McKinnon to be extradited to the US

Gary McKinnon has lost his plea to the House of Lords to prevent his extradition to the US. The 42-year-old may face at least 10 years behind bars. US officials accuse him of stealing 950 passwords and deleting documents. His crime may be treated as an act of terrorism. McKinnon was arrested in the UK in 2002 but not charged.

Currently unemployed, he is said to have broken into nearly 100 computers used by the US Army, Air Force, Marines, the Pentagon and NASA from his flat in London. In their judgment, the court states that McKinnon was able to search through 73,000 computers used by the authorities. Because he deleted critical data on nine computers, the network used by the military in Washington had to shut down 2000 computers for 24 hours. Overall, McKinnon allegedly caused $700,000 in damages.

McKinnon has admitted to hacking the computers, but he says he is merely a computer enthusiast looking for information about UFOs. His lawyers say he is neither a terrorist nor a terrorist sympathiser. They have announced that they will be appealing the ruling to the European Court of Human Rights.

The defence says that McKinnon was merely acting out of curiosity and was only able to hack the computers because security measures were so lax. They argue that the consequences of extradition would be disproportionate because the defendant faces around three or four years of imprisonment if he works with officials and 10 or more years if he refuses to do so. They charge that such penalties conflict with English law. The judges disagreed, arguing that similar penalties are not unknown in the UK.

(trk)