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Alan Johnson says Theresa May took “the easy way out” over McKinnon extradition

October 19, 2012 9:10 am

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Alan Johnson’s attack on the Home Secretary’s decision can be read here, but the thrust of it is:

“Theresa May has not reached a brave decision, she’s taken the easy way out. The Home Secretary is there to uphold the law; to put justice before popularity. This was an appalling decision irrespective of how many plaudits it receives.”

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  • AlanGiles

    Perhaps if Johnson was the parent of this man he might feel a little less high and mighty.  This situation has gone on for over ten years, which to my mind is a punishment in itself, and GM could still face trial in this country. Mrs May took a humane and wise decision in the light of the medical and psychiatric evidence available to her – evidence I suspect Johnson hasn’t seen or doesn’t understand.

    Sadly, though it so many years after Blair gave our Ambassador in Washington the crude instruction to “get up Washington’s a*** and stay there”, we still have politicians like Johnson, not to mention those other faded old stars of yesteryear Blunkett, Reid and Straw, who think that when the USA say jump we are supposed to say “how high, sir?”

    If Johnson is so keen on law and order he should have campaigned for some of his own colleagues to face prosecution in the expenses scandal, instead of the few fall guys who did get punished. Many of the cabinet he sat in deserved similar treatment.

    Johnson was quite right when he said he “wasn’t up” to the job of PM – he is barely up to being a human being.

    • Hugh

       ”Perhaps if Johnson was the parent of this man he might feel a little less high and mighty”

      On that reasoning we’d only extradite orphans.

      • AlanGiles

         Have you seen the genuine anguish his mother has experienced throught the years?. Apart from anything else, apart from the draconian sentences available in the USA, she has been concerned his mental ill-health might have caused him to commit suicide. I didn’t hear Johnson complaining that Margaret Moran escaped prosecution for fraud for suggesting she would take the same action. There is some grounds to believe Gary’s actions had more to do with stupidity than any intention of sabotage. If Johnson wants Gary extradited and prosecuted let him deman the DPP do the same thing with Moran.

        The trouble with politicians like Johnson is that rules are for everybody else: the minister at the DWP who wanted DHS “advisers” parked in GPs waiting rooms  to get at unemployed patients – which was Johnson’s gfreat scheme, and which would have contravened the confidentiality rules for patients since the receptionist would have had to guide the advisers to the relevant patients. He is a dreadful little man who pretends to be the cheeky chappie but is a very unpleasant individual, the skunk in sheeps clothing.

        • Hugh

           ”Have you seen the genuine anguish his mother has experienced through the years?”

          It’s going to sound very harsh, but I’m afraid that doesn’t and shouldn’t have any impact on how the law is applied.

          Nor does the fact that Johnson did not complain about Moran escaping prosecution invalidate his argument. (Should we demand that May proves she spoke out to commend that decision?)

          In fact, Johnson’s approach is entirely consistent: the court decided Moran was unfit to stand trial (whether wisely or not) in accordance with the law and the evidence. The courts, applying the law, again, have decided McKinnon should be extradited and should be tried in the US – in much the same way as if you shoplift in the US you’re tried there.

          • AlanGiles

             Hugh We don’t yet know if the DPP will decide to bring a prosecution in this country. If they do, I have no doubt that the medical and psychiatric evidence will play a large part in any decision.

            I am quite certain if your son had been under the stress of facing extradition for over a decade (even to our beloved America) you would have a different view.

            The reason I mentioned the Moran case is because this woman evaded the consequences of her action by pleading mental ill-health – and yet, during the time she was undergoing her great torment she was, apparently, seen often, dining, laughing and joking in public and a Westminster. By contrast, Gary McKinnon has been a recluse for the past few years.

            Sorry but Johnson just sickens me with his small-mindedness and his posing.

          • Hugh

            But we do know the courts unambiguously decided he should be tried in the US. I can’t think of a good reason why they’re wrong. The US had also agreed any jail time would be served in the UK.

