When justice is a one-way street
There is an air of farce about the extradition of Gary McKinnon to the US, and not just because the one-time hacker is also a UFO believer.
For a start, the case has been painfully slow to unfold. Four years ago, between 1 February, 2002 and the 22 February, 2002, McKinnon hacked into computers at various defence and government sites in the US. McKinnon claims to have been merely looking around, mainly for evidence of a US alien cover-up; American authorities claim he actually damaged more than 20 US sites that totalled $700,000. Exactly what this damage was and how it came to cost so much money has never been explained.
Soon after illegally accessing the US systems, McKinnon was arrested by the UK authorities and then released. He has never been charged under UK law, although he has been denied the use of a computer pending any action taken by the US.
Last year, the US formally moved to have McKinnon extradited. In May he had a hearing before a judge who later found no reason to block McKinnnon's transfer to the US. At no time did the judge talk about any evidence against him, it was enough that the US Government believed that McKinnon has a case to answer.
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At the time of the hearing the judge made it absolutely clear that, under the terms of the Extradition Treaty of 2003, there is no requirement for the US to produce any evidence other than this bald statement — damage has been done, we say so.
Commenting on a separate extraditon case involving three NatWest banking workers caught up in the Enron scandal, the MP Boris Johnson pointed out that the passage of the US/UK extradition act is entirely one way. No US citizen can be extradited to the UK under the act. Why? One reason put forward is that the US did not want to see IRA suspects being extradited from America to Britain.
The US will not ratify an act which will nevertheless be responsible for removing Gary McKinnon from home and family, for "crimes" of damage for which the US has produced no evidence. McKinnon's crime, if it was a crime, was to show how ludicrously easy it was to break into the heart of the supposedly secure US Defence network.
McKinnon did wrong and deserves to be tried for his crimes under UK Law. If US authorities are so eager to seek retribution on their own soil, they would do well to haul forth whoever was responsible for creating systems that could be cracked by an unemployed UFO enthusiast from Wood Green.