Mow here’s the Mail’s trumps card going to fall regarding Aspbergers?
“Just a made up condition to excuse badly behaved boys, in my day we used to sit up in class, not rocking about like a load of Rumanian orphans”.
Or
“Terrible result of Big Pharma’s genocidal innoculation programs. There weren’t any autistics when I was young, criminals or paedos either – the Krays would’ve showed em what for”.
Binyam wasn’t white, McKinnon ticks all the boxes for the Daily Mail, and he actually carried out what could be called a terrorist attack on the security of another country. Binyam didn’t do anything.
Oh dear, DM stands up for rights and Mailwatch saddos don’t tip their hats|?
Come on. There is a coherent policy here.
Marcs: Nice try. Bollocks. And you know it.You should hate yourself for trying that one on. Really scumtastic.
Heat not a furnace….
@jonny d…well spoken mate. Gary McKinnon is backed by the DM so most of the lefties on this site are against him. But if the DM were coming from the other direction and clamouring for him to be extradited then most of the commenters on this site would be supporting him! Come on guys, quit the knee jerk responses.
I don’t think we’re particularly against him, it’s just that we can’t quite see why this one particular criminal deserves special treatment.
If his case could be used as the lever with with to change the current unbalanced extradition treaty then I’d be glad to see it. But so long as the DM complains that dark skinned people aren’t sufficiently thankful that we’ve stopped having them tortured, and leave it at that, while demanding freedom for pale skinned criminals then it smacks of hypocracy.
@neander @johnny_d it’s the fact that he’s actually guilty that sticks in my gullet.
It’s not about politics. It’s about a newspaper campaigning to ensure that crimes go unpunished, just because they were done by a white, middle-class IT manager.
Surely there is some hypocrisy with leading a “ray of hope” free our good white criminal from prison headline a day after the viscous “he should of died in prison” rebuke the headline?
the Mail and Mail on Sunday have written extensively about Binyam Mohamed (and none of it – so far as I can remember – supports the use of torture).
NickPheas could you tell me where the DM complains ‘ that dark skinned people aren’t sufficiently thankful that we’ve stopped having them tortured’? I’m a regular reader and I don’t remember that particular comment (er..you’re not just making it up to confirm your own prejudices by any chance are you?
‘ It’s about a newspaper campaigning to ensure that crimes go unpunished’- er..no Dai it’s not. It’s about a newspaper campaigning against the extradition of an autistic man to the US.
He can be punished for his heinous crime – and it’s heart-warming tthat you care so much for the security of the United States of America – in the UK where he committed the crime.
As I said, the circumstances of McKinnon and Mohammed aren’t exactly the same, so direct comparison is somewhat lacking. And I haven’t said that McKinnon doesn’t deserve backing or sympathy; I’m not criticising him but the Mail’s respective stances on the two issues.
well said karlo.
The Mail On Sunday was the first paper in the world to get a photo out of Guantanamo and splashed with it: one word front page headline ‘Torture’.
Mackinnon is accused of committing a crime on US intelligence while in Britain. If Mackinnon does not go to the US he should still face trial. You may suggest that he has no comparsion with the people locked up in Guantanamo Bay but some of them were detained for a lot less than Mr Mackinnon.
As for the first paper, were is your proof? Amenesty were one of the first to report it according to a House of Commons document i googled just then and The Guardian followed it up…..
But if you can prove me wrong then fine, and I actually agree with the death tax. I love crass stereotyping about lefties but go ahead believe it. I’m not being LEFTIE on this issue I’m just highlighting like many others the hypocrisy of this very paper.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-95680/The-terror-Camp-X-Ray.html (20.01.02)
Amnesty made a statement on 10.01.02 stating prisoners should be treated humanely.
A much longer piece came from them on 22.01.02
But the first picture, (as I said, if you would take the trouble to read just one sentence and inwardly digest) was the MoS.
The splash headline was ‘torture’
They were first. They were right.
What is your problem? Just don’t want to hear the world fails to fit into your black and white world view? Sound familiar? Does it cure cancer or cause it, hmm?
No hypocrites were harmed in the making of this response.
McKinnon should face trial. We have a perfectly good law here in the UK where the alleged crime was committed called the misuse of computers act to deal with it.
