Saturday, 12 March 2011

A Conversation with Janis Sharp « Springingtiger's Blog

A Conversation with Janis Sharp

I had a conversation on Twitter with Janis Sharp the mother of Gary McKinnon. Here are the tweets with my reflections on them. The Gary McKinnon case is an affront to justice and the real culprits in the case are not being called to account. (Janis’ replies are addressed to two different Twitter user names because I was tweeting from various accounts at the time and sometimes forgot to switch back to the original).

The other day during the tweetstorm4gary Janis Sharp felt obliged to clear up a misunderstanding reflected in the reaction of certain people to a tweet she retweeted. I seized the opportunity to slip in a comment, “@JanisSharp I know you would’nt call Cameron a liar, but I reserve the right to heap abuse on @Nick_Clegg for turning! #freegary” She responded along the lines that it was important for her not to be misrepresented. She is of course correct as Gary McKinnon’s campaign is fuelled by the good will and righteous indignation of people from all points of the political spectrum.

I went on to tweet further “@JanisSharp The (dis)advantage of Aspies is that we lack your restraint or grasp of the consequences of what we say & do. #freegary” and “@JanisSharp Can land us in serious bother when not externally checked by – for example – proper password protection. #freegary” If one meets little resistance to one’s actions one continues with them. Had the Pentagon employed proper security on its files Gary might have been sufficiently deterred to forgo his attempts to access their files for information about extra-terrestrial contacts. Of course, it is true that someone obsessed can be hard to stop, but that really doesn’t excuse a “security agency” from applying basic security. The Pentagon are responsible for the position in which Gary finds himself and they should be held liable for the legal and medical costs he has and will incur, had they done their job this would not have happened!

Janis replied, “@springingtiger I know…. and the absolute honesty and sense of Justice is awesome” and I continued, “@JanisSharp It also means, when challenged on our behaviour we can’t hide. I believe if Gary was NT he’d be scot free. #freegary” We do what we do, and we do not know how to hide our actions, it rarely occurs to us that there is anything to hide. An NT person whose behaviour is challenged is usually both aware why and able to deny it. An NT person also has the capacity to manufacture excuses for their behaviour, whereas an Aspie tends to just tell it like it is. I think it is fair to say, people with Aspergers are less complicated, human behaviour has intricacies we cannot fathom without considerable thought.

Janis went on to say, “@springingtiger You’re right, he would have been free as he would have asked for a lawyer when questioned by the police #FreeGary”
I responded, “@JanisSharp Questioning Gary without a lawyer present was a breach of his human Rights, wouldn’t have occurred to me to ask either! #freegary”
She replied, “@TelecomOp SAID HE DIDN’T THINK HE NEEDED A LAWYER as HighTech CrimeUnit were computer people, just like him & might give a job #FreeGary” I have lost my next tweet, but it said – essentially – that he would have no reason to disbelieve the HTCU because as a person with Aspergers he’d have accepted their statement at face value. I personally believe they meant it, but the fact is his condition prevented him from looking forward to the alternative outcomes that might follow his actions.

I am not entirely sure of the sequence of the next few tweets so I’ve arranged them in a logical sequence. Unfortunately I can’t find my tweets, but I can remember their import so this next paragraph is a reconstruction of the conversation rather than the actual conversation.

In three tweets Janis said, “ @springingtiger He agreed only to what he’d done but then scenarios put to him he clearly knew nothing of but ended saying”could b familiar”,
“RT @JanisSharp: @springingtiger I only saw police Interviews recently.Made me angry. Constant repetition & Gary saying no 2 suggestion, ended saying unsure “, “@springingtiger police woke him at dawn, held him for 6hrs, then questioned for 4 hours & untrue scenarios repeatedly suggested #FreeGary” This led me to speculate on how unjust Gary’s treatment had been, although his Aspergers had not yet been diagnosed it must have affected the outcome. Some people with Aspergers have difficulties processing information, we need more time to assimilate information and we need not to be stressed while we do so. Gary was dragged from his bed, questioned without anyone to support him, repeatedly confronted with fictional scenarios – I frequently have problems separating fact from fiction because my instinct says everything is true except that of which my logic has convinced me otherwise, this process takes time and requires no distraction – how could Gary not have been confused. In my personal experience under this sort of questioning the Asperger instinct – mine at least – is to agree with anything to make the overload stop. Subjecting a person with Aspergers syndrome to a barrage of questions without allowing them adequate facility to process the questions is tantamount to the use of torture and any confession elicited by these methods should be considered and dismissed as one secured by torture.

Janis went on to say, “@TelecomOp Then U.S stepped in. CPS said it came from “very Top” for them not to prosecute Gary to allow U.S to take him. Head of High Tech Crime Unit who arrested Gary said in recent interview that Gary should and still could be tried in U.K” It is clear that the High Tech Crime Unit who are the experts in this field obviously do not feel that Gary has committed a serious crime. The root cause of the predicament in which he finds himself is that he embarrassed the American Establishment and they are determined to take revenge regardless of the cost and suffering involved. Had the Pentagon taken basic measures to protect its files this case would never have happened, their failure to use proper password protection at this time is utterly irresponsible, they have put the lives of service men and civilians at risk and would have continued to do so if Gary had not exposed their criminal negligence to the world. That is his crime he revealed that our guardians are a greater threat to our freedoms than those against whom they purport to protect us.

Please follow the Twitter hashtag #freegary to find more information on the campaign to get justice for Gary McKinnon or visit the Free Gary McKinnon website http://freegary.org.uk/

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