The Curious Incident of a US Extradition in the Night-Time (Reprise)
UK & Welsh Politics | Denis G Campbell | July 28, 2009 1:00 pm
By Denis Campbell
Gary McKinnon of Crouch End, North London, was branded a ‘cyber-terrorist’ by the US government. In 2002 he was arrested for hacking into Pentagon and NASA computers. The US Justice, Defence and Homeland Security Departments have been fighting a seven-year long extradition battle to the USA under the 2003 UK Extradition Act. They want him brought to the USA to stand trial in New Jersey Federal Court. If convicted on terrorism charges, he could face up to 60 years locked-down 23-hour per day in a US SuperMax prison. While many differ on likely length of sentence, this is the same kind of prison convicted shoe-bomber Richard Reid sits on a hunger strike hoping to kill himself. Gary openly admits his guilt of computer mischief and he did hack into US government computers.
Now before jumping to the obvious conclusion thinking “a (then) 36-year old man should know the difference between right and wrong” and setting your “fry him” righteous jaw (and mind) firmly shut, you need to look, Paul Harvey-style, at “The Rest of the Story.”
At 43, Gary has lived with an until recently undiagnosed case of high-functioning autism known as Asperger’s Syndrome. The disease was 1st discovered and labelled in the late 1990s and was made famous in the 2003 best-selling novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by British author Mark Haddon. Until that book, where a low functioning Asperger’s sufferer teenager sets off on a journey to find his dead mother, most had not heard of this syndrome. Famous Aspergers sufferers include American actor Dan Ackroyd and acclaimed Scottish artist Peter Howson (both of whom have spoken out on Gary’s behalf).
Aspergers sufferers such as Gary make diagnosis more difficult because they often possess very high intelligence in specific areas such as maths, computer science and/or physics. They are mostly reclusive and can become hyper-obsessive. One thinks of the Dustin Hoffman character Raymond from the Oscar winning film ‘Rain Man’ as an example. Raymond was a brilliant mathematician but socially unable to adapt, free himself from the safety of daily routine or understand the consequences of his actions.
Gary’s mother Janis Sharp spoke of a Christmas dinner party where he put a large computer on the family dining table and could not understand why everyone was so upset. His logical but insensitive response was “well it’s my holiday party too isn’t it?” Indeed it is the honesty of an Asperger’s sufferer, “often to a fault” as Janis said, “that can be to their own detriment.”
When Gary spoke to UK computer crimes authorities in 2002, he could only speak truth. This is also why plea deals are abhorrent because it means admitting guilt to something he feels is untrue. He freely, without a lawyer present, admitted he was looking around in government computers of all kinds to UK police because, “they were very nice to him.”
At the centre of the growing row between the UK and US governments is a demand to have Gary stand trial in the US despite this diminished capacity. Many in the UK want him to stand trial here. They launched a quite successful UK campaign that Kevin Anderson, blogs editor of The Guardian, took exception to the media blindly taking McKinnon’s side in their handling and coverage of the case . He objected to the myths of imprisonment in Gitmo, Portrayal of US anger at his extradition fight and widely reported belief that US authorities wanted McKinnon to “fry” (and Anderson’s commentary was before the Asperger’s diagnosis).
No one is suggesting he is innocent.
They are talking degrees of punishment and the curious use of the 2003 Extradition Act. This Act gives the Crown Court little leeway and they must extradite UK nationals on ‘suspicion’ of terrorism whilst anyone the UK seeks for extradition whilst residing in the US requires probable cause. Too, cases involving extradition normally involve someone who has committed a crime and has fled that jurisdiction and must be forcibly brought back to stand trial. Gary McKinnon never left the UK.
The problem is the Act has been used in the non-terror cases of: Alex Stone (an alleged child abuser whose charges were dropped after spending 6 months in a US jail), Ian Norris of Morgan Crucible (whose original price-fixing charges were dropped but still faces extradition on obstruction of justice charges) and The NatWest 3 (bankers extradited and found guilty of wire fraud – the government’s old mafia conviction standby charge. They currently serve 37 month sentences in US prisons).