            I’m quite certain if my son was facing extradition I’d argue he shouldn’t be, too. That’s why I don’t criticise his mother for doing so. I’m also quite certain that the parent’s view has no bearing on how the law should operate.

            Finally, during Moran’s hearing, no evidence of her dining, laughing and joking in public was presented. The court therefore made its decision on the evidence it had; as they did for Mackinnon.

          • Hugh

            But we do know the courts unambiguously decided he should be tried in the US. I can’t think of a good reason why they’re wrong. The US had also agreed any jail time would be served in the UK.

            I’m quite certain if my son was facing extradition I’d argue he shouldn’t be, too. That’s why I don’t criticise his mother for doing so. I’m also quite certain that the parent’s view has no bearing on how the law should operate.

            Finally, during Moran’s hearing, no evidence of her dining, laughing and joking in public was presented. The court therefore made its decision on the evidence it had; as they did for Mackinnon.

          • AlanGiles

            We all know, Hugh, politicians are a special case, untouchable. There were several reports of Moran enjoying a good quality of life after she had to stop appearing in the chamber at Westminster due to her “health” problems – but which didn’t apparently stop her dining on the terrace etc.

            Politicians close ranks, and I still think whatever you or anybody else says that it was commendable that Mrs May showed some straightforward compassion in this case, and didn’t go in for the grandstanding of the odious Johnson.

          • charles.ward

            “The reason I mentioned the Moran case is because this woman evaded the
            consequences of her action by pleading mental ill-health – and yet,
            during the time she was undergoing her great torment she was,
            apparently, seen often, dining, laughing and joking in public and a
            Westminster. ”

            Let’s not forget that she was also in sufficient good health to be involved in the cash for influence scandal.

    • MrSauce

      Just to be clear: I am really not keen on Mrs May being Home Secretary, but you have to give credit where it is due.  She has done the right (and brave) thing.
      The Tories must have given the goahead for the badger cull to restore cosmic balance.

      • Jeremy_Preece

        I dislike Thearsa May very much. However on this decision she made the right choice. I am sure that her motives were a little less than pure and it was a move to popularism.

        Only a week ago she was announcing how “Braitain is taking back control forEurope”. In that example the government is destroying the same European arrest warrent that captured the runnaway teacher and saw the 15 year old girl returned to her family. The Daily Mail ran a front page about how this was the beginning of getting us out of the EU.

  • MrSauce

    This is the man for whom political posturing was more important than public health.
    If the scientific evidence doesn’t suit the policy, then sack the scientist!
    The less we hear from Mr Johnson the better, I think.

    • Hugh

       Which part of his reasoning in the article linked to do you disagree with?

    • Hugh

       Which part of his reasoning in the article linked to do you disagree with?

  • postageincluded

    Theresa May’s decision on the GM case is clearly arbitrary, inconsistent and racist. She has extradited Syed Ahsan, why not Mckinnon? Political advantage is the only difference. This is no way to run the extradition process, and the popularity of the decision shouldn’t blind us to that.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZPXYLRVP4XOIGGDJWAL6HUO7U4 David

      There is clearly a challenge here: justice is (and should be) blind, i.e. non-subjective, but extradition treaties are (and should be) determined on a case-by-case basis, i.e. entirely subjective.

      To me the fault lies in the design of such a flawed system, rather than any specific HO minister’s judgement under it.

  • KonradBaxter

    I agree – it takes no guts whatsoever to stand up to the USA on an issue and plenty of them to agree and follow them god only knows where. 

  • Chilbaldi

    I actually agree with Johnson here, and I am usually quite liberal on crime issues.

    The law is clear here – MacKinnon should have been sent to the US.

    Regarding the humane decision, I’m afraid this case has been misreported in the media. MacKinnon wasn’t just searching for evidence of ‘little green men’ as has been reported. He was engaging in a malicious attack on US computer systems – moving and deleting secret files, leaving abusive messages on the computer systems, deleting user accounts. It had all the hallmarks of a well thought out cyber attack.

    I totally agree that a kind approach should be taken towards sufferers of aspergers and the like. But in this case, MacKinnon’s activities were criminal and the victim was the USA.

