Autistic hackers can be extradited, says UK
PENTAGON HACKER Gary McKinnon's autistic anguish is not painful enough to stop his extradition and confinement in a notorious US prison, the British government told the High Court yesterday.
Gary's legal team asked the High Court to consider how his autism could turn a foreign trial and sentence into a terrifying ordeal that could make him go mad and even take his own life. The briefs argued Gary should face his hacking charges in a British court and serve any resulting prison sentence in his home country. The court was asked to review the Home Secretary's decision in October to dismiss this question.
Hugo Keith QC, acting on behalf of UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, argued that Gary had survived a near four-year legal battle that had taken him through the local courts, High Court and House of Lords, so he ought to be able to cope with life in a US jail.
The lengthy legal battle had caused Gary anxiety and depression. But the symptoms hadn't been bad enough for his lawyers to bring them up when Gary was fighting his extradition in the courts, said Keith. So why should it be any different now that Asperger's, the catalyst, had been identified?
Expert evidence had warned that, if Gary were extradited and put through a foreign judicial process, away from his supporting family, his Aspergic vulnerabilities would be tested perilously more heavily than they were by his UK court battles.
Edward Fitzgerald QC, acting for Gary, appealed to the Home Secretary's "common humanity" in considering Gary's case. He argued that the Extradition Act 2003 allowed her to act humanely, and the European Convention of Human Rights compelled her to.
The court heard how the Extradition Act contained a provision for someone's mental health to stop their extradition. But the Act had been designed to stop the government interfering in the extradition process, so only the courts could stop Gary's extradition on these grounds. The Home Secretary did have the power to intervene, but only in limited circumstances: the Extradition Act was also designed to make people's removal from their home country more efficient.
Humane or not humane
This exasperated Fitzgerald, the famed human rights layer: "What would you do with someone who discovered they had cancer or schizophrenia after the conclusion of the judicial process of an extradition?" he asked the judge. If the Home Secretary couldn't intervene, then who could?
The case appeared to hinge therefore on whether the Home Secretary was obliged to stay Gary 's extradition under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). Her decisions must pass the human rights test. But her position was that it wasn't inhumane to let Gary the Aspergic be taken from his home country.
Fitzgerald argued that Gary was destined to face up to 60 years in a US supermax prison that had been criticised as inhumane by human rights bodies. Combined with his autism, this would breach Article 3 of the ECHR, which states: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
Moreover, removing someone with Asperger's from their home country and incarcerating them in a foreign prison would breach Article 8 of the ECHR, which obliges prosecutors to respect people's right to a private and family life.
"If exposure to potentially inhuman conditions and mental deterioration is avoidable by trial in this country, then that is a highly relevant factor to the assessment of inhumanity under Article 3 and disproportionality under Article 8," Fitzgerald said.
Keith said there was not enough evidence to say Gary would serve time in a supermax prison, nor that he would be treated inhumanely if he did. The US was a civilised country. It might not have signed international human rights treaties, but its prisoners were given the right to complain about their conditions.
Is he or isn't he?
Had Gary been a Muslim terrorist he might have had reason to fear mistreatment in a supermax, said Keith. Had he been a home-grown US terrorist like Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, Eric Rudolph, the Olympic bomber or Terry Nichols who conspired with Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, then he might be guaranteed to serve supermax time. There was some debate about whether the US wants to try Gary as a terrorist at all. Though it did want to have him for damaging military computer systems "for ideological reasons".
Neither did the Home Secretary think she had a right to protect Gary's Article 8 right to a private and family life, because the US gave their prisoners psychiatric care. This, it was implied, would compensate for any additional hardships he might suffer as an autistic in a foreign jail. And the US courts were anyway civilised enough to see that Gary's Asperger's was taken into account.
But the Home Secretary hadn't even bothered to get assurances from the US that Gary would get the support he needed: that he would be given bail, kept in humane prison conditions, and repatriated to serve most of his time in a UK prison. In this she had neglected her duty and her "common humanity", said Fitzgerald. The Home Secretary thought she didn't need to get any such assurances unless there was a real risk to Gary's human rights. But had she considered this question properly?
