McKinnon Deportation

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If Gary McKinnon ever does get extradited here, I've half a mind to barge into his sentencing with guns blazing and spirit him away somewhere where the US can't get to him.

Seriously, I'm sickened by the way my country's government works. All it takes is for someone to say "This person is a threat to national security" and all our constitutional rights and even general human rights get flushed down the crapper.

I would like to see the UK go to war with us over this if it does happen. That may make me a traitor, but the way I see it, so is every jumped up politician and high-level military officer in the federal goverment. They have all betrayed America as the founding fathers meant it to be. They have betrayed our Constitution and they have broken our own laws, other countries' laws, and most international laws and treaties. They hide the truth from citizens, and anyone who accidently discovers it is silenced, permanently.

The Constitution is dead, now the new American freedom is little more than oppression.

Is that what you wanted, Washington? Is this the America that you envisioned, Franklin? Would you approve of our decisions, Jefferson?

I didn't think so.

Yes, but I would expect anyone to get the maximum sentence for hacking into the system too. I am not implying that Gary's aspergers diagnosis stop at the police door (although technically he did not have one until some months later after his first appeal failed), I am just saying that in this instance, aspergers is not really the issue at all. It would be like trying to get a burgler off the hook by saying he was slightly deaf.

[quote="robinhood"Next week Tony Blair will sit before a committee to answer why he took the UK into the Iraq war, thus making himself responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. The best he'll get is a slap on the wrist. But you want to support that an autistic guy should serve 50 years in jail for hacking a computer system run by the single biggest mass-murdering machine of the late twentieth century, just to make us look good to the non-autistic community? Er.... priorites, people?[/quote]

This has nothing to do with Tony Blair, but yes, in my opinion he should get a hell of a lot more than a slap on the wrist. But whatever your views on America are, they did post their law and the consequences of breaking it quite clearly on their website and McKinnon chose to ignore it. Protesting on the streets is one thing, hacking into security and endangering lives is another...

I don't mean to distress you; I am just stating my opinion, that's all.

Er, no, that is a question that can only be settled "in law" during the course of a trial, and so most certainly cannot determine which jurisdiction the trial occurs in.

A far more pertinent question is whether or not it is acceptable for a law to be passed tomorrow, making it illegal for you to have have posted on WP at any time before today. If such a law passed, you would be subject to legal proceedings on the basis of acts that ocurred before the law existed. You might plead that since the law did not exist, you could not have known that your acts would become retrospectively illegal at some later time, as they were quite legal when they were committed. Unfortunately ignorance of the law is no defence against a criminal charge that one has broken the law. This is why retrospectively effective legislation is widely frowned on by anyone with any concern for justice or any respect for good sense.

Retrospectively effectively legislation is generally only used (and should only be used) to extend rights of natural people, or to amend an oversight as necessary to reconcile the legal realities with perceived realities, where not doing so would have far-retching, unintended and significantly negative impacts For instance a law to retrospectively legitimize the oaths necessary to hold office, of law-enforcement office holders always believed to have made legitimate oaths and acted accordingly, but who it has been discovered, for some want of form, have failed to meet a technical requirement for such an oath to have been made.

At the time of Gary's acts there was no legislative provision for his extradition to the U.S. on the basis of the acts that he allegedly committed. At the time that Gary confessed to having committed such acts, there was no legislative provision for extraditing him. No penalty that did not exist at the time of the alleged offences should be levied against anyone.

He is a citizen of the UK, his acts such as they were occurred within the UK, he confessed to UK authorities, and there was no active legislative provisions to extradite a person in such circumstances from the UK to any other place, at the time that the acts were allegedly committed or at the time that Gary confessed to authorities.

Frankly it astounds me that politicians signed away the sovereign authority of the UK to a foreign power. Would it also be ok with Americans if the US signed a retrospectively active treaty with the UK, providing that US citizens could be extradited to be tried in the UK for acts that occurred within the US, last year, or last decade, or at any time before the legislation came into effect? Are you quite happy for your government to render you subject to the laws of a foreign power within the borders of your own nation? And to backdate the legislation concerned so that you could be extradited to the jurisdiction of a foreign power for acts that you committed before such extradition was legally possible?

