So which of these men is the REAL threat to America?
By Stephen Glover
Last updated at 10:46 PM on 7th December 2010Now here’s a question: who has posed a greater threat to American security — the hacker Gary McKinnon or Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who was yesterday arrested in London in connection with rape and sex assault charges in Sweden?
Mr McKinnon, who is autistic and in a fragile mental state, allegedly hacked into U.S. military and Nasa computers more than eight years ago.
He passed no information to anyone. He published nothing. The United States suffered no damage to its national security from his activities, which involved a search for information about UFOs and little green men.
Gary McKinnon, left, allegedly hacked into U.S. military and Nasa computers, while Julian Assange, right, is in the process of publishing 250,000 confidential cables
And yet Mr McKinnon has been pursued with ruthless determination by the American authorities, who insist he be extradited and stand trial in the U.S., where he faces up to 60 years in jail.
The Obama administration even swept aside a personal plea from Gordon Brown when he was Prime Minister that he should be dealt with by the British courts.
Mr Assange, by contrast, is apparently completely sane and well aware of the consequences of his actions. He is in the process of publishing 250,000 confidential cables on his Wikileaks website, many of which have been carried by newspapers all over the world.
Some argue that publication of these secret documents has gravely damaged U.S. interests. Almost everyone seems to believe that American diplomats will find life more difficult, since people will be less willing to confide in them if they think their private conversations will end up on the internet.
In other words, Mr Assange has done the United States some damage, though we can argue about the extent. Mr McKinnon has done it no harm at all. Indeed, he has arguably done it a favour by illustrating the weaknesses of its supposedly invulnerable, top secret computers, which he hacked into effortlessly in pursuit of little green men.
The Obama administration is insisting that Mr McKinnon is extradited but they should be thanking him for exposing their security flaws
Moreover, if the American authorities had pondered the lessons of Mr McKinnon’s hacking, they would have tightened security controls over confidential information. In fact, they did the opposite. Unbelievably, the cables published by Wikileaks are said to have been accessible to more than two million American military personnel.
Rather than persecuting Mr McKinnon by insisting on his extradition under an agreement which grotesquely favours the United States, the Obama administration should be thanking him while turning its mind to tightening security — and to the prosecution of Mr Assange, who is evidently driven by a Leftist, anti-American political agenda.
Why doesn’t it? It seems likely that the U.S. authorities have no legal redress against Mr Assange, despite the damage he may have caused, on the grounds that the U.S. Constitution protects free speech. So they are throwing the book at his alleged source, 23-year-old Private Bradley Manning, who is in custody facing serious charges as a military employee.
Mr Assange is, of course, the architect of the leaks and yet he remains beyond the reach of American justice. Or does he? There are grounds for suspecting that the U.S. Government might be behind his arrest on sex charges yesterday, which could lead to his extradition to Sweden.
Yesterday’s Mail carried a compelling account from Richard Pendlebury in Sweden. The suggestion is that during a short visit to Stockholm in August, Mr Assange slept with two young women with their consent. Reading the somewhat sordid tale, one gets the firm feeling that while he may be a vain and self-regarding man of loose morals, he is not obviously a rapist.
Further evidence may be produced which shows him in a more damning light. As things stand, though, it is difficult to avoid the suspicion that the Swedish authorities may be pursuing Mr Assange with disproportionate zeal because of his role as the founder of Wikileaks.
Wikileaks founderJulian Assange was yesterday arrested in London in connection with rape and sex assault charges in Sweden
And that raises the question as to whether the United States is pulling the strings. It would be a terrible condemnation of the American Government if it emerged that it had connived in framing him for a crime he did not commit — much worse, in fact, than any of stories of alleged American misbehaviour, such as its alleged spying on senior figures in the United Nations, revealed by the Wikileaks cables.
The United States has a strong case for trying to bring Mr Assange to justice under transparent processes, if it is able to do so. Consigning him to prison on a trumped-up charge would be an outrage.
I write as a friend and admirer of the United States, who is sympathetic to its complaints about Wikileaks and Julian Assange. But why does the Obama administration, which one would have expected to be more broad-minded than its predecessor, continue to treat the harmless and vulnerable Gary McKinnon as public enemy number one?
The U.S. response to Gordon Brown’s utterly reasonable plea in August 2009 that Mr McKinnon stand trial in Britain and serve any term of incarceration here — ironically, revealed by Wikileaks — is deeply worrying for anyone who values the transatlantic alliance.
Here was the Prime Minister of America’s supposedly most important friend, which has paid dearly in blood and money as its major ally in Iraq and Afghanistan, almost literally prostrating himself in front of the United States Ambassador to the UK. And yet he was brushed aside almost as though he were an office boy.
Gordon Brown made a plea in August 2009 that Mr McKinnon stand trial in Britain and serve any term of incarceration here
Is this how American Governments really see us? In all the Wikileaks revelations nothing has depressed me more than the supine expressions of subservience to the United States made by William Hague and Liam Fox while they were in opposition. We would appear to have a Foreign Secretary and a Defence Secretary who live in awe of that country, and are probably unprepared ever to lift a finger of protest against it.
Mr Brown should not, of course, have gone as a supplicant to the U.S. Ambassador. He should have stated that this is what America owes us as a valued friend. This is what British public opinion wants and justice demands — that this British citizen be tried by a British court and not be paraded as dangerous criminal in the United States.
When they were in opposition both David Cameron and Nick Clegg campaigned for Mr McKinnon to stand trial in Britain. In July 2009, the two men criticised MPs who had pledged support for him and then reneged in a Commons vote. Mr Cameron said that he did not believe that Britain’s extradition arrangements with the United States were intended to apply to cases such as Mr McKinnon’s.
God knows there have already been enough U-turns and broken promises by this Coalition, but surely even it dare not go back on a matter of such enormous principle. If the Obama administration cannot be persuaded to withdraw its request, the extradition law will have to be changed.
Let the U.S. government do what it can within the law to bring Mr Assange to account, though my strong suspicion is that it will be unable to do so. Gary McKinnon is an entirely different case. Stop this obsessive targeting of a guileless man who wished no harm to America and did it no harm, and whose actions only revealed the hopelessly lax security which Julian Assange has exploited.
Explore more:
- People:
- William Hague,
- Gary McKinnon,
- David Cameron,
- Julian Assange,
- Nick Clegg,
- Gordon Brown
- Places:
- Stockholm,
- London,
- Afghanistan,
- Iraq,
- United Kingdom,
- America
- Organisations:
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
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Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Julian Assange or Gary McKinnon: Who is the REAL threat to America? | Mail Online
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