So Gary Mackinnon has lost his latest appeal case and, I'm sorry, but what a fucking shambles our political and judicial process has become that barely anyone that counts is standing up for this guy. The US are embarrassed that someone waltzed into their security systems so they're going to rake him over hot coals and chain him up till kingdom come. Not in my name but seemingly in Gordon Brown's. And plenty of others too.
I had initially hoped that Alan Johnson would ride into the Home Secretary position on his big white horse and on day 1 proclaim he was riding on to Gary's rescue. Instead he did some tiresome flip-flopping on ID cards. Another great political hope cuts a drab figure of nothingness where once a common sense, likeable chap once stood.
Not that Alan Johnson should alone take the blame for the UK's distinct lack of trousers on this issue. A mere ten Labour MPs voted in favour of a review of the 2003 Extradition Treaty that is so lop-sided that it's in danger of being found awkwardly slumped alongside Blackpool Tower.
74 Labour MPs have signed petitions concerned with Gary MacKinnon's plight in the hope that the public sympathy for the computer hacker may rub off on their dwindling electoral fortunes. But when push came to shove, 64 of them went missing (names, I want names!). Perhaps whipped into voting along party lines, perhaps they forgot their bollocks that day, it doesn't really matter. It's been a particularly pathetic showing for a group that really have deteriorated on that score month after month, year after year, for as long as I care to remember.
Even David Cameron shouldn't be spared the wrath. Has DC really taken a stand with his comments today? Is he reacting to the news with half a mind on May 2010 or honestly trying to push for the right thing? I am sure it will be cold comfort to Gary that the Prime Minister once thought of him "a vulnerable young man" and there was "no compassion in sending him thousands of miles away from his home and loved ones to face trial" when the hacker is banged up in a US jail for the rest of his life.
David Cameron jumped onboard the Gurkha bandwagon and he's sure as hell not going to miss the Gary MacKinnon one before it leaves the station for Texas.
So is this what politics has come to now? Our politicians pussyfooting around while we wating for the next Joanna Lumley to come along and spell out to our leaders what is right and what is wrong? Did anyone take heed of Andrew McKinlay's honourable resignation on this very matter? Or are our MPs' career calculations just getting in the way of taking the hard road and speaking up?
The UK glances in America's direction and pisses its pants every single time.
Shameful, utterly shameful.
(The Free Gary campaign site is here - http://freegary.org.uk/)
10 comments:
I don't understand much why it is a big deal? In fact, it reminds me to a large extent of the whole natwest bankers thing a couple of years back.
You remember that - they committed fraud to the tune of millions, the US started extradition proceedings, and before you know it they were being interviewed on mornign television with surrounded by their loving family, and wheeling out menzies campbell to defend them while showing no remorse for what they did.
They also played up the evils of US incarceration, trumpeting supposedly huge jail times over there, conjuring up images of them being dragged into court in chains and orange jump suits.
It was a load of nonsense and they wound up getitng a couple of years in a nice white collar prison.
In this guy's case it is the same crap. He broke the law, and sahould pay the consequences. And the US justice system is much like our own in that it recognises alleviating circumstances like having aspergers.
Going on about how he will supposedly be locked up for 70 years is rubbish, His time won't be significantly different to what he would get here, and well done to the FBI and US authorities and for doing their jobs and bringing him to justice.
Can't help but feel his defenders are being played for mugs - as with the natwest bankers, it is easy to find some anti-american "useful idiots".
I should probably check my comments for typos before posting in future, so I seem like slightly less of an internet raving loony.
Unfortunately this was inevitable. The law is absolutely clear on this - if the US make an extradition request which alleges that one of their criminal laws has been broken, then the UK has to comply. They don't have to show evidence.
This would be fine if it were not for the US penchant for extraterritorial legislation ie criminalising behaviour by non-US citizens outside the US. This creates serious problems of natural justice - unless you are aware of every crime in the criminal code of every US state, then you have no certainly that your conduct isn't illegal.
Example - you launch a poker website from your Edinburgh base. Legal here in Scotland. An American logs on. Provision of online poker not legal in America(which you may or may not know - do you have to check the criminal law of every country in the world?). You have committed a crime in America - whether or not you know it. If they ask for you to be extradited, start preparing to wear that orange jumpsuit!