…..and as a fellow 1st world democracy that tries people under a jury system, good enough that we have a fast-track extradition agreement with, just why shouldn’t this guy face trial in the USA?
S’funny but white middleclass IT manager does seem to be the DM’s only rationale here.
That’s just wrong and given their usual idiotic posturing and crap it’s laughable so.
Hypocrites.
I’m against USA’s application of their laws Ex-territiory.
I’m also opposed to an asymetric extradition treaty with any country.
But he’s not in a cell on the USA, so surely our IronMan ™ PM can do the “Sherriff facing down the lynch mob” bit and say.
“My citizen, my land, my law, nobody’s getting extradited until our law has finished its due process”.
I see a similar situation with te various minsters getting summoned to a Senate hearing about the Lockerbie release.
I rather wish the Scottish minsters in particular would issue a statement saying “We have this thing here called soverignty, here, so kindly stop behaving as though you run the world”.
Of course there’s a deeper diplomatic angle, and that’s rather provocative, I’m sure they could word it better.
The current unexplained refusal smacks of hiding under the duvet until the monsters go away.
This is about the only issue I agree with the Mail on.
He has admitted a very minor “crime” committed in Britain (not America), is threatened with a draconian sentence in draconian conditions, and anyone who knows about autism knows that sending an autistic person halfway around the world is not humane.
On the other hand – point taken, they’re selective. The closest parallel case is not Binyam Mohammed, but Babar Ahmed, who is charged very similarly to Mackinnon, with an alleged “crime” in the UK (running a website), for which the US want him extradited. He was also a victim of admitted police brutality – which is partly why they’re trying to get him extradited.
The sad joke here is precisely the hypocrisy of the DM and their pals illustrated perfectly by the contrast between their ’support’ for McKinnin and their trashing of the Scottish Parliament over Lockerbie bomber al-Megrahi.
In McKinnon’s case it’s supposedly all about our sovereignty & their claim ‘we’ should have the final say and yet as far as al-Megrahi is concerned (despite wide international agreement) the Scots should be doing only whatever it is that the US says.
As much as nobody likes the idea of ‘real politic’ at work with al-Megrahi it’s probably just a fact of life, and the US are hardly innocent when it comes to dirty deals in what they see as their national interest.
Or maybe the Dr.s just got it wrong, a close relative of mine lasted 10yrs instead of the 2 the Dr.s originally gave.
It’s not exactly an exact science.
McKinnon has Aspergers and its doubtful that the US will take that into account if they get hold of him.
It has nothing to do with him being white or middle class, and frankly, the insults aimed at him on this site is probably not too far of what you’ll find on the Mail site, even if they are motivated by inverse snobbery.
You talk as if Aspergers is foreign to the US, in fact it was being recognised & addressed over there long before it was commonly recognised here.
The reflex bias and inferrence that the US judicial system are out to sentence McKinnon to a disproportionate term in jail is ludicrous.
If he’d hacked into the MOD to the level the Americans say he messed with their defense stuff they’d have probably taken his claimed mental problems into account & held him ‘at HM’s pleasure’ which is possibly the worst sentence available in the UK (ie indefinitely).
“You talk as if Aspergers is foreign to the US”, that’s really not the point, people with Aspergers often need support and advocacy close by. If you want to know some of the other reasons why jail is not appropriate in this kind of case, look up “sensory overload”. In any case, America is not known for treating prisoners humanely. Quite frankly, nobody should be sent there until they close Guantanamo and all the Supermaxes, do something about the epidemic of prison rapes, and end impunity for warden violence.
The nearest case here is Nicky Reilly. Reilly did something far worse than Mackinnon, and in my view should never have been tried since his mental age of ten puts him below the equivalent age of criminal responsibility for children. But even after he received a draconian sentence for something very serious, he isn’t going to be kept in prison long. Last I heard he is being transferred to a mental asylum.
I’m no expert but i’m pretty sure aspergers doesn’t stop a person knowing right from wrong, it’s really not an excuse. He did wrong and there should be some charges. However the US justice system is infamously atrocious, and has been very much exposed as such with this case, all civilised countries should cease extradition to the US until it improves to a basic standard
Find it hard reading social queues? Spending a lot of time thinking about UFOS? Don’t really want to go out but would quite like to spend an evening on the internet? Sounds like being stoned if you ask me.
