Two separate influential people have spoken out against the extradition of terrorist Gary McKinnon from the United Kingdom to the United States after he attacked a United States defense computer network in the United States causing it to go down for three days.Autistic hacker, terrorist and moron Gary McKinnon has been throwing a temper tantrum over his extradition proceedings to the United States for bringing down United States
Terrorist and Moron Gary McKinnon
Department of Defense Computer Systems. McKinnon at one point went as far during his temper tantrum to have his lawyer threaten suicide on his behalf if extradited. McKinnon believes that his newly diagnosed condition as being Autistic guarantees him special treatment – including a get out jail free card, just because hes obsessed with UFO’s.
I feel that if Gary McKinnon feels that his Aspergers is the cause of this – and also why he should not be put in prison for his actions then perhaps he could stay inpatient in a hospital and receive treatment for his Aspergers until such time the doctors feel he is stable enough to to serve his sentence for terrorist acts against the United States putting countless Americans at risk.
Many of you are going to argue that Gary McKinnon should be praised for attacking the system and pointing out ‘weak security’. These people need to realise that even attempting to compromise a computer system shows ill intent – and if I were to drive off with my neighbors car who leave it running to warm up in the morning its still grand theft auto.
The UK Responce
As of right now the UK’s official position has been to extradite Gary McKinnon to the United States for prosecution under computer crimes laws – however Lord Carlie has recently urged the government to oppose the extradition of Gary McKinnon joining London Mayor Boris Johnson. Johnson has gone as far as to say that the extradition proceedings of a terrorist are ‘neocon lunacy’.
I would like to know if airplanes have been flying into Mr. Johnons’ London Bridges causing them to fall down in terrorist attacks if his response would be just as stupid. What Do You Think?
{ 1 trackback }
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
‘neocon lunacy’ – I’d certainly agree with that.
McKinnon was very silly, naive and should be called to account for his actions.
But in a system that fair.
He won’t get that in the US.
You can ask Stafford-Smith why.
@Socrates – whats not fair about if you do the crime you pay the time?
I have to mostly agree. Asperger’s might justify his obsession with hacking. It does not justify actually breaking the law. You can learn much about hacking and computer security holes without actually breaking the law.
And “Moron” – maybe, esp. in satirical comment – but Terrorist – no way.
He isn’t a terrorist
He should be extradited
He is a horrible person for what he is doing to autistic everywhere
Not so long ago, the US refused to extradite IRA terrorists to the UK.
The treaty is one sided, never mind AS it is just wrong.
@laurentius-rex: I fail to see whats wrong about paying time for crimes
Remember Captain Lisa Nowak, USN? Of the Astronaut Love Triangle? (I still giggle when I think the words, “Astronaut Love Triangle.”)
Her lawyer, obviously grasping at straws, included Asperger’s Syndrome in the list of excuses for her crime.
You’re being overly sensationalistic.
Gary McKinnon isn’t a terrorist, by any definition of the term; a “terrorist” is somebody who causes harm or threatens to cause harm against people for the purpose of making them afraid, usually for a political, religious, or other idealistic reason. Gary McKinnon is a plain-vanilla computer hacker. It isn’t correct to call him a terrorist, unless you can also call someone who steals a road sign, breaks out of jail, or assaults a policeman a “terrorist” (these are all crimes against a government, as McKinnon’s were).
“Moron” is just plain incorrect. McKinnon is most likely highly intelligent. His actions were very unwise, but they did require some theoretical knowledge of computer systems.
A lack of extradition is not a “get out of jail free” card. It simply means that he will be sentenced in his own country rather than in the US. I don’t see what the big deal is, as long as he is sentenced somewhere.
Asperger’s is no reason not to convict; but it can and sometimes should affect what the punishment is, because it can affect motive, and the motive for a crime is important when determining sentencing. There is a big difference between killing someone after having gotten into a bar fight with him, and killing him because you were hired to do it. The first one will receive a much lighter sentence, and rightly so; but both are murder.
Gary McKinnon isn’t a terrorist. As far as I can tell, he’s the hacker equivalent of a teenager stealing a car for a joyride. Asperger’s doesn’t have much to do with that fact; a typical teen doing something similar would probably have similar reasons, except maybe he’d want to do it more to impress his buddies.
Throwing the book at him wouldn’t be justice. It doesn’t make sense, whether or not the guy has AS. Whatever happened to jail time, community service, house arrest, and don’t touch a computer for ten years?
@chaoticidealism
That left when you attacked the United States military. Comparing that to stealing roadsigns or beating a police officer is like comparing a fireplace to the wildfires in Australia. If a country did what Gary McKinnon did – it could be considered an act of war. I don’t think your grasping the seriousness of what he did.
Larry has a point, there. Mebbee now that our Republic is in its last days, as seems likely, we won’t have the power to make Britain our bitch. I just hope that we retain the power to look out for ourselves, and am not sanguine about that.
