Gary McKinnon- Computer Hacker

Gary McKinnon is the Glasgow-born 43 year old computer hacker accused of hacking into 97 top US Military and NASA computers, in the years 2001-2002, causing a reported $700,000 worth of damage by deleting critical operating files and forcing the closure of the US Army’s Washington District Military network of 2000 computers for 24 hours. He’s also accused of deleting US Navy’s weapons logs, resulting in a network of 300 computers being inoperable at the time of, and after the September 11^th attacks.

He has admitted to leaving one message on one of the machines he hacked into, saying

“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^th last year ....I am SOLO, I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels”.

Solo being the name he used online.

He has not yet faced trial as he has fought extradition to the US through the British Courts, and through the appeal system, his final appeal failing on the 26^th November 2009 when the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, announced his decision that “McKinnon’s extradition would not be incompatible with his human rights and that his extradition must proceed forthwith”.

McKinnon’s appeal is based on his having Asperger’s Syndrome which was (strangely enough) according to reports, only diagnosed when he was 42, 3 years AFTER the US government first sought extradition.

He claims he hacked into these computers (no mean feat in itself!) to find out what secrets the US Military had on UFO’s, of which he had a special, if not fanatical interest, believing they had knowledge of “an alien craft run on clean fuel”.

This would explain the threat he left on the computers? I think not. He wrote terrorist-type messages, at a critical time for the US authorities, and for that alone I think he deserves to be jailed, in America.

McKinnon is also reportedly depressed and suicidal, and has used this as part of his appeal. I’d be the same if I was facing 60 years in Guantanamo Bay!

His family now plan to appeal to the European Courts of Human Rights, the highest court possible, and the UK press is firmly behind him, believing him to be a mentally ill man being unreasonably pursued.

Exactly what is Asperger’s Syndrome? It is described as a type of autism, first discovered by Hans Asperger (1916 – 1980) an Austrian paediatrician, who identified a pattern of behaviour and abilities in 4 boys which included

· A lack of empathy

· An inability to form friendships

· One sided conversation

· Intense absorption in a special interest and

· Clumsy movements.

(Sounds like my ex-husband! <g>)

He describes these children as ‘little professors”, because of their ability to talk in great detail about their favourite subject. These children would go on to become slightly odd (in the antisocial sense) adults but who could accomplish a great deal in their field of interest. He didn’t call it Asperger’s syndrome. This name came into use much later but I have been unable to determine exactly when. He described his findings as ‘autistic psychopathy’ meaning autism (self) and psychopathy (personality disease).

Gary McKinnon

So, Gary McKinnon is a self-absorbed oddball with a personality disorder. Does this mean he does not need punished for what he did, and especially when he did it at a time when not only America, but the whole world was on panic alert because of terrorist activity?

I’m in agreement with the senior military officer at the Pentagon who described McKinnon’s actions as “not some harmless incident”, adding that he did “some very serious and deliberate damage to military and NASA computers and left silly and anti-American messages. All the evidence was that someone was staging a very serious attack on US computer systems.”

The British Press is full of reports backing him against his extradition to America, and there are several websites offering him support. How many of them realise exactly what he is accused of doing? I myself thought he was a clever hacker who ought to be EMPLOYED by the US Security Forces, not condemned, until I read just exactly what he is accused of, and to which he has admitted.

What do you think?