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From the BBC:
‘Drop Hacker Case’ - Terry Waite
Human rights campaigner and former hostage Terry Waite has called on the US to drop charges against British computer hacker Gary McKinnon.
Glasgow-born Mr McKinnon, 42, from Wood Green, north London, faces up to 70 years in prison if found guilty in the US of breaking into military computers.
He has Asperger’s Syndrome and claims he was looking for details of UFOs.
Mr Waite, a hostage in Lebanon for four years, called the motives “harmless” and said “common sense” was needed.
He said the Pentagon ought to thank the self-confessed hacker for “exposing” the vulnerability of its computer security.
Mr Waite said Mr McKinnon’s illness, a form of autism, made him “irrationally obsessive” and added that it was a waste of time to pursue him.
And here’s the rest of the post…
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Mar 17 2009 
March 17th, 2009 at 8:14 am
“The US government says this caused damage costing $800,000 (£550,000) at a time of heightened security in the wake of the 11 September 2001 terror attacks.”
I don’t have Asperger’s (my social inadequacy must be explained in a different manner) so I don’t have photographic memory… however, is it me, or has the damage cost been scaled down? I seem to recall the US Government had claimed damages for millions of dollars. Now it’s just 800,000 bucks?
A life sentence for less than a mill? What will they give to Bernie Madoff, the electric chair while injecting him poison on both his arms, and after that they’ll hang him and have a firing squad shoot his body… with a cannon??
March 17th, 2009 at 8:28 am
One presumes that the intelligence services have totally checked Gary Mckinnon’s background by now and if he poses any further threat to the National Security of US? So the question that remains now, is this just a show trial to demonstrate the consequences to any would be computer hacker? or is the real object of the exercise to extradite him and then really take him to bits to see if he did glean any sensitive information during his online activities (UFO related or otherwise)?
March 17th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Stefanos, I think the original intent was to make Gary an example to any would-be hacker toying with the idea of penetrating into the US Security systems—it had more to do with 9-11 than the X-Files if you ask me— but as time has gone by it has turned into something of an embarrassment for all the attention the case has received; however, so much time and resources have been wasted in the process that IMO it has crossed beyond the point of no return; not even if under the current new Administration they were people willing to turn the page.
My guess is that McKinnon will be extradited in the end. But he won’t be serving 70 years or any other ridiculous sentence. Maybe 10 years or less, and he will go out sooner due to good conduct. And he won’t go to Guantanamo, for obvious reasons—maybe a minimum security prison.
But it is very likely Gary will suffer some prison time. It is sad, but the idea that “No nation under the sun ought to convict an individual whose behaviour is occasioned by illness” remains highly idealistic
March 17th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Asperger’s does not make one “irrationally obsessive”, Asperger’s only makes one tend to be more obsessive (or focused). The “irrational” part sounds like the beginning of a lame excuse. What Gary did was rationally contrived and he had perfect control over his actions. In fact, people with Autism are more rational than “normal” people (See http://www.physorg.com/news143283897.html).
As for the “damage” done, the Government is playing a game by not telling us specifically what that “damage” was (and hopes never will have to) — all in the phony name of secrecy. Of course, there are people that are trying to change that by forcing the government to put timelines for when secrets expire. Afterall, it is the we the people’s government, not the government for the politicians, of the politicians, and by the politicians (or military or NASA or the Pentagon). That means someday we might see what kind of criminals are actually running our country and just wanted to punish Gary for the sake of their egos, just as President Johnson did during the Vietnam War.
The real people that should be punished are the people who left us so vulnerable, that a five year old could hack into NASA, the military, and the government. This isn’t the first time this has happened either, so that leaves them with no excuse. So who is in charge of all that computer security at NASA, the Navy, DOD, Pentagon, and so on, the kind of security that is supposed to be protecting our country from valuable information compromises? I want to see names and then let’s put those people in prison for 80 years for neglecting their duty and allowing the enemy free reign of our woefully unprotected military and space technology computers. That would be justice served, would it not?
“You talk of times of peace for all, and then prepare for war” (WANK, 1989)
March 17th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
what do you guys think about his UFO-related claims?
1. He saw a photo of s large cigar shaped craft with a dome off it in orbit around a planet that looks like Earth.
2. He saw a file called “Off planet personnel”(or something). The implication being we have a military ship or space station in space somewhere, with further implication being we (The US) have a secret space program.
3. There was one more thing. Cant remember
Anyway, I dont believe him unfortunately. I emailed Tim Good with my concerns (Good is a big supporter of him) and he thinks that his aspergers is to blame. Basically I said that the way he presents his story and describes what he saw, I just dont find convincing.
I think he might have made it up to make it look like the whole thing wasnt for naught.
March 18th, 2009 at 3:25 am
1. He’s the only one who saw the photo, and he didn’t make a copy.
2. “Off planet” personnel could mean a lot of things in the military jargon. The US has several official “Off planet” personnel as we speak: they are the crew of the Discovery shuttle. Bottom line is that we are guessing here.
Who knows, maybe he was on the right track. The most shocking thing about Gary’s story is that one would assume all those secrets concerning the alleged military cover-up of the alien presence would be kept under the most incredible and inexcrutable security systems known to man; that opening those computer files without the proper authorization would result in a laser beam coming out of your screen that burned your eyes, or poisonous fumes seeping out of your PC’s vent! Instead we have this second-rate junkie hacker who managed to fool every one going through the ‘front door’ as we might say, and finding the door was unlocked and partially open!
It’s so outrageous that it has an overtone of plausibility. I mean, who would have thought 10 years ago that the US would be brought to its knees by couple of fanatics using nothing but knives to hijack an airplane?
March 18th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Well who knows what really happened with 911. As with McKinnon, we have to take their word for it.
