Gary McKinnon

On 16 October 2012, then-Home Secretary Theresa May announced to the House of Commons that the extradition had been blocked, saying that:

In January 2010 Mr Justice Mitting granted McKinnon a further judicial review of the decision of Home Secretary Alan Johnson to allow McKinnon’s extradition. Mitting distinguished two issues which were arguable, the first being whether psychiatrist Jeremy Turk's opinion that McKinnon would certainly commit suicide if extradited means that the Home Secretary must refuse extradition under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (which prevents a public authority from acting in a way incompatible with convention rights). The second was whether Turk's opinion was a fundamental change to the circumstances that the courts had previously considered and ruled upon. Mitting ruled that if the answer to both questions was "Yes", then it was arguable that it would be unlawful to allow the extradition.

Janis Sharp, McKinnon's mother, stood as an independent candidate in the 2010 general election in Blackburn in protest against the sitting Labour MP Jack Straw, who was Foreign Secretary when the extradition treaty was agreed. She finished last out of eight candidates with 0.38% of the vote.

On 20 July 2010, Tom Bradby, ITN's political editor, raised the Gary McKinnon issue with U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron in a joint White House press conference who responded that they had discussed it and were working to find an 'appropriate solution'.

On 23 January 2009, McKinnon won permission from the High Court to apply for a judicial review against his extradition. On 31 July 2009, the High Court announced that McKinnon had lost this appeal. McKinnon's legal team, solicitor Karen Todner and barrister Ben Cooper, applied for a judicial review into the Home Secretary's rejection of medical evidence, which stated that, when he could easily be tried in the UK, it was unnecessary, cruel and inhumane to inflict the further stress of removing him from his homeland, his family and his medical support network.

In early November 2008, eighty British MPs signed an Early Day Motion calling for any custodial sentence imposed by an American court to be served in a prison in the UK. On 15 July 2009, many voted in Parliament against a review of the extradition treaty.

In August 2009, Glasgow newspaper The Herald reported that Scots entrepreneur Luke Heron would pay £100,000 towards McKinnon's legal costs in the event he was extradited to the US.

In August 2009, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour released an online single, "Chicago - Change the World", on which he sang and played guitar, bass and keyboards, to promote awareness of McKinnon's plight. A re-titled cover of the Graham Nash song "Chicago", it featured Chrissie Hynde and Bob Geldof, plus McKinnon himself. It was produced by long-time Pink Floyd collaborator Chris Thomas and was made with Nash's support.

Representing McKinnon in the House of Lords on 16 June 2008, barristers told the Law Lords that the prosecutors had said McKinnon faced a possible 8–10 years in jail per count if he contested the charges (there were seven counts) without any chance of repatriation, but only 37–46 months if he co-operated and went voluntarily to the United States. U.S.-style plea bargains are not a part of English jurisprudence (although it is standard practice to reduce the sentence by one-third for a defendant who pleads guilty) and McKinnon's lawyers contended that in effect this was intimidation to force McKinnon to waive his legal rights. McKinnon also stated that he had been told that he could serve part of his sentence in the UK if he co-operated. He rejected the offer because the Americans would not guarantee these concessions.

In November 2008, the rock group Marillion announced that it was ready to participate in a benefit concert in support of McKinnon's struggle to avoid extradition to United States. The organiser of the planned event was Ross Hemsworth, an English radio host. No date had been set as of November 2008. Many prominent individuals voiced support, including Sting, Trudie Styler, Julie Christie, David Gilmour, Graham Nash, Peter Gabriel, The Proclaimers, Bob Geldof, Chrissie Hynde, David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Stephen Fry, and Terry Waite. All proposed that, at least, he should be tried in the UK.

On 12 December 2007, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 45-minute radio play about the case, The McKinnon Extradition by John Fletcher. It was re-broadcast on 2 September 2008. It was directed by Pete Atkin and produced by David Morley.

In 2006, a Freedom of Information Act request was filed with NASA for all documents pertaining to Gary McKinnon. NASA's documents consisted of printed news articles from the Slashdot site, but no other related documents. This was consistent with NASA employees browsing internet articles about Gary McKinnon; the records of such browsing activity are in the public domain.

McKinnon remained at liberty without restriction for three years until June 2005 (until after the UK enacted the Extradition Act 2003, which implemented the 2003 extradition treaty with the United States wherein the United States did not need to provide contestable evidence), when he became subject to bail conditions including a requirement to sign in at his local police station every evening and to remain at his home address at night.

McKinnon was first interviewed by police on 19 March 2002. After this interview, his computer was seized by the authorities. He was interviewed again on 8 August 2002, this time by the UK National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU).

In November 2002, McKinnon was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia. The indictment contained seven counts of computer-related crime, each of which carried a potential ten-year jail sentence.

McKinnon was accused of hacking into 97 United States military and NASA computers over a 13-month period between February 2001 and March 2002, at the house of his girlfriend's aunt in London, using the name 'Solo'.

McKinnon has admitted in many public statements that he obtained unauthorised access to computer systems in the United States including those mentioned in the United States indictment. He states his motivation, drawn from a statement made before the Washington Press Club on 9 May 2001 by "The Disclosure Project", was to find evidence of UFOs, antigravity technology, and the suppression of "free energy", all of which he states to have proven through his actions.

US authorities stated he deleted critical files from operating systems, which shut down the United States Army's Military District of Washington network of 2000 computers for 24 hours. McKinnon also posted a notice on the military's website: "Your security is crap". After the September 11 attacks in 2001, he deleted weapons logs at the Earle Naval Weapons Station, rendering its network of 300 computers inoperable and paralyzing munitions supply deliveries for the US Navy's Atlantic Fleet. McKinnon was also accused of copying data, account files and passwords onto his own computer. US authorities stated that the cost of tracking and correcting the problems he caused was over $700,000.

Gary McKinnon (born 10 February 1966) is a Scottish systems administrator and hacker who was accused in 2002 of perpetrating the "biggest military computer hack of all time," although McKinnon himself states that he was merely looking for evidence of free energy suppression and a cover-up of UFO activity and other technologies potentially useful to the public. On 16 October 2012, after a series of legal proceedings in Britain, Home Secretary Theresa May blocked extradition to the United States.