Gary McKinnon loses extradition appeal
p2pnet news view P2P | Politics:- ‘Bumbling’ British hacker Gary McKinnon is one very big step closer to being thrown to US computer security wolves.
Pictured on the right with his mother, Janis Sharp, who’s been fighting ceaselessly to prevent US authorities from railroading him, he’s wanted in America for finding his way into military computer systems in his search for classified data on UFOs.
“Gary was accused of hacking into the Pentagon more than seven years ago and the British High-Tech crime unit told him they had been monitoring his computers for six months and as he had caused no damage he would be facing approximately six months community service.” Janis told p2pnet recently, continuing »»»
However the CPS [UK crown prosecutors] decided not to prosecute Gary as they said “it came from the very top that they were told to stand aside and allow America to take Gary”.
Gary was indicted by the US in 2002 and told that he faced 60 years imprisonment =10years per count x 6. It was from this day that our nightmare began.
Gary told me after his arrest in March 2002 that when he did a simple scan for blank passwords that he was shocked to find that there were no passwords and no firewalls on thousands of machines.
We have since discovered that this was the case not for weeks but for years on end.
Now, he’s been refused permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court against his extradition to the US, says the BBC.
However, his lawyers say they may take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, to as the story, adding”
“They argue that extradition of their client would have ‘disastrous consequences’ for his health, including possible psychosis and suicide.”
US claims ‘just don’t ring true’
“This is the world’s super power we’re talking about so it was a shocking revelation that a guy with a 28kb dialup connection and a 486 primitive computer could walk through the US miltary and NASA systems with such ease and for the US military to say that Gary’s intrusion brought them to their knees just doesn’t ring true, especially as Robert Gates from the Pentagon says they have thousands of intrusions every month,” Janis Sharp told p2pnet in July, going on »»»
Gary was on a mission which he describes as a moral crusade, to discover the truth about what be believes was the cover up of information on UFO’s, reverse engineering, Free energy and anti gravity.
While on this mission shocked by the extremely lax security, Gary left cyber notes saying “your security is crap”. When nothing was done to rectify their security, he said he would continue to disrupt by leaving more and more cyber notes until he could alert someone at the highest level to sort out their security but their security remained frighteningly poor and they either didn’t notice or didn’t act on Gary’s cyber warnings.
(Conspiracy Theory) Gary was with me when the towers collapsed. He was shocked and horrified as was the rest of the world and we sat and cried as we watched helpless people jumping from the building to their death.
This troubled Gary deeply and he wondered why no helicopters were sent up to rescue the survivors, he wondered why the third building collapsed on its own without being hit by an aeroplane, and he wondered why, when FAA protocol calls for fighter planes to investigate any civillian plane that strays from its flightpath for 5 mins, that these planes were allowed to be off course for up to 90 minutes (one heading for the Pentagon) and still no fighter jets were sent up to monitor the pilots and passengers as protocol demands.
Coupled with the appalling security, rightly or wrongly Gary began to believe that 911 was an inside job, hence the cyber note he left saying that he believed that it was no accident that there was a stand down after 9/11.
Gary is always quick to point out that 700 architects 300 military people and 200 politicians and half the planet believe the same.
See link: http://patriotsquestion911.com/
Many hackers say that Gary isn’t even a hacker. As one of them said: “You hack into a jungle, you don’t hack your way onto a bowling green”.
Just before the last court appearance, for the first time we got disclosure from the CPS and as we knew all along, the U.S authorities had no evidence whatsoever of the damage they have alleged since 2002. The damage Gary has always denied.
In open court after seeing the disclosure, the Judges said to the prosecution: “If Mr McKinnon is tried in the U.K, do you realise how embarrassing this will be for the CPS” and the prosecution said yes.
The Judges acknowledged that Gary’s crime was significantly less serious than those of other hackers that were accused of hacking into NASA and the American military, both before and after 9/11, including into the Pentagon. Yet they were allowed to be tried in the U.K
I was upset and annoyed as if Gary hadn’t been naive enough to admit to computer misuse without having a lawyer and without one being present, he would not be in the position he’s in today but Gary has Aspergers Syndrome and he is naive.
The US indicted Gary in America in 2002 and had they applied for extradition at that time they would have to have provided evidence of damage in order to extradite Gary but because they had no evidence they cynically waited until June 2005 before applying to extradite.
By then Britain was using a new one sided extradition treaty they had made with America where the U.S no longer had to provide any evidence in order to extradite any U.K citizen. We on the other hand, have to provide evidence/ probable cause, before we can extradite any American.
It’s frightening to realise that it’s easier for America to extradite someone from the U.K than it is for them to extradite someone from New York to California.
Gary has always been naive and young for his age which I now realise is part and parcel of his Aspergers syndrome. A requirement of Aspergers is intelligence and Aspies usually have a heightened sense of Justice. Gary also tells the truth even to his own detriment.
Their passions become obsessions followed through with a single minded tunnel vision that often lands people with Aspergers in trouble.
Gary is a gentle musician, a pacifist and a vegetarian that has never hurt anyone. So to find ourselves in this position was a shock that is virtually impossible to describe.
One of the most heartening things to happen is the incredible support from UFO groups and from people like David Gilmour, Bob Geldof, Chrissie Hynde, Trudie Styler, Sting, etc, plus many MP’s, Lords, the amazing Twitter people from Twitterland, business folk and good caring people.
David Gilmour, Bob Geldof and Chrissie Hynde and Gary recorded the song Chicago/We Can Change The World at my request and the wonderful Graham Nash approved my amended lyrics.
This song is an appeal to Obama for compassion for Gary. We’re asking Obama to join us and to stand up for truth and Justice and to help us change our world for the better.
This weekend was overwhelming as on Saturday just past, Labour MP Andrew Mackinley announced his resignation because he felt that the treatment of Gary by the government was the final straw. He was disillusioned with other Labour MP’s that had sympathised with Gary’s position and had previously voiced support for a change in the extradition treaty, yet allowed themselves to be beaten into mis-shape by the government whip and to thereby sacrifice their beliefs and ideals for the sake of party politics.
It was an incredibe act from a man that felt it important to make a stand and this has earned him huge respect from the British public.
Our life is surreal and feels like a film where no one would believe the script as it is so incredible and so strange.
I feel as though we’re close to the end of our nightmare journey and there’s no doubt that I would rather Gary had never gone on a moral crusade searching for proof of cover ups, as the past seven years of our lives have been a living hell and it’s not quite over yet. I can only hope that it ends with Gary staying here in the land he was born in.
Did Gary McKinnon find evidence of the, “truth he was seeking to uncover?”
He says he did, according to his mother.
But was it worth it?
Stay tuned.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
p2pnet – Gary McKinnon’s mother to Obama: Please Help!, July 28, 2009
BBC – Hacker refused extradition appeal, October 9, 2009
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