humble superhacker, May 10, 2006
BBC – McKinnon supporters to ‘fight on’, May 10, 2006
May 10th, 2006 at 6:58 pm
Maybe political asylum in some non-US controlled country is in order here. Because the computers he hacked into are U.S. government computers, the sentence will be much more severe than the crime. This will most likely be a rubber stamp trial in which the defendant will be put away for a long time. The British government ought to protect its citizens rather than turn them over to the repressive court system of a country that does not respect people’s rights. The proper course for the British government is to try this defendant using British courts and under British law. Defendant most likely has never even been to the U.S.
Signed U.S. Citizen
May 10th, 2006 at 10:32 pm
What is worring is how badly set up the security was on these system.
“SK: So you’re saying that you found computers which had a high-ranking status, administrator status, which hadn’t had their passwords set – they were still set to default?
GM: Yes, precisely. ”
Yes they haven’t even bothered to set basic security for these system!
Take look over at BBC Click (again)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/4977134.stm
If that didn’t amazed you watch the video
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3681938.stm
May 10th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
Any British civil servant who suggests that he should be extradited is a traitor! We’ve had enough establishment traitors in Britain when it comes to appeasing the U.S., it’s about time this idiocy stopped.
U.K. Citizen.
May 11th, 2006 at 4:07 am
The only people who should be facing a trial and punishment are the morons who failed to lock down networks containing classified information. This whole farce is nothing but shooting the messenger.
Who wants to bet that 90% of those unsecured systems he stumbled into are still unsecured right now?
May 11th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
It’s like being extradited for “breaking and entering” when all the doors and windows are wide open.