Sterling Times <2@slewis.biz> said:
On December 12, 2007, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a radio play about the case,
The McKinnon Extradition by John Fletcher.

An interesting radio play – still available on listen again or via an
internet radio.

The computer systems administrator is accused of cracking into 97 United
States military and NASA computers in 2001 and 2002. The computer
networks he is accused of cracking include networks owned by NASA
(although these were not password protected), 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 .

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 [which the US congress
has not ratified]) 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.[5][6] 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.

Sterling I always enjoy your posts although I think we are probably at opposite ends of the political spectrum However I was so incensed by this case that I actually spent the last 10 minutes working out how to log in/ remember my password/ navigate from Jiglu to here password etc etc !!! Anyway now that I'm here...

Hello all from a long time lurker. I always enjoy reading AN but don't usually have much to contribute.

However these new extradition rules are deeply worrying. As I understand it its a one way deal too. The US can take our citizens but we can't neccesarily extradite theirs under the same set of rules.

Surely if a UK citizen commits an offence from the UK they should have the right to be tried "by a jury of their peers" in the UK. Isn't that one of our most fundamental rights?

There was a time when it could be argued that the USof A were the "good guys". They stood for democracy, personal freedom and the rule of law – more or less.

Guantanamo Bay, admissions of torture, evidence going missing, illegal flights from UK air bases, cover ups when our soldiers get killed by theirs in "friendly fire. Oh and they have (twice for godssakes!!) elected an eejit who talks to god but didn't actually serve in Vietnam himself, as General in chief

I'm getting more pro-euopean by the minute cos If we don't wanna be the 51st state we'd better get closer with our fellow Europeans and quick.

Now... if only we could only have a pan european radio station broadcasting peace love and good music from international waters ....