Gary McKinnon extradition ruling due today
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
The evidence should be presented to the UK Crown Prosecution Service and they should decide whether or not it is in the public interest to try Mr McKinnon in a court of law in front of a jury of his peers.
If damages are owed, then Mr McKinnon should be required to make amends and serve any prison time should he be found guilty.
The US should be simply a party claiming criminal damages, in the same way that a British yob might smash the car window of a diplomatic vehicle owned by the United States also on British territory.
If Mr McKinnon is extradited, then the British people need to seriously question the validity of their sovereignty.
Just to be clear, I don't believe the punishment the US has in mind for him is fair and in proportion for his crimes. That said, if you use a hacking tool on purpose to target the US military from your home computer, it's also not going to get much sympathy from me.
The media here is still in a "terrorism" frenzy.
This is the backwards way the world works. If I were the US or UK Government I would be offering this guy a job in a cyber crimes division and give him the task of security testing Government infrastructure, there aren't many people who can say they've successful breached a secure US network and been able to access classified documents.
The US tax payer had to stump up cash for a whole bunch of investigation into what had happened, what had been compromised and so on.
Now, you can make a good argument that it actually made them pull their collective finger out and sort some stuff out that really needed sorting out, and that's probably true, but it's also probably true that having to do it in the way that they did (in response to an attack) cost more and was more disruptive than it would otherwise have been, and came with a larger bill as a result.
It's easy to think of attacks on the government as victimless but ultimately it all comes back to the citizens of that country (in the same way insurance fraud isn't victimless, the victims are those whose pensions are invested in the firms and those who have to pay the increased premiums that result).
My reading of it is that from a legal point of view it's a fair cop (both in terms of the crime and the extradition). The issue is that the American's seem to have made it clear that they don't give a toss about his Aspergers and the complications that it presents and that's where the calls for leniency and not extraditing him become justified.
Pointing fingers at this guy is all fine and that, but no-one dares mention the bus size hole they left in their security infrastructure as that would be bad for business...
I'm really just disputing the term victimless - it implies that no-one suffers which rather skews how it's seen and isn't the case.
We can debate your suggestion that they should be victims but that doesn't change the fact that they are victims.
Even more so in light of what he actually did: poke around on systems with no password protection - yet they act as if he was an insanely skilled, extremely-dangerous super-hacker who is just a few mouse clicks away of blowing up nuclear reactors when actually all he did was catching them with all their pants down. Really, "biggest military computer hack of all time"? It is pathetic.
Its the first thing she has done right in the job. Probably the last as well. She only did it because of public pressure, which while thats the way democratic government should work, its a pity she couldn't personally see the case for it (cf her previous comments).
While it is public pressure I suspect that the pressure from the Daily Mail (a paper which with two exceptions - of which this is one - has been on the wrong side of pretty much every significant issue up to and including it's support for Hitler) might have been a major factor.
As a Tory you don't want to mess with the Mail, it's the paper of much of your core vote and you don't want it rounding on you and it's been very anti-extradition.
Edit: Yes, that deserved the down-votes. I think there is perhaps a more constructive comment that better puts the emotional and physical responses a particular brand associated with a particular line of thinking can elicit, but I can't think of that comment right now.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19962844
"Home Secretary Theresa May says there is no doubt Mr McKinnon is seriously ill. She says she has carefully examined the medical evidence and taken legal advice and has concluded that his extradition would give such a high risk that he would end his life that it restricts his human rights."
We will probably see more of this throughout the world. With the ability to commit crime on the internet deciding 'where' that crime took place and who's jurisdiction it falls under is going to be tricky.
There are valid arguments about where the crime takes place and the jurisdiction in question (the location of the attacker or the victim), but can you say you should never extradite someone for computer crimes?
You also need to ask yourself how you think an attack by someone in Iran on the US should be handled. Are you happy with that being dealt with by Iran?
That's a big question and as someone with now law experience I can't really answer it. I guess it would all come down to the jurisdiction, that seems to be an important point which needs to be worked out and made clear. Once there are a clear set of rules for determining that I think these cases will be much easier.
>> "You also need to ask yourself how you think an attack by someone in Iran on the US should be handled. Are you happy with that being dealt with by Iran?"
Creating laws on a country by country basis won't work. If it is agreed that the computer crime takes place in the country the computer and person was in it should be up to that country to deal with it not the country attacked.
And, although Iran may not have a good record, if speculation is correct Stuxnet was a US/Israeli invention [1]. What gives the US the right to create/spread a computer virus and then extradite someone for breaking into their computers? It's the double standards that piss me off.
I'm not saying I have answers, just that the blanket statement no extradition for computer crimes seems wrong (as most blanket statements are).
He should be tried in front of a jury of his peers, which amazingly aren't Americans and for a proportional crime which would be unauthorised access to a machine, not criminal computer damage which is ridiculous on the face of it. It's not like he was trashing disks.
Oh, for the people who say he must be a genius or you'd offer him a job, he's admitted repeatedly he's got basic skills and mostly got into where he did through the repeated incompetence of some of the US' biggest security establishments. And he genuinely was after UFO stuff, there's an interview with him on one of the UFO conspiracy websites where he talks about trying to find it.
"could face 60 years in jail if convicted in the US" (nah) "Asperger's Syndrome" (this came out a long time after the initial charges) "evidence of UFOs" (he's kooky, not malice!) Quotes from his mum, she wrote to The Guardian (adds to the slightly confused school child vibe)
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2012/10/gary-mckinnon
I'm not endorsing by posting it, but worth a read.