19 replies to this topic

[bee]

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news just breaking about it..extradition blocked....personally I am very pleased with the decision.

[questionmark]

And a link to the news story:
http://www.guardian....n-decision-live

[bee]

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http://uk.news.yahoo...-035029938.html




Computer hacker Gary McKinnon has won his 10-year fight against extradition after Home Secretary Theresa May stepped in to halt proceedings.
Mrs May stopped his extradition on human rights ground after medical reports showed the 46-year-old was very likely to try to kill himself if extradited.
McKinnon was accused by US prosecutors of "the biggest military computer hack of all time", but he claims he was simply looking for evidence of UFOs.
Mrs May said the sole issue she was considering was whether "extradition to the United States would breach his human rights".
There was no doubt McKinnon is "seriously ill" and the extradition warrant against him should be withdrawn, she said.
It is now for the director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer QC to decide whether he should face trial in the UK, Mrs May added.

[synchronomy]

Although what he did was foolish, in all likelihood the man's suffering since could be deemed a more than adequate sentence.
Overall, the US probably benefitted from this by at least showing their staff how to use passwords!  Of course, other security measures are likely in place now.

[Mr Right Wing]

bee, on 16 October 2012 - 12:02 PM, said:

news just breaking about it..extradition blocked....personally I am very pleased with the decision.

I'm saddened that the UK Government allows itself to be emotionally blackmailed by a self admitted criminal saying he will commit suicide.

If you do the crime you do the time wherever that may be.

[itsnotoutthere]

Mr Right Wing, on 16 October 2012 - 01:08 PM, said:

I'm saddened that the UK Government allows itself to be emotionally blackmailed by a self admitted criminal saying he will commit suicide.

If you do the crime you do the time wherever that may be.

You might have a point if there was a snowflakes chance in hell of the Americans handing over one of their nationals to us if circumstances were reversed, but then we all know that wouldn't happen. All in all a good decision.

[Raptor Witness]

The move was apparently anticipated. This, since several high ranking UK candidates had promised to deny the U.S. request for extradition, prior to the last elections.

Readers unfamiliar with this story can do a Google search and have a field day.

The possible motivations for denying extradition seem to go beyond mere nationalism.

I'd appreciate any speculation from the reader's here, regarding all possible motivations for blocking the U.S. government.

One guess I would make is that the UK government must have believed McKinnon's story. I doubt public pressure would have been sufficient alone, otherwise. This is, after all, an important extradition treaty.

To call the man a terrorist was a bit farfetched, and to suggest he did millions in damage is silly. As he has argued quite well, he actually did the Pentagon and NASA a favor by exposing their obvious lack of security. His methods of breaking into their networks revealed simple mistakes. He made the IT security guys looked pretty dumb.

The primary argument against McKinnon's story of discovering an alien cover-up is the lack of any hard evidence, but given he knew he was breaking the law, he may have thought his chances were better if he didn't save anything. It's hard to know what was going through his mind at the time, given the added fear of what he was discovering. After all, if the U.S. government is hiding evidence of ET's, then this information potentially puts him in even greater danger than simple prosecution.

I believe he did find something, and wasn't merely trying to hide behind a whistle-blower defense. I've watched several interviews of him, and he comes across as credible. I find his story more believable, because he was afraid to save things.

The aggressiveness which the U.S. government went after this guy was much more than the average hacker caught with his hand in the secret cookie jar. To a certain extent this reveals their hand.

Soon, I suspect, all the cards will be laid on the table. The UK may simply want to be on the right side of history.

Edited by Raptor Witness, 16 October 2012 - 07:54 PM.

[bee]

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Poor Gary has been to hell and back...for 10 years.

I do believe that his medical problems are genuine and the government know that it would have been too cruel to let him

be taken to a US prison. He might have been kept waiting years for a trial. He probably would have died of suicide or stress

if he had gone.

I've picked up stuff about him over the years and remember him saying somewhere that he used to spend most of his time on the

computer...barely sleeping...not looking after himself properly or eating properly. Just totally absorbed with looking for anything

to do with UFOs and ETs.


And talking about how easy it was to get into the highly classified areas. With some parts (one part? can't remember)

not even having password protection.

It won't be like that now......


The UK government would have had some really bad publicity if he had gone...as they had supported him when in opposition.

But I do also think the mercy he has been shown is genuine.


.

[spursfan]

I totally agree its the right decision.

The man has aspergers and was looking for evidence of ufo's for goodness sake, he's no terrorist or threat. Its great someone's had the balls to stand up to the US sand make this decision. To send him to the states would be cruel.

