Gary McKinnon

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Gary McKinnon

Gary McKinnon, also known as Solo (born in Glasgow in 1966), is a British hacker facing extradition to the United States to face charges of perpetrating the "biggest military computer hack of all time." Following legal hearings in the UK it was decided in July 2006 that he should be to extradited to the US. In February 2007 his lawyers argued against the ruling in an appeal to the High Court in London, which was turned down on April 3. On July 31, 2007 the House of Lords agreed to hear the appeal and on June 17, 2008 the Law Lords began hearing the case. This Judgement was delivered on July 30, 2008 with the Law Lords judging that Gary McKinnon could be extradited to the United States. He was given two weeks to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights before extradition, but the Court has halted the extradition for an additional two weeks to allow time to hear his appeal on August 28.

Appeal

McKinnon's lawyer, David Pannick, Queen's Counsel, argued that McKinnon faced 8–10 years per count in jail if he contested the charges (there are seven counts) but only 37–46 months if he had cooperated and gone voluntarily to the US. Gary McKinnon had rejected the plea bargain as no guarantee was given by the Americans. His QC said that the Law Lords could deny extradition if there was an abuse of process: "If the United States wish to use the processes of English courts to secure the extradition of an alleged offender, then they must play by our rules."

The lead opinion, which the other four Law Lords agreed with, was written by Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, who served until last year as the Intelligence Services Commissioner. McKinnon will now appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

Background

The systems administrator is accused of hacking into 97 United States military and NASA computers in 2001 and 2002. The computer networks he is accused of hacking include networks owned by NASA, the US Army, US Navy, Department of Defense, and the US Air Force. The US estimates claim the costs of tracking and correcting the problems he allegedly caused were around $700,000 but he has always denied causing any damage and disputes the financial loss claimed by the US. He did admit leaving a note on one computer:

US foreign policy is akin to government-sponsored terrorism these days... It was not a mistake that there was a huge security stand-down on September 11 last year... I am SOLO. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels.

McKinnon was originally tracked down and arrested under the Computer Misuse Act by the UK National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) in 2002 who informed him that he would face community service. The Crown Prosecution Service refused to charge him. Later that year he was indicted by the United States government. McKinnon remained at liberty without restriction for three years until June 2005 (after the UK had implemented a new extradition treaty with the US) when he became subject to bail conditions including a requirement to sign in at his local police station every evening, and to remain at his home address at night. In addition he was banned from using a computer with access to the Internet. There have been no more developments in respect of the charges relating to United Kingdom legislation but in late 2005 the United States began extradition proceedings.

If he is extradited to the US and charged, McKinnon faces up to 70 years in jail and has expressed fears that he could be sent to Guantanamo Bay. He has said that he will contest the extradition proceedings and believes that he should face trial in the UK, principally as he argues that any alleged crimes were committed there and not in the United States.

Statements to the media

During the length of time between his indictment and beginning of extradition proceedings, with a growing media interest in his case, Gary McKinnon has had a number of opportunities to address the media.

In an interview televised on the BBC's Click programme, he claimed that he was able to get into the military's networks simply by using a Perl script that searched for blank passwords; in other words his report suggests that there were computers on these networks with the default passwords active.

At the Infosecurity Europe 2006 conference in London on April 27, 2006, McKinnon appeared on the Hackers' Panel. When asked how his exploits were first discovered, McKinnon answered that he had miscalculated the timezone — he was using remote-control software to operate a Windows computer while its user was sitting in front of it.

McKinnon has admitted in many public statements to unauthorised access of computer systems in the United States including those mentioned in the United States indictment. He claims his motivation, drawn from a statement made before the Washington Press Club on May 9, 2001 by the "The Disclosure Project", was to find evidence of UFOs, antigravity technology, and the government suppression of "Free Energy", all of which he claims to have proven through his actions.

In his interview with the BBC he also claimed that "The Disclosure Project" says there is "extra-terrestrial in origin and [they've] captured spacecraft and reverse engineered it." He also claimed to have downloaded a low-resolution image of "something not man-made" and "cigar shaped" floating above the northern hemisphere. He said that unfortunately he did not manage to get a screenshot or recording of the image because he was "bedazzled" to see the image, could not remember the capture function in the software RemotelyAnywhere, and that he was "cut off" from his connection. It is also stated in a YouTube interview that McKinnon could not possibly have downloaded the images due to their size, as he was on a dial-up modem.

The charge that he perpetrated "the biggest military hack of all time" is disputed by McKinnon who characterises himself as a "bumbling computer nerd". He refers to previous documented incidents of cracking including May 2001 when as acknowledged by U.S. government contractor Exigent International one or more hackers broke into a U.S government server storing satellite software and stole code. Evidence led investigators to an e-mail service in Sweden but the culprits were never apprehended. In 1997, two California teenagers and a trio of Israeli hackers were arrested for cracking into Pentagon servers. Israeli hacker Ehud Tenenbaum, then 18 years old, and his two teenage accomplices were not extradited, but were prosecuted by local authorities. McKinnon has also claimed that on many occasions he noticed other crackers unlawfully entering the same systems and suggests that his activities were not unique. The U.S. Pentagon has for example in the past cited as many as 250,000 attacks in a single year.

NASA documents

In 2006, a Freedom of Information Act request was filed to NASA for all documents pertaining to Gary McKinnon. NASA's documents consisted of printed news articles from the Slashdot website, but no other related documents. This is consistent with NASA employees browsing internet articles about Gary McKinnon, the records of which are public domain.

The records have been uploaded to the internet for review, and can be downloaded from theblackvault.com.

Radio play

On December 12, 2007, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 45 minute radio play about the case, The McKinnon Extradition by John Fletcher.

External links

• 'Free Gary' support website
• Facing 60 years in US prison after hacking into Pentagon
• Profile BBC News - lost his appeal in the UK's House of Lords 30 Jul 2008