These were all interesting points, but it all boiled down to whether removing an Aspergic from their home country to face a long sentence in a foreign jail would be cruel, and illegally so. Why put someone with Asperger's through such an ordeal when it was possible to prosecute them in their home country? The judge will rule on the matter on Friday. µ
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If Gary is guilty, then his condition is irrelevant, he chose to commit the crime.
The muslim comment is pointless too, as many large US prisons have large muslim populations ... either by preference of the courts, or by peer pressure to fit in with the other prisoners. He might be better off in prison if he is muslim.
So have the trial at home, and if found guilty, give him a US sentence in a US prison.
How can someone be extradicted to a foreign country and tried and convicted under foreign laws ofr an alleged crime that he committed without ever leaving his home country?
Does US law apply to every country in the world now?
Seriously let's lock Ken up in China or some other country far away from any source of support. Oh and if Ken's family is loaded then we'll have to disallow his family and friends from visiting. Ken won't need any sources of support of course, he'll only be in jail for half his life.
As what the title suggests. The law is as limited as to the people it represents..unless of courae the decision follows a psychiatrict reccomendation/assessment, unless otherwise stated, he could kill himself; one less human with life threatening issues to self and/or others and strain on the economy? Take it for what it's worth; life is one big theatrical, regardless. Dress appropriately, mind your manners, speak when spoken to and and swear by whom? <<<the ego..
I thought the US and the UK had already merged.
Maybe Gordon Brown could stop extradition of UK citizens without evidence and stop the tax payer in the UK from having to pay for it.
Every extradition costs hundreds of thousands of pound in tax payer money by paying all the costs of the legal team of the US.
http://freegary.org.uk
I believe the US is pushing so hard because after spending some $300 million dollars on upgrading thier security. Then some "scritp kiddy" was able to break through their new security. It makes me wonder what they really did with the $300 million. Blame it on someone and divert the attention away from that fact.
I believe the US is pushing so hard because after spending some $300 million dollars on upgrading thier security. Then some "scritp kiddy" was able to break through their new security. It makes me wonder what they really did with the $300 million. Blame it on someone and divert the attention away from that fact.
................. some mental disability, around here we call it dumb.
if I'm in Mexico, and shoot a US Border patrol agent, and pay off the appropriate Mexican Sherrif, you're cool with that? How about if I take down all of the the UK governments computers from the US w/o hurting anything locally. (really, I was looking for proof of UFO's) Guess that should be ok?
do you understand? Nevermind...
The US military obviously want to take him out for life. That's a way of not giving him the chance to strike back. They know he can, and who wouldn't want to after having all these charges (menaces) fall down on them? That's cheaper than revising their security issues.
I can't believe what a bunch of silly sissies you Euro-peons have become. I mean, the same people who brought us not one, but TWO world wars, Nazism, Facism, Communism, and all other kinds of degenerate perverted distortions that come from hard-core racists having to share the same part of the planet, are now distressingly concerned about some criminal hacker being subjected to American justice?
Remind me to be out the next time you jerks whine for us to save your useless hides from each other.
The Queen's Home Secretary has only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she says, without even looking round, "all the ways about here are belong to me". As for the Knave of Hearts: through good and ill reports he is passed, oft censured, yet approved at last … a friend to everything that’s good.
but quite honestly if he deleted my rhododendrons I would have something to say about it.
McKinnon did not need to delete data to find UFOs, that was a malicious act of triumphal vandalism.
Without ill will, if McLinnon's liberty constitutes a hazard to others does he deserve to enjoy it at their expense?
That he is allegedly powerless to control himself does not reduce the significance of this issue, rather it accentuates it but I cannot see how it has any effect on the issue of jurisdiction.
That is a matter for diplomats. I would like to think that a less paranoid post Barack USA might be content to trust that the UK authorities to do their utmost to prevent McKinnon offending again. But as a matter of principle I ask myself how would Brits feel if an American deleted files from treasury computers and then sat in Wyoming cocking a snook from behind Washingtons coat tails. I like to think we would understand that clemency was in order if he was autistic, but would we believe that was true if he was smart enough to do that in the first place?