    • AlanGiles

       I’m not singling you out, Chilbaldi, but to return to Johnson and those who think like him, I seem to remember a great deal of outrage just a year or two ago when a high-flying businessman was extradited, after a longish fight,  to the States for some misdemeanour. Perhaps if Gary had been extradited he would have received the same outpourings of sympathy as the businessman did. Or perhaps not.

      To return to your point, the Aspbergers syndrome might well have been the reason for  leaving abusive messages so either we should have sympathy and understanding in ALL cases, including those who “victimise” America.

      I have to say I found Mrs May’s action commendable given the Conservatives usual obsequiousness to the USA and it puts to the shame the “Labour” hardmen, Straw, Reid and Blunkett. I was going to say Johnson is a semi-hard man, but that might sound too risque’ and Round-the-Hornish, but anyway, he’s a joke and I can’t understand, as he is no longer a shadow minister or anything to do with the H.O. why he thinks we are interested in his petty little opinions. Do I care what Alan Johnson thinks? – I didn’t even know he could.

  • DanMcCurry

    Totally agree!

  • Serbitar

    Government systems are always open to attack if connected to the internet. The truth of the matter is that the systems administrators of the networks MacKinnon hacked must have been almost unbelievably negligent to have had security lax enough for a mentally challenged Aspergic individual to penetrate by fiddling about heuristically on a home computer from his mother’s back bedroom: at the time MacKinnon accessed the American systems he couldn’t write shell scripts or program in C or C++. What damage and disruption MacKinnon wrought couldn’t have occurred if the American IT guys and gals responsible for maintaining the system had their socks pulled up and had been up to snuff.

    MacKinnon’s activities were more childish and mischievous than deliberate and malicious. The man is autistic, not a criminal or evil genius. No good purpose could possibly have been served by jailing such a fragile person, possibly for decades, in a brutal American jail.

    Although I am left-wing I applaud Theresa May for refusing MacKinnon’s extradition.

    (And embarrassed to be reminded what a pompous spiteful ars*hole Alan Johnson can be at times.)

    • Hugh

      “a mentally challenged Aspergic individual”

      Is he “mentally challenged”? He was a systems administrator himself, wasn’t he? Here he is talking a few years back. His belief in UFOs and anti-gravity sounds a bit loopy to me, but he sounds remarkably fluent and articulate:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4PkNPCEnJM

      • http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone

        I have done voluntary work with Aspergers syndrome people and never found them to be any more “mentally challenged” or cognitively impaired than other sections of the population. But behavioural norms are often not firmly established, even when an awareness of norms is present, and this can lead to serious or even disastrous consequences during everyday social interaction.

        • Serbitar

          See above.

          • http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone

            Fair comment, it’s a complex subject/condition.

            My agreement with Johnson is founded on an apparent imbalance in the application of the law.

      • Serbitar

        I would say that Aspergic people are mentally challenged. 

        I have met several high functioning Aspergics, mostly mathematicians, who are undoubtedly brilliant in their narrow field of expertise but severely challenged everywhere else by dint of their mentality. Most of the people I have known exhibit have a bizarre disconnection from the world and often possess only a rudimentary capacity for empathy as far as social interaction with others go. Aspergic people’s sense of right and wrong seemed strangely skewed to me as if they “connect up the dots” as far as reality goes in a manner quite different from “normal” people.

        For example one Aspergic person I knew quite well was once working on developing projectiles called “fleshettes”. He was absorbed by and fascinated by complicated systems of non-linear partial differential equations he was occupied with, working with, and solving. I remember him telling me about his discovery that if you made a projectile that weighed this much, out of such and such an alloy, shaped like so and so, and launched x of them, at such and such a velocity, in such and such a pattern, you could kill every living thing above the ground, within a radius of y metres, and wound as many as z people, non-fatally, which was ideal because after the “splinter bomb” had exploded and done its work, in the aftermath, dealing with so many injured soldiers would slow an army down and drain their resources… blah, blah, blah. The guy was intensely exited and absorbed by devising horrible weapons to designed to kill and maim as many human being as possible as cheaply and efficiently as possible. When I pointed this out to him he seemed shocked and surprised. The end result of his work has never crossed his mind before; the problem itself was everything to him. Most Aspergic people I have known have been like that: fascinated by problems while at the same time completely oblivious to whatever consequences might result as far as extant solutions to the selfsame problems went.    

