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Gary McKinnon Loses Extradition Appeal
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Apr 03, 2007 08:52 AM
from the still-working-the-angles dept.
from the still-working-the-angles dept.
G0rAk writes "The BBC is reporting that hacker Gary McKinnon has lost his High Court appeal against extradition to the United States. The fight is not yet over yet: 'We will certainly be applying for this court to certify a point of law of public importance and to grant leave.' said his lawyer, referring to alleged threats by US authorities. One New Jersey prosecutor apparently has stated that that 'he would fry,' a statement that would be among issues raised when they take they appeal to the House of Lords."
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New Jersey (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Subtle difference, I know. But it's Jersey, whadda ya gonna do aboud id?
Re:New Jersey (Score:4, Insightful)
In this case, there was no manufactured evidence. Gary admitted the crimes, but tried to justify them with the age old crap of "curiosity". Curiosity with disregard for others is a pale excuse even for a minor, and no excuse for a grown adult like Gary. He didn't click a link on a web site thinking it was going to take him to Slashdot, only to be tricked into breaking into NASA's (and other government agencies') computers. He intentionally broke into their computers, knowing full well that it was illegal in both the U.S. and Britain, and weak security does not excuse that. He is guilty, and he has admitted that.
That said, the penalties in the U.S. for intentional unauthorized access where no damage was done are ridiculously harsh. At his age, the proposed punishment is a life sentence for relatively minor law violations. While I think extradition would otherwise be reasonable is this case, I also think the statements made by the New Jersey prosecutor indicate an absurdity of justice which are enough in my mind to allow him to be punished at home. Perhaps something along the lines of 180 days in the local jail and a few tens of thousands of pounds in fines -- enough to hurt and discourage him, but not so much as to ruin his life.
Parent
Re:New Jersey (Score:5, Insightful)
On those grounds alone the request should be refused as all such requests should be, until a balanced treaty is in place (and ratified).
Parent
Let's Pretend This Is Your House (Score:5, Insightful)
I think his punishment should be working until he's paid back every penny of the expense of cleaning up his little intrusions. If it were in my hands, he'd be making restitution and not serving time in the traditional sense.
2 cents,
QueenB
Parent
Interesting comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just fricking typical of what passes for "diplomacy" out of the states these days. They should just make him do a stint hacking for the government to pay for some of the (grossly overinflated) damage bills.
Re:Interesting comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking later, solicitor Jeffrey Anderson said alleged threats by US authorities, including one from New Jersey prosecutors that Mr McKinnon "would fry", would be among issues raised.
Parent
Re:Interesting comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, you kidnapped and tortured that Canadian guy for no apparent reason, kidnapped (and probably tortured) quite a handful of other guys in Europe, some of whom did not do anything unlawful, you run a "the law does not apply here" concentration camp on soil that you rent from your arch enemy communist country from which you can not otherwise import even cigars, bombed the crap out of and pretty well destroyed a country which did nothing to draw your mighty anger, you fight a war in an other against a regimee that you put into power, funded and armed to the teeth, declared that your soldiers can not be held responsible for whatever warcrimes they commit and last but not least, as a matter of fact, you (alone in the developed world) do actually off quite a lot of your people.
So, there's some reason behind that sentiment in Europe; even if it is stereotyping, like many stereotypes, it is not entirely baseless.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Come, come... Surely, you do not honestly believe, there was such a threat thrown. The prosecutor's threat "to fry him" was, obviously in jest and no more death-threatening, than promises to "destroy competition" — made by sportsmen and businesses daily — are, for example.
Even if the prosecutor wanted, he would not be able to do it — although New Jersey has capital punishment on the books, it has not executed anyone since 1976 [deadlinethemovie.com]... An
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess you're okay with police officers and judges jesting in a similar matter. This are Serious Court and this is Serious Business, instead we have the "good guys" acting like kids on a playground.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I agree with you in that the prosecutor should be dismissed When it comes to whether or not his statements should factor into the outcome of the deportation hearings, however, I beg to differ, and, at least in this country, so do the courts.
United States of America v. Cobb, [2001] 1 S.C.R. 587, 2001 SCC 19 [umontreal.ca]
The defendants were accused of running a telemarketing scam, making phone calls from Canada and bilking people in the US. In a media interview, the US prosecutor said to the defendants, "You're
Re:Interesting comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
The US govt doesn't stand up for it's citizens.. how'd you like a cop to threaten to "f'n kill you" witha drawn weapon when you were stopped for a simple speeding ticket. It's the same thing here, Only the UK takes it's people seriously. There's no law on any books that would allow a prosecutor to even ask a court for a person to "fry" for computer tresspass.. being as this was an offical agent, under press conference, JEST is not an option.. he was threatening illegal execution of the prisoner. period. American cops and prosecutors are in need of a harsh lesson in professionalism. They have the law on their side, there's no need for idle, illegal threats.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow... (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I the only one... (Score:5, Insightful)
AFAIK, Gary McKinnon is a british citizen (check Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] for this). Why does the UK allow one of its citizen to be extradited to the USA? Why is he not judged and sentenced in the UK?