I am astounded that any person with any concern for justice, or good sense would be fine with people being subject to legal penalities, strictures or proceedings over any act, where those penalities, strictures or possibility of such proceedings were legally impossible at the time of the act. By such a principal, at some time in the future you could be arrested and convicted for something currently legal that you did yesterday, on the basis of legislation passed tomorrow.


I see no reason to believe this; there is no evidence that I am aware of that supports such an assertion. Even if it were true, that does not change the fact that at the time of the alleged acts, there was no provision to extradite a person to the US in such circumstances.

No it is not. If someone in the US accesses a server in China (using modern telecommunications) and posts an Anti-Communist message on the server, they are subject to US law and that is good and well. Under no circumstances should they be extradited to China as they have not been to China and their acts were committed within the US. Gary's acts were committed within UK. Gary, a UK citizen has never been to the US, nor left the UK. Are Americans ok with the idea that even if they never leave America, they could be extradited for prosecution in and by another country, or is this kind of obvious infringement on the fundamental right of a citizen to not be subject to a foreign power for acts committed in their own country, ok because it the person is not a US citizen?

This is an extremely dangerous precedent.

He was in the UK, and it was an offence under UK law, so any proceedings should be brought by UK authorities, occur in the UK and be entirely handled by the UK justice system.

It is astounding that citizens of the US, of all people, would support such goings-ons. What your government legitimizes in its dealings with other entities and their citizens, it can point to precedent to do to you.

When you agree with what is happening in respect of Gary as being fine and good, then you are agreeing to the principal that tommorrow a law can be passed to make what you did yesterday a criminal offence and you can be punished even though the act was legal when committed, and that if you never leave the US, you can be handed over at the demand of a foreign power to face their justice system, one you did not have a vote in respect of, one you did not agree to be subject to by entering their legal jurisdiction, or even leaving your home nation. You are advocating an end to the priviledge and protection of being a US citizen who never leaves the US. On this principal, you could be extradited to China for publishing anti-Chinese government writings on the internet, 2 years ago, from your home in the US, on the basis of a law passed next week.

Insane.

I think it's ridiculous to extradite him. I know this sounds horrible but if I was him I'd commit suicide within weeks.

Well, I think that's where he's at in his head right now. And I don't think he's just making that up for media sympathy.

No worries, it's just a subject I feel very strongly about (you'd never have guessed, right? )

And by the way, excellent legal arguments, Pandd... I didn't know about that angle until I read what you'd written.

Last edited by robinhood on 22 Jan 2010, 8:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Amen!

That doesn't seem fair alright.

are you implying that by being extradited and punished, he will in some way be helped and his needs fulfilled? *MOST* people who goto prison, will end up there again if they get out, prison does absolutly nothing to make the world safe or help people who commit crimes deal with whtever issues they have that put them in that situation in the first place.

Gary did not break any UK law, or he would have been tried for it there. If he had hacked into the Queen's email it would be a local problem.

We have several treaties regarding extradition, most are based on if it is a crime in both countries.

It would have also been a crime if he hacked UK military computers.

The defense that he was never here would be the same if he mailed a bomb, antrax, meaningless.

The scean of the crime was the screen of a US computer, posted with warnings, and protected by username and password. The secured system he accessed was in the US.

The injured party, all of the American people, the evidence, our State Secrets, and only a US Court can deal with the extent of the damage caused. The claim I heard was for hundreds of thousands of dollars damage.

The only people who know where Gary went, what he did, are the United States Department of Defense, and they have not made that information public, as there is a trial pending. They put forward a minimum, seven counts of unauthorized access. Each carries UP TO 10 years in prison and or a fine of UP TO $10,000. The claimed damages exceed that.

Besides that is the charge of impersonating a DoD worker, getting their username and password from somewhere. That is something we would like to know all about.

The UK Courts have upheld extradition.

That the press has a story to stir up national pride, well, the UK does not have a lot of good national press.

As for timely, this is an attempt to change an agreed extradition after the fact by an appeal to The Rights of Englishmen. It is also making it a local political issue.

