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UFO Hacker Happy

2008 was not a good year for Gary ‘UFO Hacker’ McKinnon. 2009 looks to be off to a better start – this just in:

A British court ruled on Friday that a man who hacked into US military computers will be giving permission for a judicial review against his extradition to the United States.

Computer expert Gary McKinnon is seen posing after arriving at the High Court, in London January 20, 2009. A British computer expert accused by the United States of the “biggest military hack of all time” won the right on January 23, 2009 to launch a new legal challenge against plans to extradite him.

Hacker Gary McKinnon, 42, who had been diagnosed recently with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, has admitted hacking into the military computers. His lawyers had said McKinnon was at risk of suicide if he were extradited.

Lord Justice Maurice Kay agreed to permit McKinnon’s lawyers to present arguments at a hearing in March that will determine if he gets a chance to formally appeal the extradition.

“We are overjoyed that the British courts have shown sense and compassion by allowing our son Gary, a young man with Asperger’s syndrome, this judicial review,” said Janis Sharp, McKinnson’s mother to the press.

I do believe that the “one billion” dollars of damage done is a typo. Unless Gary scuttled plans to reverse-engineer the crashed Roswell spaceship of course…

Editor
  1. Another reason for Gary to celebrate:
    Even if he does lose and ends up extradited, his worst fears of ending in Guantanamo will not come to pass—for obvious reasons.

    —–
    It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
    It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

    Red Pill Junkie

  2. As a Brit
    As a Brit I feel I can make a biased comment on this matter.

    I do not agree with people hacking into computer systems, and believed that it had been shown very clearly why this should not be done, even in fun.

    However, it is now being stated, and apparently medically assessed, that he has an autistic spectrum mental difficulty. As a mother of a boy who is seriously mentally disabled and who is also autistic I can understand how such a person may have thought it perfectly acceptable to hack into these systems. They don’t understand the social protocols that the rest of us live by, including the variations between countries.

    But what concerns me most is not this particular person’s difficulties as the process that can occur because of a badly drawn up agreement between the US and the UK.

    Apparently the US can insist on someone being extradited from the UK to stand trial in the US on just a minimal amount of evidence, even if that evidence would not be valid in a UK court. Yet, the US insists on the UK only asking for extradition of a person in the US for a UK crime if the US laws would convict that person. If the person has broken UK law but NOT US law then the person is not extradited. This is a bad agreement, and whether people are medically/mentally unsound or not the rules should be the same for both countries.

    I object more to this than I do for any other reason.

    Carol A Noble

    1. Exactly
      [quote]Apparently the US can insist on someone being extradited from the UK to stand trial in the US on just a minimal amount of evidence, even if that evidence would not be valid in a UK court. Yet, the US insists on the UK only asking for extradition of a person in the US for a UK crime if the US laws would convict that person. If the person has broken UK law but NOT US law then the person is not extradited. This is a bad agreement, and whether people are medically/mentally unsound or not the rules should be the same for both countries.[/quote]

      I feel the same way. Personally, i don’t know if Gary’s so-called medical condition—Asperger’s— is nothing but the most recent attempt on behalf of his defense to gain sympathy toward him. I still think he should blame his present predicament more on his love for Marijuana.

      But like Carol states, the US-UK deal on the way extraditions are treated shows too strong a weakness of the British government and an inability—or unwillingness— to stand up against their ‘allies’. Dissent is not the same as enmity; that’s one of the concepts I hope will be restored in the years to come.

      —–
      It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
      It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

      Red Pill Junkie

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