Owhell, republics last about 200 years, on average, and we’ve had longer than that.
I do wonder who gets to be Caesar when the polity comes down about our heads.
I’d vote for Jerry Pournelle for Caesar, but he’s quite old and has been sick with brain cancer.
Besides, he’s already declined from accepting the position
He didn’t ‘attack’ the US military. It was clearly not an act of war.
Are you serious, really?
I do not believe in any way that what Gary McKinnon did was lawful or right, but I do believe that there are others in the US protected by authority who will get away with far worse.
Gary Mckinnon is vulnerable because of his AS as we all are. I couldn’t stand up to GITMO or the US legal system.
One day someone will shoot me, because I have no fear of authority, even those with guns. That is a trait, good or ill, who knows
Hacking and computer abuse is a pain, but you have to realise that when Gary was chancing it the internet was more of a “wild west” than it is now, the frontiers were not defined, and he is being retrospectively selected as an easy target, and it is his AS that makes him so.
Yes there are foolish aspies and wise aspies, and careless aspies, and we should never ever judge someone weaker than us to condemn them because that is arrogance, the same arrogance by which the NT’s put us all down.
Now Zack listen to this, an old age pensioner was ejected from a labour party meeting (inspite of being a party veteran) and arrested under our prevention of terrorism act simply because he embarrased the prime minister.
McKinnon embarrased the USA and that is why he is being “scalped”
@laurentius-rex
McKinnon did not embarrass the US – he attacked its national defense systems.
@Martin-Berg http://www.tech-faq.com/cyber-warfare.shtml
Part of the beauty of having a constitution and a written set of laws that stipulate people should be treated equally (as both the US and Great Britain have) is that everybody gets treated the same when it comes to criminal prosecution. It doesn’t matter if you steal a wallet from a Senator or from the retired janitor down the street; you’re breaking the same law and it’s treated the same way. Motive comes into sentencing, of course, and so does your mental status and the reasons behind your committing the crime.
Unless a crime is committed against a government for the sole reason that it IS a government–that is, assassination, terrorism, espionage, or an act of war–then the government is the same as any other victim. The crime’s the same.
Granted: the system doesn’t work in real life the way it does in theory. The guy who stole the wallet from the Senator is more likely to be prosecuted and receive a harsher sentence. But it shouldn’t be that way; a crime is a crime, under the law. Just because the US military is powerful doesn’t mean that the sentence should be more severe.
If it had really been a case of espionage or terrorism, I would understand extradition; in this case, if it’s illegal in his home country (where the act was committed in the first place) there’s no reason to bring him here, too. Generally, a crime committed against an American entity by someone who never enters the US can’t even be prosecuted here anyway. It’s not our jurisdiction.
Leave the guy to be sentenced in his own country–our prisons are full enough already.
@chaoticidealism:
Hacking into government comptuers is considered electronic warfare, which can be considered an act of war. Espionage is obtaining information that is meant to be secret…. wait Gary McKinnon did that too…..
Zach, if Gary was sent to jail – he would die. Guarenteed. An Aspie wouldn’t last five minutes in such an environment and he knows it. That if anything should prevent a jail term. However there does need to be punishment of some sort. You mentioned hospital and treatment therein for whatever ails him. Not Aspergers itself – but rather what appears to be a severe alienation with reality. Something that is not exclusive to the Autistic Spectrum.
One more thing – wouldn’t you be embarrassed if someone hacked into your super secret computer system? Seriously? I would be – acutely so.
@Timelord
I have Aspergers, I’ve been in jail before. Yea I’ve messed up in life. I survived and learned from it.
Zack in order to know the details of what McKinnon allegedly did, you would need access to those same computers. If you take everything that has been said by the military as truth you would be a very deluded person indeed.
The US is not playing by the rules in any of this and similar cases, and are compromising the ability to defend by refusing to release evidence using security as an excuse.
If the Us was that vulnerable I say again that other heads should roll for allowing the system to be compromised in the first place.
In the Uk and I daresay the US as well there have been numerable cases of military losing laptops and discs causing at least as much if not more damage than Gary McKinnon.
Any properly configured system would have regular secure backups, so that it would be impossible to destroy more than the most immediate and least sensitive data. If the US military is or was unable to do that, then I don’t think they have much hope against China’s hackers and saboteurs
@laurentius-rex:
The US is playing by the rules, Gary McKinnon did not and he still is not by refusing to pay the consequences.
The lack of security has nothing to do with justification on Gary McKinnon’s attack on the US Military. If you leave your house unlocked can I go in and steal everything? Your house wasn’t locked!
Having an autism spectrum disorder isn’t like being psychotic! This fellow is just making it hard for a lot of autistic people to avoid bigotry and discrimination based on our ‘disability’/neurodiversity.
McKinnon can and will get a fair trial in the US. If he is convicted, he can get proper accomodation for any level of disability he has within the prison system. If he committed the crime, however, he has chosen by that action to do the time!