        I am quite sure MacKinnon as he hacked various computer systems had no conception that he was causing anybody personal harm or costing anyone money. To him I bet that it was just a series of riddles and metal gymnastics  he became fascinated with and eventually obsessed with solving. Success and failure supersedes right and wrong in monomaniacal people.

        It is cruel and ridiculous and pointless to deliberately punish such people for behaving in ways dictated by conditions like Asperger’s Syndrome. Sack the American sysops who left back-doors open for MacKinnon to exploit, yes, but what possible point could there be in sentencing a man who already faces terrible difficulty, coping with ordinary life, on a daily basis, to a long sentence in an American penitentiary?

        None whatsoever beyond political show boating.

        • Hugh

          “I am quite sure MacKinnon as he hacked various computer systems had no
          conception that he was causing anybody personal harm or costing anyone
          money”

          Rather undermined by him leaving a message reading: “US foreign policy is akin to Government-sponsored terrorism these days …
          It was not a mistake that there was a huge security stand down on
          September 11 last year … I am SOLO. I will continue to disrupt at the
          highest levels …”

          Also badly undermined by the fact he was able to give a 16 minute interview attempting to justify his actions. He seemed to have no trouble whatsoever appreciating what he had done.

          • Hugh

             And here’s Gary in his first interview in 2005, explaining that he deleted  government information only once, by mistake (pressing the wrong button):

            “I thought, ‘Ooh, bloody hell,’ ” he says. “And that’s when I stopped
            for a while. And then my friend told me about Darpa. And so I started
            again.”

            http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2005/jul/09/weekend7.weekend2

          • Serbitar

            Jailing MacKinnon makes no sense to me. Who knows what percolated through his mind when giving that interview. Perhaps he saw himself as some kind of Neo character, straight out of the Matrix, fighting a system he saw as corrupt and dangerous. If commercial companies like eBay and Amazon and Google and Facebook can maintain secure systems, the American State Department ought to be able to do much better. The real point is that the system he hacked should not have presented avenues of attack for anyone to exploit: if you park a lorry you should always lock its doors because anyone, even a child, could climb inside its cab and release the vehicle’s handbrake causing a terrible accident without really meaning to if you don’t.

            If a naive fantacist like MacKinnon can hack a government’s computer system so easily what does that say about the government involved?

          • Hugh

            Or perhaps he saw himself as a computer hacker giving one in the eye to the US. Or perhaps he’s got another condition that has remained undiagnosed, but actually  we don’t normally in this country invent reasons why the accused might not be criminally liable and use that as a reason to refuse extradition. We usually leave it up to them to argue that. Nor do we absolve criminals of responsibility because the victim doesn’t take good measures to protect themselves. You’ll notice that if someone nicks your unlocked lorry they still get arrested.

          • Serbitar

            Having met, worked with, and kind of been friends with people like MacKinnon (insofar as it was possible) I don’t agree that jail is a fit punishment for hacking computer systems that should have been inaccessible. Especially when nothing had been pilfered or sensitive information disclosed (Wikileaks style) to the general public which caused actual harm to result to anyone.

            What is worrying about this case is that a very average and not very clever hacker working alone, by a process of brute force, trial and error, could infiltrate NASA and American military computer networks at all. This indicates  extraordinary complacency and incompetence on the part of the USA system designers and administrators.

            At every moment amateur, criminal, and professional hackers, working alone, or in groups, or as the employees of foreign governments, are busily trying to access every system connected to the internet. Some attacks try to embezzle: some try to sabotage: some try to acquire information: some are terrorist – you name it. And pretty much every one of these people whether working from a garden shed, or working for the Chinese government, or Russian Mafia, or whatever, are dozens of times cleverer, more knowledgeable, better equipped, and much more accomplished than Gary MacKinnon.