The Extradition Law was upheld by UK Courts, agreed to by the UK Government,

Several Asperger defenses have been posted on Wrong Planet, The Craig's List killer, where it was allowed as a defense, but he was found guilty, and Asperger's had nothing to do with it. The credit card scam, awaiting trial, but the defense is weak. There have been other cases, but not once has Asperger's been found to affect guilt or sentence.

If there is some UK Case Law, Asperger crime spree forgiven, Asperger murderer sent to Lego Camp, I have never heard of it.

INTERPOL was set up to deal with transnational crimes, often the criminal never set foot where the crime was committed. This is nothing new.

My personal view is Gary is slandering a minority group that has enough problems.

His claim to Asperger's was after the fact, with nothing in his life history to support it.

His defense by press shows a social ability that the lack of is a defining trait of asperger's.

Leaving out Asperger's, UFO's, his case was heard by several UK Courts that upheld the Extradition, The papers were in order, a covered crime had been committed, there was reason to believe Gary was the person.

Nothing left but the trial, and hundreds of UK tabuloid press filling hotel rooms, eating out, drinking to all hours, and getting to know the girls, as they write home about a trial in the Post Colonial world. They are stirring this up for an expenses paid vacation.

As for local politics, everyone running for office would have declared war on the US before giving up a single Englishman, till they get elected, then the Law Rules.

Aspergers/Autism should ALWAYS be taken into consideration when justice is being administered, in the same way as any disability should be taken into consideration in the process of justice. Not neccesarily as a justification FOR a crime, or a defence AGAINST a crime (as has been complained about several times here) but as a contributing factor in the PUNISHMENT.

Any punishment meted out by the american "justice" system will automatically be several degrees worse for Mckinnon simply by dint of his being autistic. (never mind the fact that hes also foreign.) In any society that claims to be just or civilised this MUST be taken into account. Of course this assumes that the american justice system is anything of the sort. Given the USA track record when dealing with people who they consider to be dangerous terrorists (rendition, guantanamo, incarceration without charge for indefinite periods) and who are foreign nationals, it is highly suspect that Mckinnon will ever receive anything remotely resembling a "fair hearing". This on its own should be enough to prevent his extradition.

@Robinhood .. you sir are spot on about the criminal justice system. I myself was recently a victim of what can only be described as police brutality in just such circumstances as you describe in your OP. Even a short period in the "tender care" of the security forces of a nation supposedly sympathetic towards ASDs was a living nightmare, and I can guarantee that with America's ass-backwards views on ASDs that any training their justice system might have had in autism will be pitiful at best, and subsequently Mckinnons time even just pending trial will be an ordeal WAY beyond what is deserved for a crime ten times as bad. It reflects badly on the autistic community here that so many of them militantly scream for a justice which will fly in the face of human rights, and more than likely lead to the death of a man who has committed no crime worthy of such a sentence. It also seems that many of those who demand such barbarity would be THE FIRST to cry about their autistic rights being breached, and many of them do seem to be the same people who argue tooth-and-nail against organisations like Autism Speaks. Is it worth noting that Autism Speaks are likely to be an organisation the US government will consult when seeking advice about autism? Place yourselves in Mckinnons position. REGARDLESS of what you have done or why you did it, consider how much "justice" you would feel was being served if you were ripped away from everything you know and understand and delivered several thousand miles away into an unsympathetic and unfamiliar environment purpose-bullt to punish for the rest of your life? . A LOT of the users here couldnt cope with regularly attending SCHOOL. Do they imagine for a moment they could cope with the Penal System? Asking people to stop talking all at once because you cant process the instructions is NOT going to fly, I assure you.

Empathy may not be a strong point amongst us, but is it so much to expect to see a little sympathy, or humanity?

That is inaccurate. Gary violated UK law. He most certainly should in such circumstances be tried in the UK by the UK. That is one of the flaws in the way Gary has been treated.
The interent is not so magical that it changes the location of an act.
If you post a picture that is legal in the US from the US to a server that happens to be in Iran where the picture is illegal, they might hold you to account if they get their hands on you, but by no means is the US obliged to hand you over. The act concerned would be commited in the US not in Iran where your picture might be stored as binary information on a server, or even displayed on a screen.

