It was revealed as the controversy developed that McKinnon had hacked into close to one hundred U.S. government systems.
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The London Telegraph followed the debate closely and secured the words of a U.S. intelligence officer, who said: “We suffered serious damage. This was not some harmless incident. He did very serious and deliberate damage to military and NASA computers and left silly anti-America messages. All the evidence was that someone was staging a very serious attack on U.S. computer systems.”
McKinnon vehemently denied having caused any system problems or changes. He told Matthew Williams of this issue: “The U.S. Government has kind of redefined ‘damage.’ On one level, they have said ‘impairing the machine’s ability to perform its normal function,’ which is rubbish, because all I did was log on and install my remote control software, which doesn’t actually inhibit the machine’s ability to function in any way. Then, they go on to say ‘damage by alteration of data,’ which refers to the act of installing the remote control software. But, I haven’t actually damaged their data in any way by doing so. It is an addition to the machine, not a damage to the machine.” Officialdom strongly begged to differ, and in doing so, the wheels were set in motion for McKinnon’s real nightmare to begin in earnest.
Four years after his initial arrest, McKinnon got the news he hoped he would never receive. The way was being paved for McKinnon to be extradited to the United States. This was a far cry from his assumptions that he might get a very short prison sentence in the United Kingdom. Nope: the U.S. government was thinking more along the lines of seventy years behind bars in an American prison. The process took its time, as such cases so often do. On one hand, the bureaucratic and complex angles involved ensured that the attempt to have McKinnon sent to the United States didn’t go so easy, after all, which meant that he was still a free man. On the other hand, part of him wanted it all taken care of quickly—rather than having endless sleepless nights worrying about his fate. In February 2007, McKinnon’s lawyers argued against having him turned over to the United States. Two months later, the High Court denied the argument. An appeal to the European Court of Human Rights went nowhere.
Fortunately for McKinnon, in the summer of 2008, he had a slight bit of good news, if you can really call it good. He was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome—a diagnosis made by Simon Baron-Cohen of the United Kingdom’s Cambridge University. A case was made that because of his state, McKinnon was not fit to go through a trial, never mind a jail sentence on the other side of the world.
Then, in 2009, the Labor Government’s home secretary, Alan Johnson, said that he would do his utmost to ensure that McKinnon did not get handed over to American law-enforcement officials. Unfortunately, due to legal loopholes, Johnson’s plans were seen as unworkable because extradition for a crime did not, technically, violate his rights as a citizen of the United Kingdom. It was a case of almost being back to square one again.
In 2010, when the Conservative Party was in power again, Prime Minister David Cameron said that he would take action to try to keep McKinnon on U.K. soil. McKinnon’s mother said: “We’re all very nervous at the moment and hoping for good news and that Gary will soon have his life back again.” As for the government’s Home Office, a spokesperson said: “It is not appropriate to speculate further at this stage.”
In 2012, the decision that McKinnon was hoping for came. The BBC said: “The case had been in Theresa May’s in-tray since she became Home Secretary in May 2010 and in October she finally ruled that he should not be extradited.
She said there was no doubt Mr. McKinnon was ‘seriously ill’ and said: ‘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.’ Now, the director of public prosecutions has ruled Mr. McKinnon will not face charges in the UK—bringing his 10-year battle to a close.” The American government chose not to pursue matters any further.
The big questions in all of this are: what was the true nature of those “Non- Terrestrial Officers” to which McKinnon referred? Was it evidence of a secret space program? Did it operate out of Area 51? Is the U.S. government controlling our access to what is known about outer space and the possibilities of alien life? Taking things even further, evidence is solid that some secret element of the government is clandestinely running a secret space program.