Even David Blunkett, UK Home Secretary when the Act was negotiated and passed, never foresaw this level of interpretation and believes it should not b used in Gary’s case. There was a tendency after 9-11 in the Bush Administration to label anything they could terrorism. Politicians here and in the US were not keen to attack these cases for fear of looking soft on crime or terrorism. Too this issue grabbed its biggest headlines after the Spanish and 7-7 London Tube terrorist bombings so the issue was high on everyone’s mind.
Little Green Men
Gary McKinnon is completely obsessed with the existence of UFOs and convinced the government covered them up. He is a self-described “bumbling computer nerd” who wanted to know more about them in those Pentagon files. He was a big fan of the 1983 feature film ‘War Games’ where a youthful Matthew Broderick accidentally breaks into a Pentagon computer and nearly converts a war simulator into a real global thermonuclear war.As a 17-year old boy, Gary wondered, could that really be done? When he and many others proved it indeed could be, especially after 9-11, McKinnon became the poster child for lax DoD computer security.
Many of the DoD and NASA computer systems lacked firewall protections and as he has repeatedly said, “one could easily see the IP addresses of other hackers from China, Russia and other places around the globe whilst in there.” US Defence Secretary Robert Gates noted that the Pentagon has thousands of cyber attacks daily on its systems. Gary became upset when he could not find what he was looking for and started leaving notes and traces of his entry calling the US government ‘liars’ for discrediting the existence of UFOs and lax 9-11 air security.
His original UK charge in 2002 was not for an extraditable offence. After passage of the Extradition Act and showing an unwillingness to plea bargain to a lesser offence, then New Jersey federal prosecutors Scott Christie and Ed Gibson upped the ante claiming McKinnon caused more than $700,000 in damages, deleted passwords and put a Naval defence system at risk (all denied by Gary and his defence team). He was re-charged as a cyber terrorist when extradition prospects were seemed automatic under this new treaty.
Appeals to The UK House of Lords and EU Court of Human Rights were denied or not heard. This left Gary’s defence team with very few options.
The Asperger’s diagnosis though did two things: it opened the door for a judicial review of both the Crown Prosecution Service’s handling of the case (which was heard last week) and the Home Office’s recommendation of accepting such an unbalanced treaty (to be heard by the same panel of judges on 14 July).
Karen Todner of Kaim Todner serves as Gary’s QC (Queen’s Counsel – US readers would call her his public defender). Mrs. Todner was tenacious on Gary’s behalf and hired leading human rights solicitor Edward Fitzgerald. In his brief Fitzgerald said, “the decision (to extradite) is procedurally flawed and unlawful for it wrongly fails to consider and analyse important expert medical evidence concerning the effects of extradition on the claimant and his mental health.”
And this is the real game changer.
In many ways Gary’s disease reveals an intellectually and emotionally naïve child locked in a man’s body. There his mind is both his biggest friend and greatest enemy. As Scottish artist Peter Hoswon said in a Scotsman interview with Gerri Peev: “Gary has the more anxiety-prone form of Asperger’s, which I fear means he will not be able to survive life in an American prison. I have to be blunt: he will not be able to cope and will turn suicidal. He is not a terrorist, nor a threat to national security, but just a vulnerable Asperger’s man whose complex mind caused him to make a mistake. Individuals like Gary should be protected by us and nurtured, not made a scapegoat for the sins of our police state society.”
Gary’s curiosity took him to the place of trying to see if he could do it. Aspergers sufferers tend to believe what they read or hear and their desire for truth is so strong it overcomes all other rational thoughts and emotions. Indeed as he became more and more obsessed with the UFO conspiracy, his then girlfriend became very concerned for his well-being as Gary stopped caring for himself, eating and even stopped bathing, all hallmarks of Aspergers.
