OTOH, I do agree that there is too much government secrecy that really does leave us wondering about our own safety and what is really going on. When a hacker discovered Ms. Palin was engaged in shenanigans with her E-Mail, he did a great service to this country. As far as I am concerned, the right to Privacy does not extend to active politicians.

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!

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…..

I have Aspergers, I’ve been in jail before. Yea I’ve messed up in life. I survived and learned from it.

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!

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

One more thing – wouldn’t you be embarrassed if someone hacked into your super secret computer system? Seriously? I would be – acutely so.

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.

McKinnon did not embarrass the US – he attacked its national defense systems.

@Martin-Berg http://www.tech-faq.com/cyber-warfare.shtml