The US justice system is “supposed” to be “colour blind”, equal to all & actually sorta resembling fair. It isn’t. Period.

Really, we all know that’s undeniably true – or should do.

Also lets not confuse someone hacking into a computer looking for evidence of a crackpot theory about aliens with – for pity’s sake! – *actual terrorists*!

… & thinking America’s “war of terror” (as Borat aptly put it) :

Is that dumb rhetorical excuse to invade innocent third party nations still going post-Bush the Lesser?

Really? When will the US authorities realise that you can’t impose freedom and democracy by force -that no-one wins guerrilla wars in Afghanistan (just ask the Russians & Brits!) and that Iraq, Vietnam and Bay of Pigs et al .. should have taught you guys something about the limits of brute military power?

Never mind wondering about punishing Gary McKinnon for – it is quite clear (prosecutors absurd claims to the contrary) – not doing anything much that’s really harmful.

Why are we allowing leaders who misled the world into a needless, totally counter-productive bloodbath, who committed war crimes, organised torture and imprisonment without trial, who violated international law, common humanityand thegeneva conventions and conspired to create thousands of dead innocent civilians and a wrecked nation allowed to escape any sort of accountability for their actions?

Before the USA can talk about “justice” for lesser criminals it needs to put George II Bush the Mad, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld & the other neo-conservative Reich wing loons on trial first. Will they ever face justice for what they did? Are their crimes NOT many orders of magnitude worse than what seems awfully like a victimless (non-)crime?

How about those here who take the stupid, unimaginative and demonstrably FAIL “tough on crime” approach try advocating for “Shrubya” Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Tony Blair, John Howard etc .. to be extradited to Afghanistan for a bit of immediate justice – & see them hung like Saddam or beheaded?

Because that’s the logical endpoint of their “argument” such as it is!

the structure of our justice system makes its best stab at fariness, it’s in the *execution* that things fall apart.

Umm … choice of words there?

Execution still bein’ an issue an all …

It is more likely the Americans are embarrassed.

Gary is nothing more then a scape goat for the Americans and the UK Government has no balls to stand up to them and, protect one of their own citizens from what is a clear abuse by the Americans of a friendly treaty aimed at helping the Americans with terrorist suspects.

Both Obama and Brown should be hanging their heads in shame at this clear abuse of such a vulnerable individual, they are nothing more then school yard bully’s

The other purpose of prison (don’t laugh now) is to provide an education out of crime.

There are countries who want Tony Blair to stand trial for war crimes. Are we saying that these countries can be ignored but, America can’t?

That, in itself, is injustice and proves that our laws are selective and therefore flawed.

If Mr. McKinnon were to be found guilty in this country, he would probably receive a suspended sentence. If he goes to America, the length of the sentence is likely to be many years more in a much more degrading place and, meet with those people who would like to use his talents to much greater harm when he was released……

Justice should be the same for one person as another.

Some (many?) Aspies are simply not able to modulate their behaviour in terms of what is socially acceptable. If McKinnon, who is ten years my junior, was ever diagnosed, he didn’t receive treatment, as there simply aren’t the treatments available even now. I can’t get a 17 year old any counselling today; what hope did he have 30 years ago?

For the person who found Baron-Cohen risible, note that he is the specialist on this today, although I think he is not fully correct in a number of respects. His being cousin to someone else is irrelevant.

To extradite McKinnon is to encourage American officials who believe they are re-defining reality as if enough people accept that power, it will be real.

Asperger people are more inclined to quest for truth and justice, whilst being unimpressed with taboos, rules and conventions, like that which states that the Pentagon is the holiest of holies that must not be defiled lest it be sacrilege. As for McKinnon returning to such activities, he said that he found out what he wanted to know, mostly from more “legitimate” sources, and also having to spend seven years on the rack in this way has also sent a message… indeed as far as I’m concerned, that seven years is enough…

What personal gain was there for McKinnon? Was it to satisfy his ego, to make him think that he is saving the world? Did he think he would find something that would get him money? There’s no proof that he thought of making money, if he did there were surer ways of doing that.

I wouldn’t be surprised if politicians take money from spyware people and identity thiefs – I’m sure they’d prefer McKinnon if he made lots of money through identity theft and used it to bribe his way out of harm… they’d respect him for being a shark like they are.

Yes there is a point there and it should be very obvious. The specific example I used is quite relevant: a successful drug dealer has a number of highly useful skills for business – he can network effectively, he can market and move product efficiently, and he sure knows how to deal with moving stuff across borders, he has dealt with cranky suppliers effectively. Yet, for some reason, people don’t flock to hire busted drug dealers. Some of them are/were business geniuses (the Medellin cartel people, for example). On the other hand, a hacker rears his little criminal head, and people think he deserves a high-paying job where he can put his skills to work.

