In 2002, British hacker Gary McKinnon was indicted on charges of causing “damage without authorization to a protected computer, belonging to the United States Army.” The US government sought McKinnon’s extradition, which was granted by British courts; the intervening 8 years has been filled with a number of appeals and applications for review of the judgement by McKinnon’s legal team. Those years have also seen the case keep a high profile in British newspapers, with some sense of outrage over the extradition of a British citizen (since diagnosed with Aspergers), and the apparent severity of the decision. No doubt an added attraction to the case is McKinnon’s allegation that he was looking for – and found – evidence for a UFO cover-up by the US government, leading to him being characterised as “the UFO hacker”.
With the proliferation of news stories about the case, much of it parochial, it has been somewhat difficult to distill the core facts of McKinnon’s story. However, ‘Jack of Kent‘ – a British blog written by Allen Green, a freelance legal and policy writer – has now set out to do exactly that, starting with this first instalment published on the weekend:
There may be those whose opinions on the McKinnon case are so strongly held (one way or the other) that they see no point for this blog to examine the case in a source-based and skeptical manner; if so, they are welcome to scroll down to the comments box to now type away and, subject to the comments moderation policy, their comment will be published.
However, for those who want to base their opinions – especially very strongly held opinions – on sources, then I set out below the first part of my examination of the McKinnon case.
This is culled from a far-longer piece I am writing, but it became too unwieldy for a single post.
This first part sets out the procedural history of the case and the actual allegations which the US government are making against Mr McKinnon.
You can also find a list of resources related to the case in a separate blog entry.
‘Jack of Kent’ has close ties to the skeptical movement in the UK; his blogging of the recent libel case brought against Simon Singh by the British Chiropractic Association was a prime reason for it becoming a cause célèbre and backfiring on the BCA. So it will be interesting to see his views on McKinnon’s case – JoK is likely very skeptical of McKinnon’s claims, but has also shown that he’s very particular about the law being used correctly and with good purpose. Keep an eye on his blog for updates.
