THUS Magazine

Gary McKinnon

Thus is not normally a campaigning website, but please sign this petition on behalf of Gary McKinnon. The UK government and House of Lords have done nothing to protect a UK citizen’s rights. If it weren’t deadly serious, it would be risible, and is a horrible reminder of the nightmare slide into totalitarianism of the past eight years.

McKinnon hacked in to US military sites looking for evidence of UFOs nearly 7 years ago. He never denied his crime. His hacking was extensive, but not motivated by malice. He admitted it to the UK police, who told him he would get a community service sentence. Since he was never charged in the UK, he now faces extradition to the US and life in a Supermax prison. McKinnon suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome. Incarceration will almost certainly exacerbate his condition. According to his supporters, he has an honesty compulsion that will get him into terrible trouble with fellow inmates. There is little chance of either a fair trial or leniency, given that the US authorities have already said they want to see him “fry”.

His request for a judicial review was scheduled to be heard on December 2, but his supporters say that the Law Lords now anticipate setting a date for hearing the request any time from December to January, 2009. Let’s hope it’s after Obama’s inauguration, and that commonsense prevails. This is a hangover from the one-sided extradition treaty bulldozed through in the name of the so-called War on Terror. A demonstration is planned outside the US Embassy and the ‘office of Tony Blair’ on 5 December 2008 from 5-7 pm. Meanwhile, you can petition your MP to sign Early Day Motion 2388, a modest proposal which calls upon the Home Secretary to ask our US masters to repatriate McKinnon on health grounds in the (likely) event of being found guilty in the US courts, according to the terms of the 2003 Extradition Act.

Pass this petition link on to as many people as you can and try to avoid a serious miscarriage of justice.

http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/stop-the-extradition-of-gary-mckinnon/signatures.html