            These people deserve punishment.

            (In the very unlikely event that you catch them.)

            But it would be better to shut the stable door before the horse has bolted, as it were,  by adequately protecting computer systems that can be accessed publicly by outsiders.

          • AlanGiles

            I think a book called “Hackers” by Steven Levy (originally published circa in the USA 1984 but reissued by Penguin in 1994 in the U.K. (ISBN 0-14-023269-9), would make fascinating reading for anybody interested in this subject, leaving aside Gary MacKinnon and the self-advertising Alan Johnson, aspect .

            It describes the mindset of the typical hacker and the “Hacker ethic”. These people see themselves as pioneers, experimenters and explorers. they often have poor social skills, often loners and what would nowadays be called “geeks” – or is it “nerds”, I can never keep up with the argot.

            It should also be remembered that, prior to 2001, many books were published, by reputable publishers  in America, and often issued here in Britain  by equally reputable publishers  which were virtually “how to” guides, and written in much the same spirit as in previous decades books had been written on how to make radio transmitters for pirate broadcasting, an illegal activity in the UK without the appropriate licence, and which became totally taboo with the introduction of the Marine Offences Act 1967.

          • Hugh

             Yes, US computer systems should be better protected. No, that doesn’t mean hacking them or attempting isn’t or shouldn’t be a criminal offence.

          • Serbitar

            Having met, worked with and kind of been friends with people like MacKinnon (insofar as it was possible) I don’t agree that jail is a fit punishment for hacking computer systems that should have been inaccessible. Especially when nothing had been pilfered or sensitive information disclosed (Wikileaks style) to the general public which caused actual harm to result to anyone.

            What is worrying about this case is that a very average and not very clever hacker, working alone, by a process of brute force, trial and error could infiltrate NASA and American military computer networks at all. This indicates  extraordinary complacency and incompetence on the part of the USA system designers and administrators.

            At every moment amateur, criminal, and professional hackers working alone, or in groups, or as the employees of foreign governments are busily trying to access every system connected to the internet. Some attacks try to embezzle: some are try to sabotage: some are try to acquire information: some are terrorist – you name it. And pretty much every one of these people whether working from a garden shed or working for the Chinese government or Russian Mafia are dozens of times cleverer, more knowledgeable, better equipped and much more accomplished than Gary MacKinnon.

            These people deserve punishment.

            But it would be better to shut the stable door before the horse has bolted, as it were,  by adequately protecting computer systems that can be accessed publicly by outsiders.

          • Serbitar

            Having met, worked with, and kind of been friends with people like MacKinnon (insofar as it was possible) I don’t agree that jail is a fit punishment for hacking computer systems that should have been inaccessible. Especially when nothing had been pilfered or sensitive information disclosed (Wikileaks style) to the general public which caused actual harm to result to anyone.

            What is worrying about this case is that a very average and not very clever hacker working alone, by a process of brute force, trial and error, could infiltrate NASA and American military computer networks at all. This indicates  extraordinary complacency and incompetence on the part of the USA system designers and administrators.

            At every moment amateur, criminal, and professional hackers, working alone, or in groups, or as the employees of foreign governments, are busily trying to access every system connected to the internet. Some attacks try to embezzle: some try to sabotage: some try to acquire information: some are terrorist – you name it. And pretty much every one of these people whether working from a garden shed, or working for the Chinese government, or Russian Mafia, or whatever, are dozens of times cleverer, more knowledgeable, better equipped, and much more accomplished than Gary MacKinnon.

            These people deserve punishment.

            In the unlikely event that you catch them.

            But it would be better to shut the stable door before the horse has bolted, as it were,  by adequately protecting computer systems that can be accessed publicly by outsiders.

          • Serbitar

            Having met, worked with, and kind of been friends with people like MacKinnon (insofar as it was possible) I don’t agree that jail is a fit punishment for hacking computer systems that should have been inaccessible. Especially when nothing had been pilfered or sensitive information disclosed (Wikileaks style) to the general public which caused actual harm to result to anyone.

