UPDATES/CITIZEN ACTION
http://freegary.org.uk/
NEWS UPDATE August 12, 2008
http://itn.co.uk/news/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
"Hacker wins extradition delay"
all time" has won a two-week delay on his extradition to the US.
Gary
McKinnon, an unemployed 42-year-old, lost his House of Lords appeal
against the extradition last month and faces up to 70 years in prison
if convicted in the US of sabotaging vital defence systems.
But his solicitors announced he had won a stay until August 28 by the European Court of Human Rights.
A
brief statement said he has been granted "interim relief" until that
date "for his application to be heard before the full chamber".
The
House of Lords rejected a plea by McKinnon, who was never charged in
Britain after admitting accessing 97 US military and Nasa computers, to
quash an extradition request granted to the US authorities in 2006.
Lawyers
for McKinnon pointed out that he could be sent to Guantanamo Bay as a
terrorist suspect – despite his insistence that he accessed Pentagon
computers looking for information about UFOs.
From the bedroom of
his girlfriend’s aunt’s house in north London, he hacked into 97
American military computers at the Pentagon and Nasa between 2001 and
2002.
McKinnon never denied that he wandered around the computer networks of a wide number of US military institutions.
But
he has always maintained that he was motivated by curiosity and that he
managed to get into the networks only because of lax security.
US authorities claim he stole 950 passwords and deleted files at Earle Naval Weapons Station in New Jersey.
He was also charged with hacking into 16 Nasa computers and one US Defence Department computer.
McKinnon
said he was motivated by curiosity and was looking for evidence that
the US government had information on UFOs. He described his exploits as
"ridiculously" easy.
On August 28 the full chamber of the European
Court of Human Rights will hear McKinnon’s application to halt his
extradition, when it will be argued that his human rights will be
infringed if he is sent to the US.
© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.
Defence hacker was ‘looking for aliens’
July 31, 2008 08:21am
Gary McKinnon was arrested in 2002 after US prosecutors charged
him with illegally accessing computers, including the Pentagon, US
army, navy and NASA systems, and causing $US700,000 ($741,240) worth of
damage.
In
2006, Mr McKinnon said he was just a computer nerd who wanted to find
out whether aliens really existed and became obsessed with trawling
large military networks for proof.
However, Britain’s highest
court, the House of Lords, ruled that the gravity of the charges should
not be understated and they would carry a maximum life sentence under
English law. It turned down his appeal against extradition.
Mr
McKinnon’s lawyers had argued that sending him to the US would breach
his human rights, be an abuse of the English court process and should
be barred as his extradition was sought "for the purpose of prosecuting
him on account of his nationality or political opinions".
A
district court ruled in May 2006 that he should be extradited, a
decision upheld at London’s High Court in April 2007. But in October
three of Britain’s top judges gave McKinnon permission to take his case
to the House of Lords.
If found guilty in the US, Mr McKinnon could face up to 70 years in prison and fines of up to $US1.75 million.
Using
his own computer at home in London, Mr McKinnon hacked into 97
computers belonging to and used by the US Government between February
2001 and March 2002.
Mr McKinnon is accused of causing the
entire US Army’s Military District of Washington network of more than
2000 computers to be shut down for 24 hours.
Using a limited
56K dial-up modem and the hacking name "Solo" he found many US security
systems used an insecure Microsoft Windows program with no password
protection.
He then bought off-the-shelf software and scanned
military networks, saying he found expert testimonies from senior
figures reporting that technology obtained from extra-terrestrials did
exist.
At the time of his indictment, Paul McNulty, US Attorney
for the Eastern District of Virginia, said: "Mr McKinnon is charged
with the biggest military computer hack of all time".
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24104448-23109,00.html
From Exopolitics UK (PUBLIC POST):
Hi there
Yes – we’ve been running various awareness campaigns
since Gary’s case escalated to the point of the extradition demands.
More recently we distributed template letters people could send in to
the Uk Parliament, MPs and finally the Law Lords direct office at the
Houses of Parliament.
Current BBC article and video on today’s ruling: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7533221.stm
With
regards a current campaign – we are waiting to see what effect
something like this will have given today’s outcome. The current
situation is that Gary and his legal team can apply to the European
Court of Human Rights to stop the process based on several elements
that make the process rushed, unsafe and unfair. However – as I’ve
written elsewhere we have a significant problem due to the nature of
Gary’s "crime" which means that the usual left-wing/liberal
organisations that come to the aid of *other* cases won’t put their
head above the proverbial parapet and join Gary for support.
On top of this – the clever association of Gary’s truth seeking
[which is what it was] to both "hacking" and "cyber-terrorism" by the
embarrassed U.S. and transnational M.I.C. has meant that even people
within the UFO/exopolitics field have buckled and, in my view, failed
to respond to offer significant support where it was due and deserved.
What we essentially have summerised in the McKinnon case is a
real-world example of what happens when someone attempts something
tangiable in the search for disclosure and truth with regards the UFO
phenomena and free energy systems. It’s all very well having a
blinkered, optimistic idea of how to push things forward to a new world
and new paradigm but this cannot happen without casualities along the
way – it’s the nature of the beast we’re collectively tackling.
It’s sad that when someone needed a full-on response from a [not
insignifiant] UFO/Exopolitics community it did not happen. Seeing this
take place has made me doubtful that this field has the ability to deal
with some of the harsher incidents that will occur as we continue to
push for a more open, ethical system with regards energy and off-planet
communication. It’s all very well asking us to smile and embrace the
coming disclosure but this will be a tainted new world post-disclosure
if we don’t support those that fall along the wayside through no real
fault of their own.
davID
Exopolitics UK
http://www.exopolitics.org.uk/news/2008/truth-seeker-to-be-extradited-to-usa/
EXOPOLITICS RADIO has scheduled a special commentary on the Gary McKinnon case to be released at
8 PM PDT on Saturday August 2, 2008, analyzing a linkage between the prosecutorial role of U.S. Naval Intelligence in the McKinnon case and the role of U.S. Naval Intelligence in the unfolding 2008 Stephenville Disclosure Management Ops. You can listen to this program at:
http://www.exopoliticsradio.com
Thank you.
VIEW/COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE:
http://exopolitics.blogs.com/exopolitics/2008/07/breaking-news-1.html
—
Government ortganisations protecting our security have a moral right to keep their data secret. As a science fiction writer, I was once officially requested to modify one of my books which inadvertently contained information that I considered to be science fantasy, but was, in fact,too close to the truth for comfort. Some instances which I can mention as they are no longer classified include the codes at Bletchley, The fact that “stargate” technology exists and is being researched, and new materials being developed by changing quark properties enabling anti-matter to be created and stored. Things are happening out there which you and I could only dream of in our wildest fantasies. They are kept secret for good reasons. I hope McKinnon is not dealt with too harshly, as it seems he is naive rather than wicked. But I don’t sympathise with him. I hope others pay heed and keep out of defence data-bases. We do not, and should not, have the right to know everything.
What exactly was it that costs $700k to repair? Perhaps they had to spend that on fixing the gaping security holes that he exploited. I heard his story, the machines didn’t even have passwords! Stupid government blaming others for their own fuckups.