The legions of supporters for Gary include: Peter Gabriel, Sting, US Shuttle Commander Clark McCleland, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, Terry Waite former Iranian hostage, Peter Gabriel and Graham Nash of Crosby Stills and Nash (who let supporters use lyrics from his 1968 protest song Chicago) along with dozens of MPs and celebrities.
The USA has a flawed history of understanding or even admitting mental illness in court. There are dozens of cases where diminished capacity is not allowed. Because of this lack of understanding, prosecutors fight it tooth and nail. A defendant found not guilty by reason of insanity goes down in the loss column.
That taints a prosecutor’s record to have someone sent to an institution or psychiatric prison facility. A federal prosecutor speaking on condition of anonymity said: “having a defendant found not guilty by reason of temporary or true insanity hurts the prosecutor. We need big winning records in high profile cases to move up the ladder politically or find top security positions when we leave…” (Indeed Gibson and Christie now run security across the UK for Microsoft Corporation). “It’s tough to become a top paid white shoe firm white collar criminal defence attorney or be elected as a District Attorney or state Attorney General without a solid record of conviction in high profile cases.”
As his mother Janis said, “people with Aspergers are highly intelligent but cannot cross a busy road because it is so terrifying for them. Aspergers is invisible in many ways and its sufferers can seem incredibly normal. The Pentagon had no firewalls or security, that’s an insult to the people who died on 9-11. How could the biggest superpower in the world not have firewalls? Gary was stupid, he left notes on the system but why extradite him because of a sense of embarrassment?”
And if convictions are the yardstick upon which a prosecutor can strut, the question becomes should an impaired person be extradited to face horrific charges where a sentence in the UK would be more proportional?
As Paul Harvey would close, “and now you know, the rest of the story.”
Denis G Campbell is Publisher & Editor-in-Chief UK Progressive magazine / BBC TV & Radio Contributor / t r u t h o u t .org contributor / frequent China Radio International Today on Beyond Beijing contributor / Huffington Post and Daily Kos blogger / Social Media Consultant
Email this author | All posts by Denis G Campbell4 Comments
Good job Denis. the problem with carrying a big stick and following in big shoes is the result of giant bully with small brain.
Britt
This exchange appears on Charley James’ Progressive Curmdgeon Blog in response to this article posted there:
KevGlobal said…
Denis, just to clarify, I have written about this case for the Guardian. However, the post that you’ve linked to is on my personal blog and are my personal views. I need to make the disclaimer a little stronger on my personal blog, but I just wanted to make it clear.As an American working for British media since 1998, I can understand the coverage in terms of upset over what was seen as an unfair extradition treaty, much of which was remedied after the Natwest case.
Let me be clarify one point: The length of his sentence. A quick call to the prosecuting attorney in the case of even quoting the AP coverage would make it clear that McKinnnon is not facing 60 years in prison. In Lord Brown’s ruling against McKinnon’s request for a stay of extradition, he wrote:
“On this basis it was likely that a sentence of 3-4 years (more precisely 37-46 months), probably at the shorter end of that bracket, would be passed and that after serving 6-12 months in the US, the appellant would be repatriated to complete his sentence in the UK.”
British judges have stated this. The US attorney in charge of prosecuting this case has stated the length of the sentence as less than four years, not 60. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.
Kevin Anderson
June 18, 2009 3:37 PM
Denis Campbell said…
Thank you Kevin for your response and do note that this article appears here on Charley’s blog today as well as, Huffington Post, ukprogressive.co.uk (my publication), laprogressive.com, Facebook, Friendfeed and TwitterI will be happy to update the article and make sure that you as author from the blog and not connected to The Guardian. Simply, you came up during my research and that was how you described yourself on the blog.
While I agree to a point with your sentencing assertion there are too many “wild cards” and other case history that for space reasons did not make it into the article. I assure you neither pulled the figure out of thin air nor simply bought into the McKinnon/Sharp version of the case. While UK sentencing estimates may look good, US sentencing guidelines are closer to 70 years if he is labeled a terrorist and thus convicted. In my research, I looked at other extraditions and/or prosecutions of UK nationals, others labeled as “terrorists” or those suffering from mental illness in the US .