            What is worrying about this case is that a very average and not very clever hacker working alone, by a process of brute force, trial and error, could infiltrate NASA and American military computer networks at all. This indicates  extraordinary complacency and incompetence on the part of the USA system designers and administrators.

            At every moment amateur, criminal, and professional hackers, working alone, or in groups, or as the employees of foreign governments, are busily trying to access every system connected to the internet. Some attacks try to embezzle: some try to sabotage: some try to acquire information: some are terrorist – you name it. And pretty much every one of these people whether working from a garden shed, or working for the Chinese government, or Russian Mafia, or whatever, are dozens of times cleverer, more knowledgeable, better equipped, and much more accomplished than Gary MacKinnon.

            These people deserve punishment.

            In the unlikely event that you catch them.

            But it would be better to shut the stable door before the horse has bolted, as it were,  by adequately protecting computer systems that can be accessed publicly by outsiders.

  • PeterBarnard

    Perhaps it would have been better if Alan Johnson had not commented on the Home Secretary’s decision not to proceed with the extradition of Mr McKinnon, but I think that he does have a point.

    Mr McKinnon’s case against extradition was presented to four courts of law : Bow Street magistrates (May, 2006), High Court (April, 2007), Law Lords (July, 2008) and the European Court of Human Rights (August, 2008). On each occasion, the court decided that extradition should be allowed. Evidence was heard in public.

    Things seem to have turned murky since August, 2008. What is decidedly murky is that whatever reasons or evidence Ms May may have had for not allowing deportation to proceed have not been tested in the public realm, ie it’s a “behind closed doors” decision. This is not good.

  • http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone

    I’m inclined to agree with Johnson.

    In the space of two weeks one British citizen with Aspergers syndrome, accused of computer related activity is not extradited, while another British citizen with Aspergers syndrome, accused of computer related activity has been extradited.

    What is the difference between the two? One was a Muslim.

    Where is the equal treatment before the law?

  • Jeremy_Preece

    Sorry – didn’t finish the comment…

    Yes hacking is wrong, but this was a special needs adult playing on his computer in his own bedroom in a little house in England. This idea  that to have him sent to the USA where he could be given 60 years (i.e. the rest of his life) could not be made by a humane or reasonable country. It is an example if how the USA can be autistic and never apply rason.

     The treaty by which the ion was to have been made is a bad one as it means that the US can have UK citizens extridited for offenses agains the USA by UK subjects acting in the UK, and that the UK government does not have the same rights regarding a US citizen in the USA.

    What really bugs me about this case is what does it tell you about US security if some specail needs bloke in his bedroom can use his ordinary computer and internet to hack into such secure sites, let alone have access to delete files.

    No wonder that the US want to distract attention! If the US authorities had any sense they would be pleased to knowthat they were able learn that their systems could be so easily hacked and that it was not an international terrorist but someone looking for UFO’s.

    If I was presendent of the USA I would have wanted to hire this young man to show the relevant authorities how their system was so easily hacked, and then hire him to help test all of their future software updates, (under supervision of course).

    • Hugh

       ”but this was a special needs adult playing on his computer in his own bedroom in a little house in England.”

      Well, no, actually: Gary did most of his hacking from the house of his girlfriend’s aunt  (with a joint in the ash tray) – according to a 2005 interview with the Guardian that he instigated by ringing up the journalist.

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2005/jul/09/weekend7.weekend2

  • Jeremy_Preece

    Sorry I don’t know what is going on with this site. I type things in reply and they appear in different places on the blog!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Graeme-Hancocks/1156294498 Graeme Hancocks

    I cannot agree with Alan Johnson on this. As much as I do not agree with Ms May in general, I think she got this one right. Sad to have to say but previous Labour home secretary’s – including Alan Johnson who I admire, have shown a lack of humanity in this case. 

  • MonkeyBot5000

    It’s worth remembering that the $500k or so of damage he is said to have caused was the cost of paying consultants to change passwords from the default values. That should have been done when the systems were first installed. Also, the “damage” to each computer was claimed to be just above the level at which his actions became a federal crime and thus extraditable.