Does anyone think, for just a millisecond, that the USA would do the same? Extradite one of its own citizen to be tried in the UK?
Where on earth is the outrage? How come a sovereign country, like the UK, is extraditing one of its own citizen -- regardless of his crimes -- to another country to be tried there? This is ridiculous! Can anyone answer that question?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, not the UK. The USA extradites its citizens to Mexico instead.
Dog' the Bounty Hunter loses extradition battle [msn.com]
I agree, absolutely shocking (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if the guy can appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, I hope they would cancel this scandalous extradition considering the terrible track record of the US justice system.
Note that before this case I believed that no country extradited its own citizens, because that's how it is here in France. Might have to do with brits being subjects, not citizens, I guess
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Informative)
"A FORMER US marine who sparked an international manhunt after allegedly abducting a 12-year-old British girl he had befriended on the internet was extradited to the UK from Germany yesterday."
he was arrested in germany, not extradited from the US.
stupid, indeed.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
to extradite or not to extradite (Score:3, Insightful)
But, what did they do? The govenments made a deal, where the USA 'promised' they wouldn't actually deal out the capital punishment to that citizen. That was *before* any sentence on guilt or lack thereof was made. Actually, this should anger americans as much, because this means their government arbitrarily decided to NOT treat a person who (alledgely) commited crimes on USA soil according to their own law, and that that EU-person got an illegal advantage which no ordinary US citizen gets.
For me, however, the anger comes at the fact they *did* extradite him to the USA, clearly in violation of the rules and laws of that country and the EU. If the USA wanted him so badly, they could abolish the death penalty. speaking of which, if I'm not mistaken, some more progressive non-bible-belt states in the USA already have forbidden such practises, as any civilised society would do. Or does it ultimately remain a federal decision? Maybe some US slashdotters can fill me in on this.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
about barbarism (Score:3, Insightful)
-adjective
1. without civilizing influences; uncivilized; primitive: barbaric invaders.
2. of, like, or befitting barbarians: a barbaric empire; barbaric practices.
3. Marked by crudeness or lack of restraint in taste, style, or manner.
Ofcourse, you are right that this 'proves' nothing, unless one is of the opinion, that killing another human being while one has the equal option of not killing him, while it's impossibly to preven
Re:to extradite or not to extradite (Score:5, Informative)
Since in this case the crime is against the Department of Defense, it would be a federal crime, under federal jurisdiction.
However, hacking is not a capital offense under any jurisdiction, so far as I am aware. When the prosecutor said he would fry, it was a figure of speech.
That being said, if I were the U.K. I sure as hell wouldn't extradite one of my citizens to a country where due process and habeas corpus have recently been ruled to not apply to "enemy combatants," a designation which is applied to non-citizens solely at the discretion of the executive branch. Under our constitutional system of justice, he would not have anything to worry about as far as the death penalty -- but since he hacked the military, and the government could ignore the constitutional system of justice by uttering the magic words. . .
Well, that probably wouldn't happen. Probably.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which I'm happy to believe but hardly professional behaviour by an official though is it?
Re:to extradite or not to extradite (Score:5, Insightful)
Asshats, one and all.
Parent
Re:to extradite or not to extradite (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
The moral of the story... (Score:5, Insightful)
For a smart guy, he's rather stupid.
End justifying the means? (Score:3, Insightful)
So by that rationale, if I can kick in your front door to get into your house, is it your fault for not having a better door lock/frame?
Re:End justifying the means? (Score:5, Funny)
I still don't get it . . . Maybe you could use a car analogy.
Parent
No Surprise Really (Score:5, Insightful)
The CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) have even stated that there is insufficient evidence to go ahead with a prosecution, but as soon as the US steps in (using some very murky agreement related to terrorism the last I looked) the seas (or should I say, the legs) part. If there are grounds for deportation then fine, but sadly, if this guy had sneezed he would have been on the next plane if the US asked.
As a British person I find all this humiliating to see, and quite frankly, treacherous now. I'm not having a go at the US or Americans here. This is a British problem, and one related to standing up for itself, self respect and knowing what its own self interests are. The US are merely looking out for theirs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, not in mothballs, just run down in numbers and has been since WW2. Modern warfare that the UK is ever likely to be involved in just doesn't need them. We're still keen on our nuclear subs (well, Blair/Brown are anyway). As our own head of the armed forces noted, the sort of wars that get fought these days are different and we need forces
Curiosity Killed Gary (Score:5, Insightful)
He's never said that he didn't do what he's accused of, and he's always said that he only did it out of curiosity. He didn't even steal anything, let alone national secrets. It's really a shame that he didn't pick a target somewhere within Europe to satisfy his curiosity. They would have been a little more lenient and his subsequent time in prison could actually be bearable. After all, why should he go to prison? He's already very sorry that he did such a thing, he's beginning to fall ill because of the immense stress and feeling of impending doom of getting extradited, and prison is not only about punishment, it's about rehabilitation.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
He's already very sorry that he did such a thing
Oh, well, why didn't anyone say so?! Case dismissed!
