I feel that if the USA were stupid enough to let someone into their systems and damage them then we should not be looking at gary for what has happened instead we need to turn our eye on the USA, are their computer systems really safe? maybe british and US computers need seperating as those idiots have no idea what they are talking about and i actually feel that the USA should be considering a rebuild or their secrity system to keep up with the ever growing IT market and to be honest their are 14-18 year old kis that are almost at the stage where they could easily hack an take over all USA military networks that are conected to the internet

I feel that if the USA were stupid enough to let someone into their systems and damage them then we should not be looking at gary for what has happened instead we need to turn our eye on the USA, are their computer systems really safe? maybe british and US computers need seperating as those iiots have no idea what they are talking about and i actually feel that the USA should be considering a rebuild or their secrity system to keep up with the ever growing IT market and to be honest their are 14-18 year old kis that are almost at the stage where they could easily hack an take over all USA military networks that are conected to the internet

We all know that the defence department's computers are being outsourced to Indian call centers.

What damage did he actually do, apart from to the credibility of those who are "securing our secrets".

If the British government sent someone who could potentially be labeled an "enemy combatant" into a country that has been committing a number of human rights violations recently. These laws are silly anyway-- locking this fellow up will not fix the larger security issues that his hacking revealed. What happens when someone in China, Russia, or someone the US is at "war" with starts hacking? You can't depend on the long arm of political and legal pressure to prevent that.

Grammar.
"But that does not effect..."; "effect" is usually a noun.

But this also goes to agreement between pronouns and verbs/adverbs.
One phrase: "
*See the original quote (where punctuation is guessed by the journalist, I'm assuming) and my version follows to show agreement inconsistency. Below:
[original]
"But that does not effect the need to ensure that those who are given statutory rights under English legislation are not threatened with penalties if they refuse to give up those statutory rights"
[re-arrangement]
If they *that* refuse to give up statutory rights given under English legislation, the need to ensure that *they* are not threatened with penalties *is* not *affected*
[even better]
Those who give up statutory rights granted under English legislation shall not be threatened with penalties, but this does not affect the necessity to ensure so.
Great leapin Lloyds of London, which Inns of Court? Oh. Gray's motto is a mess too, IMHO: The motto is "Integra Lex Aequi Custos Rectique Magistra Non Habet Affectus Sed Causas Gubernat" (Impartial justice, guardian of equity, mistress of the law, without fear or favour rules men's causes aright)... But then what do I know.
Since this is a quotation, the following spelling and punctuation would have helped:
affect the need to ensure that:
IMHO - I'm no expert, and red ink destroyed my future.
About the sticky wicket, I do sympathize with the chap, thinking perhaps he should be hired; however [see?], his timing, threats and accusations are most unfortunate. I forgive him, and I hope that others will forgive me, my trespasses and grammar. But it is not up to me. The past eight years have been the worst in my life, so far... but here's Gary McKinnon. At least, the Pentagon should have locked their door. Graffiti, however political, is a nuisance. But for a lessor gain, there is no greater good.

It's not really about that they and many others besides have been harbouring the likes of free-energy generators; of course they have, since before the current wasteful polluting forms of energy ever became popularly utilised.

It's about what they would, or already have been, doing with such tech: and that's what they are doing out in the open: taking over land, putting up borders, ruining the environment, making you pay to use the internet, spying on everything, censoring everything, putting resources into building fear-based war machines, instead of forward-thinking towards what kind of reality/future they are laying the foundations for, & instead of having sane clever people in charge of what resources are used for what purposes.

Now, the world should be - aiming for a civilisation deserving to port to other inhabitable planets, or elsewhere in space (or even time); you do not get to indefinitely use resources to do the complete opposite of exploring inner and outer space. You shouldn't ever have gotten to use anything towards that at all, and because of that it'd be an idea to use something like the fictional BST to erase that you ever had.

Note to corrupt government & supporters thereof: anybody who actually has a clue about computers will never work for you. Any that do, are surely shafting you - because they know you have no way of finding that out.

"But that does not effect the need to ensure that those who are given statutory rights....."

Looks like our man has employed some dubious legal help. Presumably you can fail GCE grammer these days and it doesn't effect (sic) your ability to become a QC. 

[er, grammar? Mod]

I would take the gentleman quietly aside ask how he did it then tell the yanks to go away and mind their own business. He should win his case if we have anything left about our system.

british government officials leave discs full of confidential data lying around all the time!! on the rare occasion that someone finds it AND knows what it is, it gets a story in the papers :)

too bad we dont have CIA and FBI over here, all doing things really sneaky-like, so stories like this dont make it over the ocean til like 6 years later.

lol

Yeah, you Tell Stewie This: What if Hacker had SATA Drive in 2001? Wouldn't it be Some Skull Drugery if didn't want my IP Adress & its ruse to get that critical OLD info? Yeah, I Know Spies like....ButtBums.
STEWIE drashek

@ David:

This is not about avoiding punishment, this is about being tried fair.
Why would somebody want to be tried in a fascist state like america where nobody remembers what human rights are?

@@ David - Theres no need for us to deal with secrets when we've got the agreements to outsource our data to america where you guys can lose it for us ;)

lucky the guy wasn't muslim otherwise Guatanamo bay for him it would be.

We all know american lords kiss ass of the government - in other words - the guys gunna get it.......

What if the tables were turned and I (an American) hacked into British computers with military secrets.
I guess I would expect no reprisals from the British government. Right!?!?!?!
Oh, wait, I would not have to, I would just ride the rail and look for secrets laying about.
I have concerns as to whether the British can keep a secret. Now maybe they have to look somewhere else for more secrets so they can loose them too.

It's simply repackged embedded sempron 2100+