This hacker knew what he was doing was illegal. There was no extenuating circumstance (like stealing bread when you’re starving). He acted out of malice for personal gain and should be PUNISHED for it – not given a job, not patted on the back for making some unseen cabal in the big nasty government look bad.

Why is that difficult to understand?

‘U.S. foreign policy is akin to government-sponsored terrorism these days,’ McKinnon wrote on a hacked Army computer in 2002. ‘It was not a mistake that there was a huge security stand down on September 11 last year … I am SOLO. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels.’

In interviews, McKinnon has admitted a hacking spree, which he says was a ‘moral crusade’ in search of evidence of a military UFO cover-up. He has long denied doing any damage, but his lawyers recently said that McKinnon intended to cause ‘temporary impairment’ of U.S. military computers.”

In view of the messages he left on the computers, one has to question whether McKinnon is now telling the truth about what he was doing and thinking when the hack took place. If one is innocently looking for information, one does not leave messages like “I will continue to disrupt.” The question of intent is crucial here, and I take McKinnon’s at his word that his intent was to disrupt. In that case, punishment is meritted.

Only that way will we prove our commitment to the Americans in the war against terror, otherwise we stand accused of being soft on terrorism and the friend of terrorists

I also have Aspergers which was diagnosed by an acredited clinical person at a local hospital in 2005.

“Shame on your boasted institutions of liberty”.

Have you read “The Populist Moment”? Highly recommended for those who can think and have not bought the lie that the U.S. is a democracy or a republic.

Groups such as Just Detention International are active in the area of prison reform as well. The United States wastes billions on its ineffective prison system incarcerating many non-violent offenders such as McKinnon, sending them into a broken and ineffective system which dehumanizes them, takes their dignity and violates the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

Not exactly Self-awareness Day today, is it?

How many drug dealers does your company hire to help speed up customs and tax issues, and help with marketing and distribution?

Since you seem to think that there is some clever point hidden in that not-quite-rhetorical question, why don’t you elaborate on that? Do you think, for example, that skills acquired by criminals by definition cannot be used in legal ways? Or is it just that you’re hung up on the idea that punishing people is a virtue?

People in the UK are getting very angry over this.

Everyone believes he should be tried and Gary has admitted his crime.

But the Gov have used legislation that was decided on behind closed doors and never voted on in Parliament.

They reassured us that these requirements were to combat terrorism.

Most people’s definition of a terrorist over here is, like, people who fly panes into buildings.

A socially naive geek looking for little green men is not a terrorist.

It is the miss-application of the law that compromises all of our freedoms that is worrying here.

By pursuing revenge rather than justice, the US Gov is in danger of causing our mutual ant-terror arrangements to fall, to the benefit of the real terrorists.

The Asperger’s is not an excuse, but a mere confirmation to understand Gary’s motives.

Aspie’s have a tendency to quest for truth and justice.

What started as a compulsion became an obsession and then an addiction. It does not excuse it, but explains it.

He will have known it was wrong but would have seen it as his duty to pursue his hacking “for the greater good”.

There is no evidence of any other criminal activity in his life.

Despite his ability, he did not steal any money or take advantage of other people.

He is a misguided man who has broken the law. Not a terrorist.

The US have threatened him with 60 years in jail. One of your chief prosecuters have said they want to see Gary fry.

A tad hysterical?

The Aspergers claim is not intended to be used as an insanity plea in a US Court. It is directed at UK politicians in order to try to give a reason for not extraditing and/or serving any sentence in the UK. The fact that US courts are not sympathetic to Aspergers has been cited in the media here to get sympathy.

Hacker types will always have the upper hand as long as people keep blaming everyone else for the hacking except the hackers. Right now they know they can do whatever they like and for the most part get away with it even if they’re caught, and if they’re lucky maybe land a plum job.

That paradigm is wrong, and as far as I know, hacking is the only crime that enjoys such status.

Still, we have hired other skilled hackers for their expertise and it has supposedly been quite useful to us. I have no idea what to do with this guy, but I DO know that incarceration isn’t likely to dissuade anyone intent on breaking into secure systems. All we can really do is make those systems completely isolated from the outside world. Unfortunately, the whole reason for the internet was to allow the military to have access to a distributed system that would remain intact during a nuclear war, so I guess we’re stuck with what we have.

I still think he should be put to work for us,,,(China, are YOUR systems secure???)

I took the AO test and totally flunked it. Only got a score of 15. That’s the worst test score I’ve EVER had,,,bummer,,,

Gary 7

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/08/nasa-hacker-faces-nearcertain-extradition.html

Seems he’s a true believer in UFOs and thinks NASA & the Pentagon are sitting on alien free energy technology. Woo with a capital W.
Ought to serve 1 or 2 years instead of 60. Rather a Sad Sack.
Should the US government hire him? Heck no. He has no particular skills we need. He was just lucky to get as far as he did. The NASA guys were sloppy to have blank passwords. He’s of no particular value to the US.