The only problem i can see though is now anyone facing extradition to the US will claim they'll kill themselves if it happens - i'd have hated to see someone like abu hamza (whose a real threat to the UK and US) escape extradition on such grounds

[TheMacGuffin]

I signed my share of petitions for him and even wrote to the Justice Department on his behalf, as did other people I know.  We basically said that whatever he found out about UFOs should be public knowledge in any case.

[TheMacGuffin]

Raptor Witness, on 16 October 2012 - 07:52 PM, said:

To call the man a terrorist was a bit farfetched, and to suggest he did millions in damage is silly. As he has argued quite well, he actually did the Pentagon and NASA a favor by exposing their obvious lack of security. His methods of breaking into their networks revealed simple mistakes. He made the IT security guys looked pretty dumb.

The primary argument against McKinnon's story of discovering an alien cover-up is the lack of any hard evidence, but given he knew he was breaking the law, he may have thought his chances were better if he didn't save anything. It's hard to know what was going through his mind at the time, given the added fear of what he was discovering. After all, if the U.S. government is hiding evidence of ET's, then this information potentially puts him in even greater danger than simple prosecution.

I believe he did find something, and wasn't merely trying to hide behind a whistle-blower defense. I've watched several interviews of him, and he comes across as credible. I find his story more believable, because he was afraid to save things.

I always believed his story.  I have no reason not to.

[Raptor Witness]

The majority of Parliament was obviously against extradition, as evidenced by this clip of the government's announcement.

Given the fiasco involving the early release of Britain's greatest mass murderer, Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, it would seem fair.

Edited by Raptor Witness, 16 October 2012 - 11:43 PM.

[stevemagegod]

Raptor Witness, on 16 October 2012 - 07:52 PM, said:

The move was apparently anticipated. This, since several high ranking UK candidates had promised to deny the U.S. request for extradition, prior to the last elections.

Readers unfamiliar with this story can do a Google search and have a field day.

The possible motivations for denying extradition seem to go beyond mere nationalism.

I'd appreciate any speculation from the reader's here, regarding all possible motivations for blocking the U.S. government.

One guess I would make is that the UK government must have believed McKinnon's story. I doubt public pressure would have been sufficient alone, otherwise. This is, after all, an important extradition treaty.

To call the man a terrorist was a bit farfetched, and to suggest he did millions in damage is silly. As he has argued quite well, he actually did the Pentagon and NASA a favor by exposing their obvious lack of security. His methods of breaking into their networks revealed simple mistakes. He made the IT security guys looked pretty dumb.

The primary argument against McKinnon's story of discovering an alien cover-up is the lack of any hard evidence, but given he knew he was breaking the law, he may have thought his chances were better if he didn't save anything. It's hard to know what was going through his mind at the time, given the added fear of what he was discovering. After all, if the U.S. government is hiding evidence of ET's, then this information potentially puts him in even greater danger than simple prosecution.

I believe he did find something, and wasn't merely trying to hide behind a whistle-blower defense. I've watched several interviews of him, and he comes across as credible. I find his story more believable, because he was afraid to save things.

The aggressiveness which the U.S. government went after this guy was much more than the average hacker caught with his hand in the secret cookie jar. To a certain extent this reveals their hand.

Soon, I suspect, all the cards will be laid on the table. The UK may simply want to be on the right side of history.

You make a Good Point however this statement right hear killed any hopes that i or any one else for credible evidence

Quote

"What were the ship names?"
"I can't remember," says Gary. "I was smoking a lot of dope at the time. Not good for the intellect."

Source: http://www.guardian....ekend7.weekend2

Edited by stevemagegod, 17 October 2012 - 02:34 AM.

[Raptor Witness]

stevemagegod, on 17 October 2012 - 02:31 AM, said:

You make a Good Point however this statement right hear killed any hopes that i or any one else for credible evidence

Source: http://www.guardian....ekend7.weekend2

With NASA, you can watch them sober and get high, or high and get sober.

[bee]

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It looks like they had to get rid of Abu Hamza before they could block Gary's extradition...otherwise Hamza would

have been able to use the McKinnon case to stay longer in the UK. And now they are going to review and update

Britains extradition laws.


Anyway....for anyone who's interested

this is the video interview with Gary in 2007 that first brought him to my attention. Kerry Cassidy interviewing him for Project Camelot.

the video quality is a bit poor...so here's the transcript as well...

http://projectcamelo...nscript_en.html