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About LinkBacksBBC News - Gary McKinnon extradition: Theresa May to rule on hacker
Just wondering what sort of message this sends out if he gets away with it.
Commit computer crime but then say it was your medical condtions fault.
BBC News - Gary McKinnon extradition: Theresa May to rule on hacker
Just wondering what sort of message this sends out if he gets away with it.
Commit computer crime but then say it was your medical condtions fault.
Last edited by mattx; 16th October 2012 at 09:41 AM.
But as the crime was committed on UK soil should he not go to court here rather than the US?
The crime was launched from the uk but attacked machines in the us so who should preside?Originally Posted by Sheepy
Ben
I think he should be tried in the UK. I understand why the US want him, but they seem to think they police the world now, extraditing anybody who does anything they disagree with. It's very dangerous to allow a nation that kind of power...
EDIT: this could get controversial, so I best put a note here: these are my opinions and I'm using emotive language to portray them. I am sure you can find examples of people doing things the US "doesn't like" and not getting extradited, but there are many cases to the contrary. Please understand what I say isn't meant to be taken literally.
Last edited by LosOjos; 16th October 2012 at 10:05 AM.
If i were the UK gov, i would give him a job.
For me the biggest issue is the asymmetric nature of the extradition agreement with the US. This is basically how it works.
Extradition from UK to USA - They make a request, we send whoever they want.
Extradition from USA to UK - We make a request, they tell us to take our request and shovel it.
I have a problem with that.
The UK. He broke the Computer Misuse Act. Domestic law trumps foreign law in my view.
Anyway, the issue isn't just that he has an illness. That does need taking into account, but its also the way the US justice system works and how he will be treated, knowing that he is a vulnerable person with a high suicide risk.
The UK govt has now created the 'Forum' bar, which is to determine where best for a Brit to be tried in these sort of cases, but it can't be used retroactively. This somewhat levels the playing field with extradition law.
This letter to The Guardian makes the balance fairly clear, I think:
Letter: Facts about US-UK extradition requests | Law | The Guardian
I quote here the statistics paragraph:
The Home Office received 95 extradition requests from the US between 1 January 2004 and 31 July 2009; 47 of these have taken place, with 36 ongoing, five withdrawn by the US and seven refused by UK authorities. The UK has made 42 extradition requests to the US during the same period; 27 of these have taken place, with 12 ongoing, three withdrawn by the UK and none refused. The numbers of requests made between the UK and its extradition partners are often unequal – Spain extradited 104 people to us between 2004 and 2008 and received 27 – but this signifies no imbalance in the governing arrangements.
More up-to-date stats on the US Embassy website FAQs on the US-UK Extradition Relationship | Embassy of the United States : Under this treaty, 130 extradition REQUESTS have been submitted from the U.S. to the UK. Of those 130 requests, the UK has refused 10. Of the remaining 120, 77 individuals have actually been extradited from the UK to the U.S.; and in the other 43 cases, either the case is still pending in the UK system or the individuals returned to the U.S. on their own, or some other circumstance intervened to make extradition from the UK to the U.S. no longer necessary/relevant.
During the same time period, the UK has submitted 54 extradition REQUESTS to the U.S., of which none have been refused. Of those 54 requests, 38 have so far resulted in extradition of an individual from the U.S. to the UK. Of the remaining 16 cases, the individuals either returned to the UK on their own, or some other circumstance intervened to make extradition from the U.S. to the UK no longer necessary/relevant. (No extradition requests from the UK are waiting further processing in the U.S. system at this time.)
We don’t track extraditions by the citizenship of the accused -- requests are sent based on where a person accused of a crime is believed to be, not based on their citizenship. We can’t say definitively how many of these requests or extraditions were of U.S. or UK citizens, but citizens of a wide range of countries are represented in these numbers.
OK, so why is it that everyone has the impression that the extradition system is so loaded in favour of the US? Odd.
There was an interview with him years ago where he described what he was doing and why. I am not a computer hacker, however I did understand what he was talking about and I'm not really that convinced.
Scapegoat does come to mind. No doubt he has excellent computing abilities but still, I just think the US Government were caught with their pants down and they're just angry at this fact. Insufficient security measures were in place.
Mainly because they try to apply their laws to places where things are legal.
Like PirateBay. It's legal[ish] in Sweden, but they keep trying to arrest everyone based on THEIR laws.
I'm sorry but I'm going to upset everyone here by saying they should send him. He was stupid. Stupid and caught. UFOs, aspergers or not, he should man up and face the consequences instead of attempting to hide behind or blame these things.
mattx (16th October 2012)
Too many people read the Daily Mail? Too few people go off to check facts?
He has been honest and manned up. IIRC he wrote a script to login using default common passwords. He didn't do much, if any damage and wasn't doing it for malicious reasons rather he was looking for proof for extraterrestrial life.
If we knew for sure that he would get a fair and unbiased trial with a fair punishment then i don't think the resistance to extradition would be so strong.
As we have seen from Guantanamo Bay and the Megaupload case, this is not the case.
$800,000 (£487,000) worth of damage... apparently.
But, that sounds like piracy damages. $100million lost due to piracy?... seems legit. [Actual figure may vary]
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