Extradition treaty under the spotlight
Updated on 06 July 2009
UK hacker Gary McKinnon's case has shone a spotlight on the extradition treaty between the UK and the USA.
The case of Gary McKinnon, who has Asperger's syndrome, has emphasised the one-sided nature of the extradition treaty that former Home Secretary David Blunkett signed six years ago.
McKinnon's battle against extradition has also attracted some unlikely supporters along the way.
McKinnon, who began writing his own software programmes at 14, has admitted hacking into the Pentagon's computer system in 2001-2, but claims that he was looking for evidence of extra-terrestrial life.
He was caught as he tried to download a grainy black and white photograph which he believed was an alien spacecraft from a Nasa computer housed in the Johnson space centre in Houston, Texas.
McKinnon was easily traced by the authorities because he used his own email address.
He has always said that he had no malicious intent but was looking for classified documents on UFOs which he believed the US authorities had suppressed.
He has signed a statement accepting that his hacking constituted an offence under the UK's computer misuse act.