Of course the real point is why The Mail was championing the story. Not whether or not aspergers does this, that or the other. It’s a story, sure – but front page? I think even Mail supporters can see that the paper really doesn’t care about the man, they are just using him for an angle.
It’s not just a Mail way of operating of course, but by gum do they do it with style.
JAY is completely correct. My sister has Asperger’s syndrome and she definitely knows right from wrong. She stumbles over certain social cues and sometimes doesn’t know when to STOP MONOLOGUING but she knows not to go parading onto sites with weak defences and then alerting them to her presence. Not that she’d be able to anyway; she’s more of an artistic autistic.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that the US isn’t over-reacting. I don’t think McKinnon was being malicious. Just incredibly stupid. Thing is, the US is blowing this out of proportion, probably to keep up the appearance that they’re a big scary nation and if you dare to mess with them you will be pulverised. Instead of going “Oops, yeah; what a terrible security flaw”, fixing it, and then punishing him in a more realistic fashion, they’re going “HOW DARE YOU NOTICE OUR FLAWS?!” and making a demon out of him.
Apparently he got through their systems with incredibly obvious passwords, too. If that’s true, anyone could have done the same.
The President has made it quite clear that he does intercede in extradition matters.
This ‘ray of hope’ isn’t related to the new laser weapon the USA recently demonstrated, is it?
So are squirrels now on the Mail’s official hate list, or is it just the opinion of Quentin Letts?
Why I Hate Squirrels… isn’t that an old Jasper Carrot routine?
Why we hate everything! Watch out World, the Daily Mail is gunning for you.
Isn’t the Mail, in it’s hatred of non native species, practising a covert form of racism?
Mow here’s the Mail’s trumps card going to fall regarding Aspbergers?
“Just a made up condition to excuse badly behaved boys, in my day we used to sit up in class, not rocking about like a load of Rumanian orphans”.
Or
“Terrible result of Big Pharma’s genocidal innoculation programs. There weren’t any autistics when I was young, criminals or paedos either – the Krays would’ve showed em what for”.
Not exactly the same circumstances, but forgive me if I can’t remember similar headlines for Binyam Mohammed when he was in Guantanamo.
Binyam wasn’t white, McKinnon ticks all the boxes for the Daily Mail, and he actually carried out what could be called a terrorist attack on the security of another country. Binyam didn’t do anything.
Oh dear, DM stands up for rights and Mailwatch saddos don’t tip their hats|?
Come on. There is a coherent policy here.
Marcs: Nice try. Bollocks. And you know it.You should hate yourself for trying that one on. Really scumtastic.
Heat not a furnace….
@jonny d…well spoken mate. Gary McKinnon is backed by the DM so most of the lefties on this site are against him. But if the DM were coming from the other direction and clamouring for him to be extradited then most of the commenters on this site would be supporting him! Come on guys, quit the knee jerk responses.
I don’t think we’re particularly against him, it’s just that we can’t quite see why this one particular criminal deserves special treatment.
If his case could be used as the lever with with to change the current unbalanced extradition treaty then I’d be glad to see it. But so long as the DM complains that dark skinned people aren’t sufficiently thankful that we’ve stopped having them tortured, and leave it at that, while demanding freedom for pale skinned criminals then it smacks of hypocracy.
And we do like pouncing on Daily Mail hypocracy.
@neander @johnny_d it’s the fact that he’s actually guilty that sticks in my gullet.
It’s not about politics. It’s about a newspaper campaigning to ensure that crimes go unpunished, just because they were done by a white, middle-class IT manager.
Surely there is some hypocrisy with leading a “ray of hope” free our good white criminal from prison headline a day after the viscous “he should of died in prison” rebuke the headline?
the Mail and Mail on Sunday have written extensively about Binyam Mohamed (and none of it – so far as I can remember – supports the use of torture).
NickPheas could you tell me where the DM complains ‘ that dark skinned people aren’t sufficiently thankful that we’ve stopped having them tortured’? I’m a regular reader and I don’t remember that particular comment (er..you’re not just making it up to confirm your own prejudices by any chance are you?