    The US were just looking to make an example of someone and it’s about time the government stood up to them. Labour should never have signed a treaty which allows British citizens to be handed over to a foreign justice system on such a flimsy basis as “reasonable suspicion” when extradition in the opposite direction requires a much higher standard of evidence to be met.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/QDMFX65KM5STSAFHAC4FOLFTO4 fran

    Alan Johnson looks petty and irrelevant when lambasting this decision even if he feels compelled to say what he’s saying. Nobody doing PR for him at the moment ?

  • Daniel Speight

    Alan Johnson never fails to disappoint. Just when you think he is getting better…

  • Monkey_Bach

    Eeek. If you think Gary MacKinnon’s bit of hacking was bad just wait until Universal Credit comes on line and people are trying to update their details using insecure mobile phones, cyber cafes, public libraries (where they haven’t been closed), wi-fi hotspots and other people’s routers, friend’s and relative’s computers and whatnot. Much of the IT work involved in this mashup benefit has been outsourced to the subcontinent of India, where, in the past, Database Administrators plucked millions of names, addresses, credit and debit card details and the like to interested parties, some of them criminal,  at bargain basement rates:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/23/it-staff-india-benefits-system

    Eeek. With Universal Credit supposed to help people into work (which it won’t of course) you might have imagined the work involved in trying to give it a go might have been awarded to British companies but no. Eeek. 

    Thinking about the storm coming in respect to British welfare makes me glad to be a monkey!

  • Monkey_Bach

    Eeek. If you think Gary MacKinnon’s bit of hacking was bad just wait until Universal Credit comes on line and people are trying to update their details using insecure mobile phones, cyber cafes, public libraries (where they haven’t been closed), wi-fi hotspots and other people’s routers, friend’s and relative’s computers and whatnot. Much of the IT work involved in this mashup benefit has been outsourced to the subcontinent of India, where, in the past, Database Administrators plucked millions of names, addresses, credit and debit card details and the like to interested parties, some of them criminal,  at bargain basement rates:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/23/it-staff-india-benefits-system

    Eeek. With Universal Credit supposed to help people into work (which it won’t of course) you might have imagined the work involved in trying to give it a go might have been awarded to British companies but no. Eeek. 

    Thinking about the storm coming in respect to British welfare makes me glad to be a monkey!

  • Monkey_Bach

    Eeek. If you think Gary MacKinnon’s bit of hacking was bad just wait until Universal Credit comes on line and people are trying to update their details using insecure mobile phones, cyber cafes, public libraries (where they haven’t been closed), wi-fi hotspots and other people’s routers, friend’s and relative’s computers and whatnot. Much of the IT work involved in this mashup benefit has been outsourced to the subcontinent of India, where, in the past, Database Administrators plucked millions of names, addresses, credit and debit card details and the like to interested parties, some of them criminal,  at bargain basement rates:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/23/it-staff-india-benefits-system

    Eeek. With Universal Credit supposed to help people into work (which it won’t of course) you might have imagined the work involved in trying to give it a go might have been awarded to British companies but no. Eeek. 

    Thinking about the storm coming in respect to British welfare makes me glad to be a monkey!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=830150967 Steven Green

    May did what she did for political advantage – and that can’t be right. However, I’m glad the extradition is not going ahead. The key problem for me is I don’t trust the American “justice” system to deliver justice. It is too distorted by the power of money and too politicised. We need to give our courts more power to test the evidence before agreeing extradition. We should not extradite for “crimes” committed on UK soil which are not crimes in our law. And there needs to be a compelling reason why a crime that could be tried in the UK is allowed to be tried in a USA court instead. That said, it is also worrying that justice in the UK is becoming increasingly class-biased (e.g. the penalties handed out for minor crimes in the riots and the 6 months for the boat race swimmer).

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

    Perhaps the US should be thinking about why their so-called ‘security’ obsession is so flaky that a UFO spotting hacker could so easily break in.

    Johnson was and is wrong. I don’t think that we should have any extradition treaty with the US in any case, as I don’t think their justice system is fit for purpose

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