Pentagon hacker, Gary McKinnon, diagnosed with Asperger

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Gary McKinnon was recently diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and is willing to use this as an excuse for the hack on the Pentagon..

This is just ridiculous! I can't stand it! And it hasn't been the first time I've encountered it. A few years ago, some Caucasian guy shot several non-Caucasian people dead. (This happened in my city Antwerp in Belgium). A psychologist (or even several, can't remember) diagnosed him with Asperger's Syndrome during the time of the lawsuit after some 1 hour conversations. Then he tried to use this as a defence in his case. Fortunately, this caused quite a riot in our country and several psychologists offered counter-advices and opinions.

How do you people feel about this? Could Asperger's Syndrome ever be a valid excuse/reason/.. for any crime? Aside from being a valid reason, could it be a cause?

If he couldn't see what he was doing as wrong due to his psychological disorder, it's a valid reason, not an excuse.

You'll always hear of the young man with Asperger's who "stole" the bus or train, and took it for a ride, carrying, picking up and dropping off passengers just as the professionals do, and he sees that he's doing absolutely nothing wrong, no matter how many times you tell him that it is or arrest him, and no matter how high his IQ. This person and crime can't be judged as if it were a "normal" person.

Murder is quite inappropriate, and that'll always require a harsh sentence, but the sentence can determine whether the person can handle a normal jail or not due to his or her psychological disorder (there's places for the criminally insane, and someone with Asperger's plus sociopathy who so happened to murder a whole heap of people because he lacked all empathy, guilt and remorse could easily qualify as such, compared to the basic criminal who killed someone due to monetary gain).

I really hate this, this makes me very angry. I really really hate him and hope he will get sentenced for it and suffer hell in prison.


We are not ret*d or schizos where we don't realize we are doing something or understand what we are doing is wrong. We are also not insane. We know what the laws are.


If he didn't know that computer hacking was illegal and didn't mean to wreck the system, he still deserves a sentence but it shall be a light one, lets say few years. If NTs get punished for committing a crime and they didn't know it was wrong, we shall get the same treatment too. We are no special than they are.

I think everyone should get light sentences if they didn't know what they did was wrong. There, no special treatment because everybody gets it.

But people using their AS as an excuse really gets to me and makes me mad and wish they burn in hell.

Saying he didn't know it was wrong but now he does now, wouldn't be using his AS as an excuse. But if he blames it on his condition, then he is. He chose the actions, the AS didn't make him do it, he did.

Nice... yet another news article that gives Aspies a negative stigma... UGH!

::wants to kill that Pentagon hacker::

Regardless of wether he is aspie or not, he is a British Citizen who misused a computer in Britain, and he has every reason to expect to be tried by a British court and a jury of his peers. And not to be extradited to some foreign country he has never set foot in, to be tried by their laws.

The fact that some of the people whom it is alleged he cost money are Americans is irellevant.

If I were to go out in Melbourne today, find an American(or German or French) sailor in a bar, and bash him up.
I would be tried in the Melbourne County Court, not whatever it's equivalent is in Colorado or Paris.

So I can't really fault him for wanting to avoid extradition, as I don't think he should be extraditied either.

L.

As I have said before this is a case which should be addressed in a UK court under the UK computer misuse law.

I hold the view that an aspie has free will and knows the difference between right and wrong.

_________________
Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.

Next target in the War on Terror: The aspies!

For some reason the US press have seem to have it in for this chap, all he did was take a look at various unprotected and unsecured networks from the end of a dial up modem and got caught in a honey pot.
Because of recent terrorist activity our government has colluded with the US government to do the terrorists work and make out free societies less free, In this case a extradition agreement that requires the US to provide no evidence to face serious charges that could result in a long sentence in a foreign gaol.
We do have a computer misuse act here under which he should have been charged in normal circumstances.

An Aspie who steals a bus and picks up passengers clearly has some other (more serious) mental disorder - AS itself doesn't make you incapable of comprehending right or wrong or legal and illegal. If anything, AS would more likely cause you to memorize the rules and laws involved with bus operation and follow them to the letter, going through proper channels to become fully licensed and perhaps even buying your own bus on Ebay.

On topic, however, I am incensed at people who attempt to use Asperger Syndrome as an excuse for criminal behavior of any kind. We need for the public to understand that we are not deranged or stupid because of this disability, just socially awkward and nervous. And prone to collect things and make lists. I really wish the writers and producers of Big Bang Theory would bring Sheldon and Leonard out of the Aspie closet and use that show to educate with humor that Aspies are (semi) regular people, too.

Latest news:
Hacker 'confesses' to stay in UK

I feel an icy grip around my heart at the monstrous, callous and vicious posts in this thread, and other threads about this man. Its quite obvious that several people here have no grasp at all of the difference between right or wrong.

First and foremost, to those who hopes he rots in prison: BOTH NATIONS operate under the basic system of justice where you are innocent until proven guilty. Thusly, this man has not yet been convicted of any crime. He is INNOCENT until proven guilty. Many argue that the crimes he is accused of never actually happened.. it has been suggested that he is being scape-goated by embarrassed US officials. He has said himself he caused no damage to any network. He denies causing 800 000 dollars worth of damage. He even denies "breaking into secure networks". He claims the networks he perused were unsecured, unpassworded. Did it ever occur to any of you judgemental f*****s that he might be telling the truth? That he might actually be innocent?

Second: Let us assume that he is in fact guilty of effectively online trespass and vandalism. What exactly would be a fair and reasonable punishment for this crime? What is the standard punishment for these acts in the real world? Because I guarantee that it is nowhere near as harsh as you people seem to think he deserves. It is nowhere near as harsh as the US has asked.

Third: How many of us, as Aspies, would be able to cope with being transported to a foreign nation and tried for a crime under an alien legal system, possibly facing incarceration in a foreign prison network? There are some of you who have posted on this site you have trouble LEAVING THE HOUSE TO GO TO THE SHOP. You can't hold a conversation with the guy who delivers your post. You chuck a fit if someone gives you the wrong sort of lettuce. You go mental if someone is too loud, or touches you, or gets within ten feet of you, or looks at you funny.

Now consider exactly what happens in the American Penal system. Compare and contrast to your own aspie issues, and tell me then that it constitutes anything other than cruel and unusual punishment.

There are pages and pages, thread after thread, of Aspies posting "WHAT DID I DO WRONG" or "WHY DID MY COMMENT OFFEND?" ... endless threads of Aspies who do not understand the rules of society correctly.. or have transgressed them in some way they cannot see. Yet when one of us genuinely does something wrong, we are all at their throats, screaming 2YOU SHOULD KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG, ITS SO EASY TO TELL." Is it? Is it really? Or is this forum populated by a large number of ignorant hypocrites? Lets just hope none of you ever end up on a jury.... or that ironic justice places you under the beady eye of the law.