March 19th, 2009 at 5:42 am
Speaking of Asperger’s — as part of the Autisim Spectrum Disorder — it’s diagnosed by behavior which is not only contextual but also cultural. So a classic example is Bill Gates supposedly being autistic because he doesn’t make proper eye contact yet in many cultures it’s considered a threatening gesture to make direct eye contact.
That digression is reinforced by last night’s coasttocoast guest — author of a new UFO book that Nick plugged on this blog a couple months ago — John Michael Greer. I was totally amazed that Greer had the same angle as Redfern and Bishop — citing Keel and Vallee — and Greer emphasized the strong role of military disinformation in promoting an extraterrestrial invasion. Noory was freaking out and amazingly Greer was “abducted” for the last hour of the show. I’ve been listening to coasttocoast regularly for the past couple months and never has a guest just disappeared during the last hour. Noory kept asking Greer — are you sure there are NO extraterrestrial space-craft? Greer would respond “we’ll we can never prove a negative” and Noory would get noticeably upset. haha. I mean his neurons were locking up.
So I start digging up Greer on the internet and Greer has an article online saying up till the age of 30 he was struggling with Asperger’s Syndrome. I’m highly critical of psychiatry especially considering its use for political control and mind control experiments — MKULTRA and prison experiments, etc. The CIA uses psychiatry for satanic sex sadism — I’m being crude here — but there’s been enough research on this stuff that labelling people with diseases is often political. Consider Iris Chang who was murdered yet is now labeled as bipolar and suicidal. Nevertheless she was getting death threats and should have had “mental” issues after investigating the most gruesome rape slaughter sadistic blood bath in human history.
March 19th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Speaking of Asperger’s — as part of the Autisim Spectrum Disorder — it’s diagnosed by behavior which is not only contextual but also cultural. So a classic example is Bill Gates supposedly being autistic because he doesn’t make proper eye contact yet in many cultures it’s considered a threatening gesture to make direct eye contact.
That’s a good point, Drew. I would reckon that for a European of the XVIIth century, all of us would seem cold and detached in our behavior. Maybe in the XXIIIth century someone like Gary would be qualified as a people’s person!
March 19th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Avoiding eye contact is not a conclusive diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s. Shy people have this same characteristic but that doesn’t mean all shy people have Asperger’s. Asperger’s is also not determined by culture or by context, it is a range of symptoms that are independent of culture or context.
One of the characteristics of Asperger’s is a very high IQ, and Gary McKinnon does not display anything other then an average IQ. Case in point: his foray into the hacking world was entirely by accident and not by skill (Gary accidentally came across an unprotected computer that had access to other unprotected computers), anyone that knows anything at all about computer data knows to always make backups (Gary had only one copy of his booty and that was taken when he was raided), and any beginning hacker knows that if you hit the jackpot, you share at least some of your most important data so that (1) people know you aren’t bluffing, and (2) your reputation is enhanced (not to mention there will be electronic copies of some of your discoveries out on the Internet).
Asperger’s does not fit Gary’s behavior so it is irrelevant but it is a good example of how pseudoscience can permeate the Internet and no one even notices.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:52 am
Who has the low I.Q.?
Race, Racism, and Science: Social Impact and Interaction -
by John P. Jackson, Nadine M. Weidman - 2004 - Science - 403 pages
For his dissertation research, Klineberg administered IQ tests to Yakima Indian children, … Klineberg argued that “speed” was a relative, cultural notion, …
March 21st, 2009 at 5:13 pm
If you wanted to know what Asperger’s is and how it is diagnosed, why would you read a book on racism instead of a book on abnormal psychology? That isn’t logical and is psuedoscientific (since it is knowledge of one topic misapplied to another).
As for the IQ aspect, people with Asperger’s are never described in terms of “speed”, but rather they are described as “geniuses” or “little professors”. Now notice what Gary’s mother said about him: “He’s not a genius. He good, but he’s not the bestâ€. Those are not the kind of words that would describe someone with Asperger’s. If you want to see what a person with Asperger’s really looks and acts like, try http://www.rogernmeyer.com/Hubert_Cross/Asperger%27s_Syndrome_and_Making_Sense_July_2002.htm#AA5. Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton are two other examples.
Clearly Gary is not a typical example of what someone with Asperger’s looks or acts like. Gary played the role of a “ScriptKiddie”, not as a genius hacker. Anybody who can follow simple instructions can be a ScriptKiddie. So who writes those scripts that others like Gary follow? Real hackers who actually know how networks function and are constructed, things like how routers, switches, and the TCP/IP stack work. Things that Gary knows nothing about.
So with that aside, what really is important here is not Gary’s apparent incompetence at hacking, but the Government’s apparent incompetence at making a case against someone. The case being made against Gary is as stupid as the case made for going to war against Iraq. For one thing, that story kept changing — and changing stories is always a red flag that someone is making things up as they go along. Remember how we needed to go to war because we didn’t want “the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud” and then it was ice cream trucks mistaken for mobile bioweapons labs, and finally it became because “the Iraqi people want us to free them for democracy” — all of which turned out to be complete fabrications or nonsense. Yet here they are, at it again in Gary’s case. First they accused him of causing $1,000,000,000 in damage one day, then the next day it was only $800,000. If I were British and had some common logical sense, I would have, right then and there, called an end to the extradition proceedings and demanded to see the evidence of any alleged crimes. If Gary is going to be a fall guy and an example made of him, I would expect the USA to get their act together and show us what Gary specifically did that was so bad, otherwise the world could get the impression that the USA is, once again, mistaking an ice cream truck for an imaginary mobile bioweapons lab.
June 10th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
hacking…
You have got to be kidding!…