Boris Johnson, Gary McKinnon and justice

So Mayor of London Boris Johnson thinks that the US desire to extradite Gary McKinnon is “neocon lunacy”.

Whatever you think about Johnson, he lays his views on the line and declines any of the usual pussyfooting tactics that his political peers typically pursue when straying from areas of expertise. But that doesn’t make him right.

Gary McKinnon hacked the Pentagon system. To excuse that by saying that US security was poor, or that McKinnon did not need grade-A skills, or that he was only looking for men on the moon, or even that he may be suffering from Asperger’s, is questionable logic. A great many computer security incidents are caused by experimentation, tomfoolery, attention seeking and other non-malicious reasons. But the result is, none the less, havoc.

Of course, finding the appropriate penalty for those convicted of computer crime can be very difficult indeed but those who have been at the sharp end of compromises are unlikely to have the most sympathy with perpetrators — whatever their claimed motives or tools they have employed.

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