If you ring my phone and leave harrassing messages on my answer machine, so long as you are in the US when you do it, you have not committed a crime within my legal jurisdiction; your acts would occur in the US and would be subject to US jurisdiction. The same would be true if you managed to extract information about messages other people had left on my answer machine. This is true even if the answer machine records the information digitally and is fact a computer. It's still true even if I had a password and user name set up to prevent someone else accessing my messages.

Do not be confused by the technology. If you did materially the same thing Gary did, extracting and leaving information on my digital (mini computer) phone answering machine, from the US, no one would assume anyone but the US would have jurisdiction or that you had ever left the jurisdiction of the US. None of this magically changes just because "teh intrawebbies" are involved.

You cannot be subject to two independent nations' independent juridictions simultaneously. If Gary had been murdering someone in the same room as him, while he was also on the internet committing the acts he is accused of, he would not be prosecuted by the US for that murder and the UK would claim jurisdiction for that act, so he provably never left the jurisdiction of the UK and therefore cannot have been within the jurisdiction of the US.

When someone from my country was found to have infected tens of thousands of computers with malware, and to have used them in DDoS attacks against a server located in the US, the acts took place outside the US even though many computers located inside the US were attacked, commandeered or damaged; the server that was subject to DDoS attacks is located in the US. The US authorities in that instance were quite confident that these acts took place outside their jurisdiction, and they were entirely correct about that.

Fact: these acts did not occur inside the US's jurisdiction. Common sense and precedent demonstrates as much.

It would be a crime if he hacked his neighbour's computer; what he allegedly did was a crime in the UK at the time of the alleged acts. But it was not one that you could be extradited to the US for. The treaty being relied on in this instance did not exist at the time of Gary's act and is being used retrospectively.

If Gary attacked your computer from the UK, that would be a matter for the UK to prosecute, not the US. There was no legal provision for this fact to alter on the basis of whose computer was attacked at the time of Gary's act.

Nonesense.

What Gary did is not materially different to leaving nasty messages and gaining access to information stored on a digital phone message device. This pretence that when the telecommunication device is a computer, that suddenly the act of communicating 0s and 1s to a remote location makes you actually there at that location is nonsense.

We would not blithely and uncritically accept glib assertions that because you can phone a place, you are suddenly subject to being extradited there to face potential criminal charges if you choose to ring someone there. Telecommunications are telecommunications, phone, computer, there is no material difference for the purposes of establishing legal jurisdiction and neither ringing on the phone or communicating binary code over the "interwebbies" to some place, are the same as, or constitute "being there".


I see no evidence there was ever any password or username protection.

The scene of the acts is Gary's physical location at the time he committed any such acts. We know this from the precedent set by US authorities in respect of other cases materially indistinguishible from Gary's, we know this from legal logic as we cannot claim Gary could have been in two independent and potentially contrary legal jurisdictions simultaneously and yet he was clearly subject to UK jurisdiction at the time the alleged acts were committed, we know this from comparing materially analogous circumstances such as doing materially the same things but to with a phone or to a computer that records and stores phone messages, and we know this from common sense.

The internet is not a transporter, Scotty did not beam Gary anywhere.


It seems a lot of what you have heard is balony based on the many inaccuracies you assert.

It is actually usually considered a draw back for an injured party to prosecute and judge a criminal case against those it accuses of injuring it. Indeed a core tennet of justice is that one is tried before an impartial judge rather than the injured party who is also the prosecuter. This is why the state is responsible for criminal prosecutions and has the authority to rule over civil proceeding. The purpose being to avoid injured parties being involved in prosecuting or ruling in cases against those they believe injured them.


There is no strong evidence to indicate that he ever did more than try out the default settings; I see no reason to assume he did not simply gain access as a result of a DoD worker not bothering to set a username or password.

The UK exists for the people of the UK, not for the US's sake. The UK has an obligation to protect the rights of the people of the UK and to not sign treaties that violate those rights or that prevent the UK from protecting those rights. The US should not seek to enter into treaties of that deprecate the soveriegnty of another nation in this respect, nor that usurps the natural rights and functions of citizenry in respect of the people of a recognized nation-state.


Mugawbe's acts are agreed to by his government. That does not make them right and it does not make them legitimate either.

This is inaccurate also.

