British Hacker Faces Extradition To US, Not To Mention Five Years' Imprisonment In UK For Failing To Hand Over Encryption Keys

from the anything-else? dept

Techdirt followed the the saga of the hacker Gary McKinnon, whom the US authorities wished to extradite from the UK to face charges of causing damage to military computers, for some years before the UK Home Secretary blocked his extradition, and the case against him in the UK was dropped. That was a great result for McKinnon after a 10-year fight to avoid extradition, but it meant that the key issues that his situation raised were never addressed. Now a new case with many similarities to that of McKinnon's looks like it will revisit some of those legal questions -- and add some more of its own:

A British man has been charged in the US with hacking into thousands of computer systems, including those of the US army and Nasa, in an alleged attempt to steal confidential data.

Lauri Love, 28, is accused of causing millions of pounds of damage to the US government with a year-long hacking campaign waged from his home in Stradishall, a village in Suffolk.

But even before he can begin to fight that case, Love has an additional problem to deal with because of the following:

On February 7th the deadline for Lauri Love to turn his encryption keys over to the UK government expired.

As the post on FreeAnons explains:

The UK government are now free to charge Lauri for his lack of cooperation with their demand for his passwords, in accordance with section 49 of the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, but what is section 49 and why is it being levied against Lauri Love?

Section 49 essentially allows the UK government to compel, under threat of up to five years imprisonment (this doubles to ten years if national security is seen to be at stake), any citizen to disclose their personal encryption keys. The law allows for this legal compulsion on grounds ranging from "the interests of national security" to "the purpose of preventing or detecting crime" and "interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom".

Actually, RIPA's punishment for withholding keys seems to be up to two years' imprisonment in general, and up to five when the magic spell "national security" is invoked, but it's still a long time. And the crucial point is the following:

Lauri has been charged with no crime in Britain, yet their government is still invoking this law to attempt to force him to provide information that could incriminate him or damage his defense should he go to trial.

So Love faces two extremely serious problems: the threat of imprisonment from RIPA, and the threat of extradition to the US, with a long prison sentence there if he's found guilty. Here's what the US Department of Justice is accusing him of:

The indictment, which was released by the US department of justice on Monday, describes Love as a "sophisticated and prolific computer hacker who specialised in gaining access to the computer networks of large organisations, including government agencies, collecting confidential data including personally identifiable information from within the compromised networks, and exfiltrating the data out of the compromised networks".

"Gaining access", "collecting confidential data", "exfiltrating data out": isn't that precisely what the NSA and GCHQ have been doing around the world on a rather larger scale...?

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Filed Under: encryption, extradition, gary mckinnon, hacking, lauri love, uk

Gary Mckinnon Extradition To US Blocked By UK Home Secretary

from the hacker-stay-home dept

Way back in 2002, Gary McKinnon made his Techdirt debut when he was caught hacking into NASA and Pentagon computers from the UK in an apparent attempt to find evidence that America was covering up evidence of UFOs. Since that story, subsequent stories were done on how he basically went on an appeal-losing-tour to avoid being extradited to the United States. But now, despite all those losses, it appears the United Kingdom's version of Fox Mulder will indeed be staying in the UK and not be trotted off to the States.

UK Home Secretary Theresa May has announced that McKinnon will not be extradited due to mental illness and a fear for his safety. McKinnon reportedly suffers from both depression and Asperger's Syndrome, and experts consulting with May believe that he is a significant suicide risk if extradited.

Mrs May said: "After careful consideration of all of the relevant material I have concluded that Mr McKinnon's extradition would give rise to such a high risk of him ending his life that a decision to extradite would be incompatible with Mr McKinnon's human rights. I have therefore withdrawn the extradition order against Mr McKinnon."

Mrs May also said measures would be taken to enable a UK court to decide whether a person should stand trial in the UK or abroad - a so-called forum bar.

This move is immensely significant, as it represents the first time an extradition was blocked by a Home Secretary under the Extradition Act of 2003. As extraditions over alleged computer and IP crimes have come into vogue, with the United States leading the charge, it's a welcome sign that the UK wants to be able to review cases in which their citizens would potentially be carted across the world to face massive prison sentences (or worse). One would hope similar scrutiny would be applied in the case of Richard O'Dwyer, though Theresa May has thus far failed to do so. Instead, she has so far bowed to the will of the United States and MPAA sock puppetry in extraditing him.

To be clear, none of this suggests that McKinnon will not face a trial at home. In fact, according to May, the UK will now decide whether to bring a case against him at home.

She said it was now for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, to decide whether he should face trial in the UK.

Where he can be tried without the added threat to his well-being. A foreign national, accused of computer crimes against the United States facing trial in his home country. How refreshing.

 

Filed Under: extradition, gary mckinnon, richard o'dwyer, theresa may, uk, us

UK Hacker Loses Extradition Appeal Yet Again

from the time-to-come-stateside dept

While the US gov't clearly overplayed its claims that Gary McKinnon was the "world's biggest hacker" after having him arrested for breaking into US military computers, that doesn't mean that McKinnon hasn't overreacted back in response. The US offered him a plea bargain deal that seemed fairly reasonable, given what he did -- and he flipped out about it. Now he's lost his latest appeal against extradition, and it looks like he may finally get sent to the US in the next few weeks to stand trial, for breaking into US military computers, supposedly while high and looking for info on alien encounters.

Filed Under: extradition, gary mckinnon, hacking, uk, us

UK Guy Who Hacked Into US Military Computers Overplays His Hand; Loses Extradition Appeal

from the give-it-up dept

From the very beginning it had seemed like the US was overhyping the fact that they had tracked down UK-based Gary McKinnon, as the guy who had hacked into various military computer systems. They claimed he had caused millions of dollars of damages, and even called him "the world's biggest hacker." Of course, the details suggest he was more like a big idiot. He got high, decided that the US was hiding secrets on aliens, and hacked into a military computer system to try to find the details -- and then (according to his own explanation) hit the wrong button and thought "oh, bloody hell." So, he clearly did something wrong: he broke into US military computer systems. He clearly deserves to be punished for it, but he's definitely overplayed his hand as well in response.

For years, he's been fighting attempts by the US to extradite him, including bogus claims about how the US government would declare him a terrorist and send him to Gitmo. He's now lost his latest attempt to prevent extradition, but is already planning to appeal again -- once again, with his lawyers screaming Gitmo.

However, as Kevin Poulsen (who knows a thing or two about getting arrested for malicious hacking) reports at Wired News, McKinnon is totally blowing things out of proportion. The US offered him a plea deal, where he would get 6 months to a year in minimum security prison, and then get sent back to the UK. Of course, rather than accepting what seems like a pretty reasonable deal (from a guy who admitted to being in the wrong), McKinnon used this to claim that the US was trying to extort him. Now, since he refused to accept the plea bargain, and has lost the attempt to stop extradition, he may face a much harsher sentence. Poulsen sums up the situation nicely:

According to his lawyers, the United States offered McKinnon a deal of six months to a year in U.S. federal custody, followed by repatriation by the U.K., where he'd be eligible for parole after six months. McKinnon turned it down, then went running to the U.K. courts whining that the big bad Americans were trying to extort him into pleading guilty. Duh. That's what a plea bargain is, slick.

And six to 12 months is quite a bargain indeed. It's minimum security camp time: We're talking ping-pong tables and a sunny running track. Now he's looking at the same kind of sentence U.S. hackers get -- measured in years, not months, and based on the financial losses a jury finds him responsible for.

Filed Under: extradition, gary mckinnon, malicious hacking, plea bargain