The solution is for there to be a law which states that you cannot be extradited for allegedly criminal conduct unless the conduct is also criminal here. Many other countries impose this rule and there's no reason why we shouldn't. It would be much fairer.
Having said that, I have limited sympathy for McKinnon. What did he think was going to happen? The equivalent conduct here would also be a crime. Hopefully a US court will show leniency if it is indeed the case that he has mental health issues.
CC
Vavatch doesn't understand why a UK citizen shouldn't be extradited to a foreign state to face trial for an offence alledgedly commited in this country but which didn't exist in this country. Ever read any Kafka? It probably wouldn't make much sense to you I suppose.
MacKinnon was easily tracked down because he used his own email address, not exactly the act of someone attempting criminal activity! He has done the Americans an enormous favour highlighting their security inadequacies using easily obtainable tools and a PC in his London Bedroom. Think of the consequences had a more nefarious group managed the same attacks?
The people at fault here are those responsible for the security of the American military networks which left it vulnerable to being hacked.
For successive UK Home secretaries to show willing to extradite this poor guy who was not committing an offence known in the UK is heartily sickening! For the courts to rule that it would be too difficult to assess the evidence against him because it might contain information the Americans think is sensitive is ridiculous.
He's a British citizen, all evidence against him should be presented to a British court and judged according to British law.
The location of the crime is a bit of a philosophical matter given that it took place on US territory even tho the perpetrator was in the UK.
Perhaps we should apply Jim's standards to other criminals. The robber was doing the old age pensioner a favour by showing to her the lack of security in her home.. lets give him a state medal, and be damned with logic or justice. Something like that kafkaesque enough for you Jim?
vavatch you have a strange point of view. This man was not a bank thief. He is a man who, to put it in a non pc way, is not exactly the full shilling; but has a talent for computer hacking. He did at the point he hacked in pose no risk, he poses no risk now. He is not a dangerous individual, he is not a risk. He was not, for example, an agent of al Quaeda, but has helpfully, if not deliberately, pointed out to the Americans that he could have been.
I think it's worth pointing out that if our American cousins are so concerned about computer hacking they shouldn't have a computer system that you can hack into, from what I understand was his Auntie's bedroom pc, correct me if I am wrong.
This unfortunate man appears to be about to be sacrificed, in the face of all natural justice, to preserve the special relationship. Which relationship appears to be pretty one way to me.
Completely agree with you, Jeff. This US UK Extradition Treaty is a complete farce. Have you read what Mark has had to say on the subject - http://markreckons.blogspot.com/2009/07/gary-mckinnons-extradition-would-be.html
We have been talking about this for some time - before the Daily Mail took it up.
http://chrishuhne.org.uk/news/000710/gary_mckinnon_should_be_tried_in_a_british_court__huhne.html
The Government can't have it both ways - it needs to actively do something about this ridiculous treaty before even more vulnerable people are caught up in it, and they could be much more helpful to Gary Mackinnon.
He will be given a nice job in the US hacking for them. He will write a book and retire to Florida, happy days.
"He is a man who, to put it in a non pc way, is not exactly the full shilling; but has a talent for computer hacking."
He doesn't have a talent for computer hacking. He "hacked" the Pentagonusing exceptionally dumb, brute-force methods, akin to trying to log on to every pc without a password.
And he doesn't have Aspergers. We're very fond of saying people have aspergers (and certainly Gary's mum is), when actually they're at the very lightest end of the Aspergers spectrum, and are more or less no different to you or me. If he really did have Aspergers, then he wouldn't be able to look after himself properly, and yet he lived independently.
He committed a crime.
He must do the time.
And his mum's a liar.
I see, vavatch, you would like to equate looking at files on a computer system with robbing an old age pensioner. Rock solid thinking!
You've already branded him a criminal without the formality of the trial, by UK standards - which he can't have in any case because the British authorities don't think he's actually committed a crime and don't even really understand what it is the Americans are accusing him of - because the Americans won't give us access to the evidence.
It's certainly got all the makings of Kafka plot.
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