IT Pro Portal News -
Fresh from their success in getting the Gurkhas the same rights as other Commonwealth soldiers, national newspaper the Daily Mail is siding with Gary McKinnon to prevent the government from extraditing him to the US.
On Friday, the newspaper dedicated its front page to the new campaign that it decided to back. It has published several articles about the case and has even published an online petition which has been viewed by thousands and attracted comments from hundreds.
On the same day, McKinnon's mother, Janis Sharp, together with Sting's other half, Trudie Styler, presented another petition signed by more than 4300 to the Sarah Brown, the Prime Minister's wife. And according to the Daily mail, Ms Brown "wept" together with the two women and pledged support to the Daily Mail's campaign to stop the extradition process.
Opposition leaders including Conservative leader David Cameron and his Liberal alterego, Nick Clegg have both given their backing to the campaign.
Gary McKinnon is accused of hacking US Military and NASA computer servers in 2001 and 2002 causing around $700,000 worth of damages. But rather than looking to start a Third world war, McKinnon was more concerned about finding evidence of extraterrestrial life on the hard disks of those computers. Nevertheless, the extradition process only started in 2005 and failed to be derailed by appeals to the house of lords and the European Court of Human Rights.
It was also revealed that the self-taught hacker had Asperger's Syndrome. Ironically, this latest move comes as the government has announced that it would be recruiting former hackers to help it protect UK computer systems from the threats of foreign hackers.