Come on, this isn't about autism or what's right or wrong about extradition; it's about a moron who hacked another country's military comupters, got caught, and is now trying to weasel his way out of due punishment. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
... that it was the other way around - that a US hacker had compromised British Military computers.
If Britain attempted to extradite th eUS citizen concerned to face trial in the UK, the US wouls simply laugh at us. True? Of course true.
My sister was diagnosed with Aspergers several years ago. If Gary has the brains to hack into US computers and says he was looking for info on UFOs, it sounds credible to me. I suggest some of the people who have left comments here check out some Aspergers websites and keep their opinions to themselves until they know what they are talking about.
I see. Oooh, he's ill. Well fuck that, off to the torture camp with 'im.
Yeah. Sometimes I meet people here, and they're like: we're too soft on criminals. Adn I'm like: so you think 25 years for stealing a car is cool? Three strikes and all that. The US are uncivilized, face it.
. . . with "A Mark". How many Americans have been extradited to Britain for crimes they committed in our country. I would estimate at probably zero. Also, I hope that all the "do the crime do the time" people have to suffer a mental illness at some point in their lives so they can feel the hardship it causes. You obviously know nothing about how difficult it is to live with a mental illness if you have such backwards opinions.
He is not trying to avoid prosecution, quite the contrary since he has already pleaded guilty.
It's simply that he does the time here in the UK.
And as for the UK being somehow golden when it comes to treating mental health issues, prisoners, and it's "subjects" then that's not the case either. Things must be very messed up in the USA for the UK to be such a beacon of light.
Why does the USA have more people in prison per person than any other country in the world?
THE INQUIRER -= FFS TURN ON PARAGRAPHS OR EXPLAIN WHY NOT!
... when are they going to extradite that Bush Yankee fellow again for crimes against humanity? What, immunity? You Yanks got rules for everyone but your own, don't you?
If McKinnon is shipped off to the U.S. for prosecution he has no one to blame but himself. He seems fully competent to hack computers and post demands online for hackers rights. He seems to have no problem dealing with the stress from all the road blocks he and his lawyers have assembled to delay justice.
He will be just fine in the U.S. You can be sure he will have a large following of Brits there to visit him weekly and check on his health. Gary deserves whatever he gets in the U.S. for hacking. The only good hacker is a dead hacker.
You know why gary does'nt want to be brought to the USA? Because he knows something. I'm pretty sure the USA will get there way on this one.
DRAK, Drak,DraK,drak.translation:Gary was good boy, hustled by AlQyeada & wishing to inform English Government, demonstrated such.Drak,Drakdrak,DRAK.Further, Gary mind thinks like this: gooue,jokk,:\\welpsz.How can Teen Be Blamed for Actions of Contestant Governments When DRAK Knows Score. Drashek
All of a sudden, the 42 year old system administrator all of a sudden was diagnosed with a very common and broad form of autism. Heck, if G W Bush is dyslexic, then you guys should give HIM some slack by that reasoning. If Gary can hack the Pentagon while suffering from autism then G W must be able to hack every computer on the planet with his ... "handicap." If anyone's a superhacker, it's him. =)
Seriously, I don't understand why every hacker is Nelson Mandela or why people blindly support them without understanding the big picture. I don't understand how those defending him think this doesn't threaten you and your way of life wherever you are.
I'm sure you wouldn't want what happened to Estonia or Georgia to happen to a the US, UK or any militarily capable nation. No system is impenetrable. I'm less worried about a nation attacking than a single individual or small group of individuals...
The more effort that needs to be directed to people like Gary, the less can be dedicated where its actually needed. The truth of the matter is, there's simply more attackers than defenders. Too bad Gary wasn't a defender... Would have helped the world, but seems he just wanted to help himself. What a waste...
People that assume he will get the maximum sentence are overreacting. It is far more likely that he will be found innocent of the serious charges and receive close to the minimum sentence for the less serious charges. I doubt he will do more than 4 years at a minimum security prison at worst. I suspect he will probably be placed on probation instead of prison time. U.S. prosecutors love to charge people with a bunch of crimes that they know will fail to be proven in order to get the defendant to accept a plea for the crimes that probably would be proven.