Tonight:
8°c
Should Gary McKinnon be extradited?” is the question we are all invited to consider. The only conclusion to be reached is: “no”. But what we think doesn't have much bearing on the matter, does it?
What's being proposed is not the routine, impartial grinding of the gears of ordinary legal process. It is a display of political machismo. This is — quite plainly — a discretionary prosecution.
The Americans are determined to throw the book at this nerdy UFO obsessive not because he was a threat to America's national security, but because he exposed one: them. He embarrassed the Pentagon.
Rather than run some super-sophisticated hack, Mr McKinnon wrote a programme to search for people with administrator-level access to top-secret military databases who had, ahem, forgotten to change their username from “username” and password from “password”.
As the Americans concede, there's not even any point them hiring Mr McKinnon to work for them (as he at one point suggested) because any fool could have done the same. Since he got into no fewer than 97 US military databases armed with an ordinary home computer and the password “password”, the US Defence Department can be argued to have quite enough fools on the payroll as things stand.
So now they want to whack him in jail for up to 70 years. That's what I call a sentence. If it were an English sentence as opposed to a sentence in law, it would be: “See what you get, mother******?”
It would be nice to blame the High Court or the Home Secretary — who claims to have no authority in the matter — for failing to overrule the extradition.
But the sad truth is, surely, that the High Court has no choice but to follow the law as it stands; and the Home Secretary is probably telling the truth: his hands have been tied, by a predecessor in the post.
The important hack that has taken place here is not the unfortunate Mr McKinnon's search for the secrets of Area 51 in the Nasa computer system. It is the “hack” perpetrated on our constitution by the American government.
A foreign power with a track record of abusing the human rights of detainees and state sponsorship of terrorism has, as of the 2003 Extradition Act, secured the right to help itself to any of our citizens it fancies without presenting evidence against them.
How did they do it? Did they use a crack team of hackers? Superior technology? No. They simply flew the wretched David Blunkett to Washington and made him feel important. He obligingly signed away Britain's legal power to protect its own citizens against summary extradition, securing no reciprocal guarantees in return.
Have we any hope of seeing Mr Blunkett — described by friends as a “harmless weirdo” and “easily led” — extradited somewhere to stand trial? Compassion, apparently, forbids.
Parents, eh — who would have them?
It is tribute to the indomitable spirit of 36-year-old Theresa Winters of Luton that, after having 13 children taken into care for neglect, she is now pregnant with a 14th and is determined to keep going till the council lets her keep one.
“I have my rights,” she declares. “Anyone who wants to have a child should be able to have one.”
Meanwhile, actor Jude Law, following a two-night stand with 24-year-old wannabe Samantha Burke, learns she's pregnant through a letter from her solicitors to his PR people. (Apparently the phone number he gave her got disconnected.) He has now issued a statement saying he intends to be — curiously stilted phrase, this —
“a fully supportive part of the child's life”.
It all brings a sentimental tear to the eye, doesn't it?
Regrettably palatable...
NOW the recession means people don't actually have money, some publications have taken to paying for work in food: this week, in return for a piece for the Spectator Business magazine, I was treated to a delicious lunch at Berry Bros & Rudd in St James's.
My neighbour at table worked for Berry Bros and, my professional speciality being books, we ended up talking about wine in literature. She mentioned the bit in Silence of the Lambs where Hannibal Lecter boasts of eating a human liver “with some fava beans and a nice Chianti”.
“In the book, actually,” I corrected her nerdily, “he eats the human liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone'.”
“Amarone.” She thought about it for a moment. “Yes,” she said. “That would go better.”
* Even as a recent incomer to the area, I can't go along with this scheme to rebrand Archway Tube station as “Whittington”. What sort of a name is that? Instantly you think of Bonnie Langford, or similar, prancing around in a panto with Puss in Boots. That does not catch the spirit of the area. Francis Bacon (the Renaissance man, not the painter) caught a fatal chill trying to stuff a chicken with snow on his way up to Highgate, so “Bacon's End” would do. Or “Lowgate”. Or, if we must, why not rename it after a much-loved local landmark: “Suicide Bridge.” “Archway” still seems fine by me.
Reader views (3)
You signed the treaty--so honour it. Gary has already admitted guilt. What is the problem or do you just want to pick hand chose what treaties you want to honour? I know he claims a politically correct disease and claim he will suffer if he goes to the US. That is the point. Do you think people should break the law and not suffer? This is not a child, He is a man that is smart enough to hack into the Pentagon and NASA. A slap on the writs in not a punishment. Some people have been charge 400,000 BP just for downloading a few songs. This man invaded a military complex with his computer.
- Ruckus, Myrtle Beach USA
The USA Banks lawfully hacked into the Bank of England, by exporting a whole lot of their sub prime debts onto RBA and HBOS. HSBC has taken a hit, but still made profits. Should we not call for the extradition of senior USA bankers?
- Andrew, London
The Home Secretary can stop the extradition if he wants to. He only has to decide to prosecute McKinnon in the UK, to abort the extradition.
That he is not doing so suggests that either he does not want to, or that he's as useless as all previous Labour Home Secretaries.
- Faustiesblog.Blogspot.Com, Reading
