This story really gets my goat. I really feel sorry for Gary McKinnon. He's 2 weeks away from extradition to the USA, where mostly likely he'll be charged under the super-duper terrorism laws for his Indiscretions.

He really shouldn't be labelled as a Terrorist, and he shouldn't be extradited. Instead he should be tried here. That word Terrorist, it's so confusing nowdays (intentionally made confusing I may add) ... who is, and who isn't a Terrorist?

Take a look at the OED definition for Terrorist

a person who uses violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims

This guy hasn't shown an ounce of violence to anyone, he's just like me and you, and I'd bet he scraped his skill-set from the web and from chats with friends on IRC, instead he finds a weakness in the US Miliary\NASA computer systems (did anyone lose their jobs over their faiure to secure these secure networks?) and exploits it (bad! but not Evil!) to find out "secrets", as he puts it ... "I sought information on UFOs".

Roll back 10 or so years ago, and he would have been questioned, his methods analysed and neutralised, and possibly either hired or released back in to the wild. Roll forward to now and this guy is about to be made an example of, to all those terrorists that couldn't achieve what he did even if they tried ... great example that'll make!

If he gets put in prison in the USA then it's a show, a scam, and it's being done to cover up the clumsy security measures that were in-place when he managed to blaze his way through 97 odd computers.

If you have any sympathy for the poor guy, in the UK we write to our local MP's and they take it up, please raise awareness inside the USA that this isn't acceptable behaviour. He sure did commit a crime, but not an evil one!

Source: BBC News

Read the complete post at http://wmug.co.uk/blogs/r0b/archive/2008/08/28/bbc-news-hacker-loses-extradition-appeal.aspx