Re:Curiosity Killed Gary (Score:4, Informative)
Somehow, I believe something *more* than his human rights will be violated [hrw.org].
What I dont understand is why the UK does not understand that he commited whatever crimes he commited in the UK. As you said, there is surely some kind of political agenda before this... poor sucker. Of course I do not condone what he did, he indeed commited a crime but he should be judged and charged *where* he commited it, in the UK and not in whatever country wants who wants to charge it.
Parent
Re:Curiosity Killed Gary (Score:5, Insightful)
He doesn't appear that bright - just a very standard computer guy with some Windows admin skills. The punishment here will not fit the crime and a man's life will be wasted because of this. It's insane and I feel very sorry for him. If they cared so much about the contents of these computers why did they not secure them?
And, as you say quite rightly, punishment should not be purely vindictive there must be an element of rehabilitation as well.
Parent
Security consultant (Score:4, Insightful)
Wikipedia says The US estimates claim the costs of tracking and correcting the problems he allegedly caused were around 700,000 USD. It then goes on to say that he hacked the government websites with a Perl script, and found default passwords on their "secure" network. Good think McKinnon found them before China did. (Or did he?)
Maybe they should treat him as a $700K security consultant.
let the book be thrown (Score:5, Insightful)
America will throw the book at McKinnon because they are embarassed of their lax security practises on such high profile systems. They will make an example of McKinnon because he used little more than a brute force 2-line PERL script to bombard many desktops with obvious passwords (e.g., "password" or "" [blank]).
America is even more ashamed of this security breach because the many same systems were infiltrated by Mathew Bevan [bbc.co.uk] using the exact same tactics over 10 years prior. That's right - these government and military and NASA computers have had no password policy after 10 years and 2 break-ins. Adding the number 1 to the end of these passwords would have stopped McKinnon dead in his tracks.
McKinnon is not a sophisticated programmer or cracker. He simply challenged seemingly high security systems with very low-tech kludgey scripts to see what would happen. He got lucky, then he got audacious, and then he got careless.
Get ready for another Mitnick-scale high profile court case on this one. McKinnon won't fry, but he won't see the sun for quite some time.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WTF?? (Score:4, Interesting)
As you could tell if you read the article.
Parent
Re:WTF?? (Score:4, Informative)
"I found a list of officers' names," he claims, "under the heading 'Non-Terrestrial Officers'."
"Non-Terrestrial Officers?" I say.
"Yeah, I looked it up," says Gary, "and it's nowhere. It doesn't mean little green men. What I think it means is not earth-based. I found a list of 'fleet-to-fleet transfers', and a list of ship names. I looked them up. They weren't US navy ships. What I saw made me believe they have some kind of spaceship, off-planet."
"The Americans have a secret spaceship?" I ask.
"That's what this trickle of evidence has led me to believe."
"Some kind of other Mir that nobody knows about?"
"I guess so," says Gary.
"What were the ship names?"
"I can't remember," says Gary. "I was smoking a lot of dope at the time. Not good for the intellect."
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Gimme a break. Do you really think that any court in America would give this punk the death penalty? This shows absolute ignorance of U.S. laws.
In the U.S. there are only two crimes for which you can get the death penalty: 1st Degree (pre-meditated) murder and treason. And treason has only been punished capitally a very few times in the entire
Re:6 years ago i would of agreed with the court (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:6 years ago i would of agreed with the court (Score:4, Funny)
The US and Mexico fought over who would get Texas.
Santa Ana won the battle of the Alamo and the US got Texas.
Parent
Re:6 years ago i would of agreed with the court (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think it does matter. The thing is that USA applies death penalty. That should be enough for any civilized country not to maintain an extradition treaty with such a country.
"And even in states that have capital punishment, in the vast majority of murder cases, prosecutors rarely go after the death penalty."
Just 1057 times in 2006 only.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sat TV, collage courses, gyms, all the comoforts of home. TBH it depends on the category of prisoner but a chap who sits next to me at work plays football against prison teams and says the one's he sees are pretty cushy. I'm sure others are less savoury and we're always being told how crowded they are so I guess the answer is mixed.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Except, that is, for the prisoners who'll live in cargo containers. [guardian.co.uk]
Re:6 years ago i would of agreed with the court (Score:5, Funny)
And you call this cushy. I'm supposed to live with fraudsters, ne-er-do-wells and malefactors who consider the easy charms of a '71 preferable to the more challenging '73?
You, sir, are worse than Hitler.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Asshats don't.