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Gary McKinnon’s final day in court
Gary McKinnon’s final court date has been pushed back to the 20th January 2009 (the same day Obama takes office).
Prosecutors say he shut down thousands of machines and caused up to $700,000 worth of damage, while the 42-year-old claims he was searching for evidence of UFOs.
Over the course of the case, defence lawyers argued that McKinnon will face unduly harsh punishment for his actions and should instead face trial in the UK, since the alleged hacking attacks were conducted from a house in north London.
By the time the decision is made, it will be almost seven years since McKinnon ended his activities. During that time a succession of arguments have been made against his removal – including that he faces up to 60 years in prison or detention at Guantánamo Bay, and that he should receive leniency because he suffers from Asperger’s syndrome.
Let’s start from the top, “$700,000 worth of damage”. As far as I’m aware the American government have not produced any evidence to support the amount of damage caused. From what I’ve read so far Gary broke the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (c.18) point 1, “Unauthorised access to computer material” by logging in to American government, Army, NASA and other American institutions by using a windows null administrator password scanner. He may have broke point 2 of the CMA, “Unauthorised access with intent to commit or facilitate commission of further offences” by using the administrator account to gain further access to other machines or services on the networks. He may also have broke point 3 “Unauthorised modification of computer material”, however I’m not aware of the full details. You could argue that he broke point 3 by viewing some of NASA’s pictures, as by doing this he was changing the metadata unknowingly.
He broke the Computer Misuse Act on British soil. In my opinion he should be punished in Britain. Ive heard about a new European cyber crime bill being discussed at the moment regarding liability, in short it means that if you leave your network wide open for attack then you are partly liable. However as far as I’m aware this is still being discussed and wouldn’t affect Gary’s case anyway as it wasn’t about when he committed his crimes.
Its been 7 years since his crimes were committed and he still hasn’t been sentenced. I bet he just wants to get it over and done with by now. If the British government didn’t see a problem with extraditing him then why is the process taking so long? There must be some disagreement at a higher level.
For now we will just have to wait and see what happens on the 20th of Jan and hope that he wins his case to serve his sentence in Britain.
There’s also a demonstration outside the American embassy in London on Friday the 5th of December 2008.
Source: gardian.co.uk
More info: freegary.org.uk
One Response to “Gary McKinnon’s final day in court”
1337speak said...
Unfortunately I have to disagree with the opinion on prosecution, as we know if someone penetrates a systems in the UK from another country, a request can be put in for their extradition to the UK, and I am guessing American law works the same, he penetrated an American Government system and therefore should be hell to American law, and even possibly British law, however as much as I think that Guantánamo Bay is a little over the top he is not a terrorist or high risk criminal, I mean lets face it if he were he would have made it harder to be traced and not engaged in conversation with someone with a text-editor. 60 Years is also a little steep but if that’s American law then so be it, we are all or should be aware of any laws our actions could breach, and their penalties.