‘ It’s about a newspaper campaigning to ensure that crimes go unpunished’- er..no Dai it’s not. It’s about a newspaper campaigning against the extradition of an autistic man to the US.
He can be punished for his heinous crime – and it’s heart-warming tthat you care so much for the security of the United States of America – in the UK where he committed the crime.
Any bids higher than kario’s “autistic”?
Do I hear “CJD”?
As I said, the circumstances of McKinnon and Mohammed aren’t exactly the same, so direct comparison is somewhat lacking. And I haven’t said that McKinnon doesn’t deserve backing or sympathy; I’m not criticising him but the Mail’s respective stances on the two issues.
well said karlo.
The Mail On Sunday was the first paper in the world to get a photo out of Guantanamo and splashed with it: one word front page headline ‘Torture’.
According to MailOnline, the “Death Tax” threat only applies to “Middle England”.
Mackinnon is accused of committing a crime on US intelligence while in Britain. If Mackinnon does not go to the US he should still face trial. You may suggest that he has no comparsion with the people locked up in Guantanamo Bay but some of them were detained for a lot less than Mr Mackinnon.
As for the first paper, were is your proof? Amenesty were one of the first to report it according to a House of Commons document i googled just then and The Guardian followed it up…..
But if you can prove me wrong then fine, and I actually agree with the death tax. I love crass stereotyping about lefties but go ahead believe it. I’m not being LEFTIE on this issue I’m just highlighting like many others the hypocrisy of this very paper.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-95680/The-terror-Camp-X-Ray.html (20.01.02)
Amnesty made a statement on 10.01.02 stating prisoners should be treated humanely.
A much longer piece came from them on 22.01.02
But the first picture, (as I said, if you would take the trouble to read just one sentence and inwardly digest) was the MoS.
The splash headline was ‘torture’
They were first. They were right.
What is your problem? Just don’t want to hear the world fails to fit into your black and white world view? Sound familiar? Does it cure cancer or cause it, hmm?
No hypocrites were harmed in the making of this response.
McKinnon should face trial. We have a perfectly good law here in the UK where the alleged crime was committed called the misuse of computers act to deal with it.
…..and as a fellow 1st world democracy that tries people under a jury system, good enough that we have a fast-track extradition agreement with, just why shouldn’t this guy face trial in the USA?
S’funny but white middleclass IT manager does seem to be the DM’s only rationale here.
That’s just wrong and given their usual idiotic posturing and crap it’s laughable so.
Hypocrites.
On Mckinnon, I see an awful lot of posturing.
I’m against USA’s application of their laws Ex-territiory.
I’m also opposed to an asymetric extradition treaty with any country.
But he’s not in a cell on the USA, so surely our IronMan ™ PM can do the “Sherriff facing down the lynch mob” bit and say.
“My citizen, my land, my law, nobody’s getting extradited until our law has finished its due process”.
I see a similar situation with te various minsters getting summoned to a Senate hearing about the Lockerbie release.
I rather wish the Scottish minsters in particular would issue a statement saying “We have this thing here called soverignty, here, so kindly stop behaving as though you run the world”.
Of course there’s a deeper diplomatic angle, and that’s rather provocative, I’m sure they could word it better.
The current unexplained refusal smacks of hiding under the duvet until the monsters go away.
This is about the only issue I agree with the Mail on.
He has admitted a very minor “crime” committed in Britain (not America), is threatened with a draconian sentence in draconian conditions, and anyone who knows about autism knows that sending an autistic person halfway around the world is not humane.
On the other hand – point taken, they’re selective. The closest parallel case is not Binyam Mohammed, but Babar Ahmed, who is charged very similarly to Mackinnon, with an alleged “crime” in the UK (running a website), for which the US want him extradited. He was also a victim of admitted police brutality – which is partly why they’re trying to get him extradited.
Steve
The sad joke here is precisely the hypocrisy of the DM and their pals illustrated perfectly by the contrast between their ’support’ for McKinnin and their trashing of the Scottish Parliament over Lockerbie bomber al-Megrahi.
