British hacker to be extradited to US again

LONDON, UK: British computer hacker Gary McKinnon, who is accused of breaking into NASA website, could be extradited to the US within weeks.

According to reports, the UK Government's Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, has decided it is not worth damaging the special relationship with the US by not handing over McKinnon.

“The secretary of state is of the firm view that McKinnon's extradition would not be incompatible with his rights,” the Home Secretary said in a letter, dated November, 26. “His extradition to the United States must proceed forthwith.”

The British 'UFO eccentric' is accused of breaking into NASA and Pentagon computers, and the incident is termed by the US as “the biggest military hack of all time”. Last month he had lost his latest battle to avoid extradition, as the court refused him the permission to appeal to the Supreme Court, Britain's highest judicial body.

According to reports, McKinnon blundered his way through defence systems looking for proof that the US was hiding secrets about UFOs.

Meanwhile, McKinnon's mother Janis Sharp criticized the home secretary's decision to extradite her son to the US as "disgusting". She compared her son's treatment to that of an "animal" today, according to a BBC report.

"To keep someone in a heightened state of terror for almost eight years is against anyone's human rights," she told BBC. "I wouldn't do it to an animal, you wouldn't do it to an animal, for a person to go through this every second of every day is against anyone's human rights."

If punished the hacker may be jailed for 60 years in the US, which virtually means jail term till death.

The home secretary's decision has invited protests from different quarters, and some lawyers have described the decision as "callous". They argued that McKinnon could be prosecuted in the UK on lesser charges of computer misuse, preventing his extradition.