In conversation with two Federal prosecutors Gary faces charges in two jurisdictions and because he did not cooperate the first time could (emphasis on could) be viewed with much more hostility on the part of prosecutors in both.
The cases of Billy Cotrell, eco-terrorist; Chantal McCorkle, infomercial fraud (not allowed repatriation to UK to serve sentence and was kept in higher security and deemed a flight risk), Aaron Caffrey, Port Houston computer hacker, death row inmate Andre Thomas, a young man who pulled out and ate his own eye, the Blakely and Booker US Supreme Court case on sentencing guidelines and others… coupled with having worked in the US Justice system for two very prominent solicitor firms and sought the advice of former colleagues on this article, no one could give me any reason from that side of the Pond to minimize my sentence expectation.
Simply, the longer he fights, the angrier they get and the more he loses.
Thanks though for your thoughtful reply. I will post this thread after Charley does on the other locations and anything you add further in reply.
All the best,
Denis Campbell
June 18, 2009 4:43 PM
Martyn Lester says:
Good case to highlight, Denis. I understand what Kevin is saying, but in reality, whichever of you is making the better estimate about sentencing, you are disagreeing about a point which is way out on the periphery of the moral/ethical/legal focuses here, which are:
* Is any prison (let alone a maximum security one) a suitable vehicle for dealing with this man’s aberrant behaviour?
* Why should we tolerate an extradition treaty that is asymmetric?
* Should any country (not specifically the US) be permitted the latitude to classify a nuisance offence as a ‘terrorist’ one in order that it may be processed under the auspices of such a treaty?
I wouldn’t like to return to the bad old days when terrorist could slip through absurd national loopholes to avoid extradition. About 30 years ago I worked on a story about an Italian neo-fascist wandering around London completely immune from extradition to his native country because the terrorism-related charge he had fled – being a ‘member of an armed group’ – had no precise equivalent in English law. Crazy!
And of course a prominent non-cooperator in those days was the States, with several courts ruling that Irish republican gunmen could not be extradited back to the UK because the crimes they were charged with were ‘political’, so that New York and Massachussetts began to take on the appearance, from a British point of view, of IRA safe havens.
One of next to zero good things to come out of 9/11 was America abruptly waking up to something the rest of the world had known for a long time – that ‘political’ is almost a defining ingredient of terrorism, and should not be a get out of jail free card for gunmen and bombers.
So no, I don’t any longer want to see terrorists avoiding extradition via ill-thought-out pissy little technicalities. But the price of near-worldwide cooperation is that all nations operate a ‘fair play’ policy that terrorism charges are brought only regarding acts of terror themselves; activities undertaken in preparation for or in material support of such acts; recruitment of people to carry out any of the above; and conspiracy or incitement to carry out any of the above.
All Gary McKinnon seems to have done is to be a damn nuisance – though perhaps an expensive one. No doubt that is both embarrassing and vexing to US authorities. In all probability, he ought to face some sanction (though supervisory rather than custodial would likely suffice).
But branding him a terrorist purely in order to get him in front of a US court seems to me a gross breach of that essential ‘fair play’ policy, which needs to be adhered to by America if it wishes to keep its natural friends inside the tent. US administrations are always well aware of the need to keep *American* public opinion on their side, but they so often forget that public opinion matters to its allied governments as well.
Elizabeth Robinson says:
Man, what are they afraid of — a fellow with Asperger’s who probably would not have cared what he saw if it had nothing to do with what he was looking for? Given his condition and underlying anxiety Gary McKinnon could not have possibly used the information he most likely glossed over against the United States if he wanted to. Gotta give this poor fellow a break – and encourage him to use his talents in as rewarding a manner as possible for him.
There is another song of Graham Nash’s called ‘Try and Find Me’. That’s what needs to be done on behalf of McKInnon; a little understanding can go a long way.
Wednesday 25 May 2011
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