In the first instance there is no reason whatsoever to assume that those cases that happen into media that you happen to come across with are the only cases. In the second instance, I can remember a case off the top of my head where a person stole a bus and Aspergers Syndrome was found to be pertinent in legal proceedings and materially effected the outcome. And another where a person impersonated top company executives.

This is just straw man arguing.

Diminished capacity is not Aspergers specific and nothing specific about Aspergers Syndrome prevents it from being potentially pertinent to legal proceedings either at the stage of establishing whether or not a person is culpable for a crime or at the stage of determining how to respond to criminal culpability if and once it has been established.

Indeed this is nothing materially new here in respect of what Gary has done, and INTERPOL have long existed, yet Gary's treatment is very new indeed and it is not INTERPOL that is seeking to prosecute him.

So if transnational crimes are nothing new, and we already have established mechanisms in place to deal with them, why is Gary being handled by new methods rather than the established methods?

As a matter of fact INTERPOL do not prosecute crimes and do not have any legal jurisdiction that allows it do so. There is good reason for this.

People of one country should, if they never leave that country and do not conspire with someone in another country, never be subject to prosecution by any foreign and independent jurisdiction.

Hence while INTERPOL assists many jurisdictions in investigating crimes and bringing prosecutions where there is an international element, it never prosecutes crimes and has no authority to do so. That is the province of the jurisdiction where the acts were committed.

I repeat that there are good reasons for this and those reasons are all there for your protection. Yes, you personally.

What Gary did is not new in terms of involving modern telecommunications, or in terms of having an international aspect, or in terms of contacting and exchanging information via modern telecommunications, and across international borders. But the way he is being treated is very new, and utterly unnecessary. There are established ways to deal with these things, ways that uphold and reaffirm your rights as a citizen. What is happening to Gary is unnecessary, and sets a very dangerous precedent, one that puts the rights of all of us at risk.

They are coming for Gary now....the start is never the end.

It's a precedent once it's done, and evidently, coming from international law, a weighty precedent when looked at by local courts. US citizens, once this happens, you loose any real protection in respect of this being done to you. The same principle could be applied to you in five years time when perhaps the US desperately needs China to not dump its treasury bonds, or cannot get oil out of the Middle East without Iran's permission, or....

...the start is never the end. Once this happens it is precedent and it can be applied to send a US citizen "someplace else" to face someone else's justice.

Your government will do what is convenient according to the scope of legitimized actions precedent has granted it. If it convenient to do this in reverse to US citizens, the precedent will be so used. Be it on your own heads.


Even if true, this is an utterly trivial matter in the context. The wider legal ramifications are far more important than any one person and how they claim one of their innate characteristics effected their behavior.

His claim was not instigated by himself or his legal team. An expert who is highly respected and has nothing in his history to indicate he would suddenly risk his reputation to make fallacious or unfounded claims of this kind, came forward after seeing Gary in the media and informed Gary's legal representation of the opinion he formed based on his extensive expertise.

All reports of Gary's personal history are consistent with AS, as are reports of those who knew him prior to these events, including people outside his family and not in his circle of supporters. Diagnosticians find his current presentation consistent with AS and by all reports and accounts, his current presentation is continuous with his prior life history.

Matters are pretty desparate when one is trying to defend using retrospective legislation to extradite someone who should be tried locally, by attempting to cast baseless doubt on their medical condition or innate characteristics. Whether Gary has AS or not, he should be tried in the UK by the UK.

Is it not funny how we cannot diagnose someone we've never met over the internet until the US wants to extradite them. Then suddenly we clinical experts capable of remote diagnosis of someone we've never been in the same room as, or even had a conversation with. As an added bonus, in these circumstances we are more reliable than world reknowned clinicians who have actually clinically assessed the person.

What a load of nonsense. Gary has legal representation. I am surprised that you would not realise that they organize and handle such matters. Nothing that has occurred in respect of press coverage indicates any social ability on Gary's part whatsoever. Such desparate and baselss slings as these are not the kind of fodder one serves when they have a meal of substance to share.

That people are prepared to go through with it and happen to be in positions that determine if it happens, does not make it legitimate if legitimacy is anything other than filling out the right forms when exploiting and abusing a monopoly on force.


