Gary McKinnon, the British hacker who has admitted to hacking into Pentagon and Nasa systems to search for evidence of UFOs, has today lost his legal battle in the High Court against extradition to the United States.
McKinnon is reportedly facing up to 60 years in jail in the US after he was indicted in late 2002 for hacking into military computers between February 2001 and March 2002. The US alleged his hacking caused it to shut down critical systems and networks in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and caused damages of approximately £435,000.
In July 2006 the British government agreed that McKinnon would be extradited to the United States, but McKinnon and his family launched a determined and lengthy legal battle to keep him in the UK. His campaign has even managed to enlist the support of a number of Members of Parliament (MPs) and celebrities such as Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour and Sting.
Despite this support, in July this year McKinnon lost a High Court appeal against extradition to the US, despite his diagnosis with the neurological disorder Asperger Syndrome. And in a further blow today, the High Court has now ruled that McKinnon cannot appeal against his extradition to be tried in the US.
The only legal option now open to McKinnon is to try and take his case to the European Court of Human Rights. But this seems a faint hope considering the European Court refused to stop his extradition back in August 2008.
McKinnon’s legal team apparently has two weeks to consider its options.
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What absolute arrent nonsense to even consider that gary McKinnon is some kind of Cyber terrorist out to destroy the US and it's secret Pentagon files. There is no evidence or reason why or how he is supposed to have created 1/2 $million of damage, he was simply snooping not inserting some nasty programme. Yes, he may have been stupid doing what he did but how stupid is the Pentagon to have left such wide open doors to their system? In fact, it's almost unbelievable that they should have left access to such "sensitive" files without a password? Maybe it was some sort of "honey trap" so that they could see just who might be interested in their dirty little secrets (secrets incidentally that could save the world considerably more than 1/2 $million, and in fact could save the planet from global warming!!). Why is this government so eager to allow this extradition to take place? Perhaps they have dirty little secrets too that they would rather not have aired in this country through our judicial system. Alan Johnston and his cronies aought to be ashamed of themselves. When the real truth finally comes out some of us will remember this decision.