In McKinnon’s case it’s supposedly all about our sovereignty & their claim ‘we’ should have the final say and yet as far as al-Megrahi is concerned (despite wide international agreement) the Scots should be doing only whatever it is that the US says.
As much as nobody likes the idea of ‘real politic’ at work with al-Megrahi it’s probably just a fact of life, and the US are hardly innocent when it comes to dirty deals in what they see as their national interest.
Or maybe the Dr.s just got it wrong, a close relative of mine lasted 10yrs instead of the 2 the Dr.s originally gave.
It’s not exactly an exact science.
“…..just why shouldn’t this guy face trial in the USA?
“S’funny but white middleclass IT manager does seem to be the DM’s only rationale here.”
Maybe, because he faces an excessive sentance out of all proportion to the crime he is alleged to have committed?
The knee jerk, anti-McKinnon responses from the anti-Mail contributors on this site are sickening.
this site has died hasn’t it?
no forum traffic, no front pages and very badly spun accusations about mail reporting.
fun while you lasted.
McKinnon has Aspergers and its doubtful that the US will take that into account if they get hold of him.
It has nothing to do with him being white or middle class, and frankly, the insults aimed at him on this site is probably not too far of what you’ll find on the Mail site, even if they are motivated by inverse snobbery.
You talk as if Aspergers is foreign to the US, in fact it was being recognised & addressed over there long before it was commonly recognised here.
The reflex bias and inferrence that the US judicial system are out to sentence McKinnon to a disproportionate term in jail is ludicrous.
If he’d hacked into the MOD to the level the Americans say he messed with their defense stuff they’d have probably taken his claimed mental problems into account & held him ‘at HM’s pleasure’ which is possibly the worst sentence available in the UK (ie indefinitely).
“You talk as if Aspergers is foreign to the US”, that’s really not the point, people with Aspergers often need support and advocacy close by. If you want to know some of the other reasons why jail is not appropriate in this kind of case, look up “sensory overload”. In any case, America is not known for treating prisoners humanely. Quite frankly, nobody should be sent there until they close Guantanamo and all the Supermaxes, do something about the epidemic of prison rapes, and end impunity for warden violence.
The nearest case here is Nicky Reilly. Reilly did something far worse than Mackinnon, and in my view should never have been tried since his mental age of ten puts him below the equivalent age of criminal responsibility for children. But even after he received a draconian sentence for something very serious, he isn’t going to be kept in prison long. Last I heard he is being transferred to a mental asylum.
Would this happen in America? NEVER.
Aspergers can be taken into account in US sentences though.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/truckers/
I’m no expert but i’m pretty sure aspergers doesn’t stop a person knowing right from wrong, it’s really not an excuse. He did wrong and there should be some charges. However the US justice system is infamously atrocious, and has been very much exposed as such with this case, all civilised countries should cease extradition to the US until it improves to a basic standard
Find it hard reading social queues? Spending a lot of time thinking about UFOS? Don’t really want to go out but would quite like to spend an evening on the internet? Sounds like being stoned if you ask me.
Of course the real point is why The Mail was championing the story. Not whether or not aspergers does this, that or the other. It’s a story, sure – but front page? I think even Mail supporters can see that the paper really doesn’t care about the man, they are just using him for an angle.
It’s not just a Mail way of operating of course, but by gum do they do it with style.
JAY is completely correct. My sister has Asperger’s syndrome and she definitely knows right from wrong. She stumbles over certain social cues and sometimes doesn’t know when to STOP MONOLOGUING but she knows not to go parading onto sites with weak defences and then alerting them to her presence. Not that she’d be able to anyway; she’s more of an artistic autistic.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that the US isn’t over-reacting. I don’t think McKinnon was being malicious. Just incredibly stupid. Thing is, the US is blowing this out of proportion, probably to keep up the appearance that they’re a big scary nation and if you dare to mess with them you will be pulverised. Instead of going “Oops, yeah; what a terrible security flaw”, fixing it, and then punishing him in a more realistic fashion, they’re going “HOW DARE YOU NOTICE OUR FLAWS?!” and making a demon out of him.
Apparently he got through their systems with incredibly obvious passwords, too. If that’s true, anyone could have done the same.