All irrelevant. I wonder how your media will react when such extraordinary legal abuses happen in reverse and the first of you gets sent to answer to a foreign power for acts you commited in the US today, and how quickly the furore will die down and it all becomes as common place as the government snooping in your library records "legitimately", illegally tapping your phones, and protecting you from the dangers of "no-fly-listed" toddlers.

I think you will also find, that the UK citizens objections to this whole fiasco do not come down to National Pride, but a deep seated resentment for the way America believes it can do whatever it likes to whoever it likes.

Any government which sets up ILLEGAL prison camps and tortures people imo does not have any authority whatsoever, all it has is guns, but the world is tired of being bullied

And yes of course the UK gov and many others has a large part to play in various things, under the coercion of the US....and now it'll hve to play by the rules of Coorperations aswell! ah what a mess

It occurs to me that a lot of the cost accrued from "damage" caused by Mckinnon will like as not be the over-inflated charges of whatever self-important security company hte US brought in to "fix" said damages. Anybody who has ever had to pay for tech-support knows that feeling. Anyone who has had to hire a mechanic or a builder knows that feeling. The whole case of damage caused rings of scapegoating. "We failed, so we shall blame this man for a whole host of things." And yes, there is a mounting hostility towards America and its self-righteous belief that it can do anything it feels like because it is the centre of human civilisation, or somehow better than everyone else, simply by dint of geographical isolation.

I would advise extending your coverage from an Autism Alert card to some form of wrist-band, in the vein of "medic-alert", because I was carrying a card and by the time officers bothered to look for it I was already two hours in to the arrest situation, and had experienced a multitude of ills that could have been avoided had the arresting officers a) seen the card in good time or b) listened to everyone who told them i was autistic during the arrest (which numbers a good 5 people including myself) and c) followed the training they were so happy to brag about on the NAS website a few months beforehand. A wrist-band is most visible to arresting officers because they are generally interested in restraining you by the wrists, and at least one of the pig-ignorant tossers who arrested me made a great show about snapping off a (non-medical) wristband I was wearing at the time. Quite apart from demonstrating that police training does not extend to untying knots, had it been a medical bracelet i would possibly have been treated correctly a little earlier and thus not subjected to degrading, painful and mostly unintentional torture.

As far as this applies to Mckinnon: I was arrested by officers who are trained to deal with autistic people. They were trained by people I know and work with, and the training itself covers EXACTLY the situation I was in, and the solutions provided in that training are approved by the NHS, the local authority, the National Autistic Society, Social Workers, and the Deputy Chief Constable. The officers who arrested me and the station staff I dealth with subsequently come from the same cultural background and even communicate with the same accent and vernacular as I do. Even with all this training (and you can read about it on the NAS website) I was STILL abused and mistreated, physically assaulted and , for a charge so minor that it is not even considered a "Cautionable" offence.

Now consider that Mckinnon will be transported to a foreign nation, and be dealing with Government officials and penal system staff who are a) hostile to him as a perceived enemy of the state, b) culturally different to him c) linguistically different to him, d) using a legal system that is alien to him e) in a nation with inconsistent and variable standards regarding ASDs f) in a nation that has clear and provable indifference to the standards of international law and the human rights of ANY foreign national of ANY neurological type, which lies on a monumental scale about how it intends to obey tohse laws and rules. I only hope that the various appeals and tribunals will keep Mckinnon off that rendition flight until we experience a change of government to one not so far inserted up the collective american governmental rectum, which is prepared to defend its own citizens with the same vigour it applies to defending the rights of terrorists.

Yeah, it's pretty disgraceful. I was actually involved in diversity training of police officers for a while, which is why this is a bit of a big topic for me. At that time I wasn't teaching them about autism, it was about another topic, but it was clear that whilst 50% of them were interested and concentrating on what I was saying, the other 50% were just there because they had to be, and would be laughing afterwards in the canteen about what a politically correct load of old bollocks "catering" to minorities is.

Another thought occurred to me today. The UK Home Secretary has the power to set "tarriffs" for life sentences in the UK - minimum sentences, effectively. He is regularly criticised for handing down 15 year tarriffs for serious murders. But he's ok to send someone to serve 50-70 overseas for computer hacking. Utterly bonkers.

I'm totally with you, Macbeth, Pandd, and Miszt, on the comments you've made.