Understanding Electronic Signature Legality for Military Leave Policy in European Union

How to eSign a document: electronic signature legality for Military Leave Policy in European Union

March, 2002. At a small, grimy apartment in  Wood Green, a forgotten suburban residence in   North London, a fist hammers loudly against a  front door. Raised voices from the other side   demand the man inside to come and answer.  Hearing no reply and no signs of movement   from the other side, the knocking gets  even louder, considerably more intense.  A few prying neighbors peer out of their windows,  hoping to see the source of all the commotion.   Those with a clear enough view quickly catch  sight of a group of imposing figures dressed in   the tell-tale high-visibility uniform of London  police officers. The urgency of their knocking   and the authoritative tone of their voices say it  all: this isn’t a welfare check on the occupant;   whoever they’re looking for is in serious trouble. Eventually, the apartment’s resident meekly opens   the front door and emerges. His name is  Gary McKinnon, 36 years of age, and pretty   unsuspecting to look at. A face in the crowd  on any other day, barely bothering to wash or   shave most days – after all, he rarely left  the confines of his dimly lit apartment.   Still, shut in as he may have been, McKinnon was  hardly the kind of person someone would picture   when hearing the words ‘criminal mastermind.’ But,  on the Internet, this seemingly ordinary-looking   man led a completely different life… Operating under his shady online alias   ‘Solo,’ Gary McKinnon was responsible for one  of the most devastating and high-profile cyber   crimes of the early 2000s – possibly even in all  of modern history. Under the noses of numerous   authorities, McKinnon was able to uncover a way  to access highly sensitive information, photos,   and records kept secret from every member of  the general public… information he saw as proof   for the existence of extraterrestrial life. In March of 2002, Gary McKinnon was arrested   in his North London flat, accused of hacking into  computers and accessing data that was property of   the National Aeronautics and Space Administration  as well as classified intelligence that belonged   to the United States military. He would spend  the next decade of his life locked in a seemingly   endless legal battle with one of the largest  and most imposing forces in the entire world:   the United States government. In this video, you’re going to   learn how one man nearly landed himself in  prison for the better part of a century,   all thanks to his own overzealous attempts to  answer his burning question: how much does the   government know about UFOs? Just what did Gary  McKinnon find when he went looking for proof of   alien life – and why did the governments of both  the United States and the United Kingdom work   so relentlessly to try and keep him quiet? Just  how did this seemingly ordinary man pull off the   Biggest Military Computer Hack of All Time? Born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1966,   Gary McKinnon moved to London when he was 6 with  his mother and stepfather. In the years since,   McKinnon has described his stepfather as having  something of an interest in UFOs, and this had a   direct influence on Gary growing up. He became  a science fiction lover from a young age,   believing in the presence of life beyond Earth. When a young Gary McKinnon received his first   ever computer at age 14, he likely had no  idea the skills he’d learn would one day   paint a pretty large target on his back.  The computer itself was an Atari 400,   considered to be an entry-level device even by the  standards of the early 1980s, primarily designed   for small children to use. But as humble of  a beginning as it might have been, that Atari   400 enabled Gary McKinnon to learn Beginners'  All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, or BASIC;   a general-purpose, ease-of-use coding language. From there, the foundations had already been   put in place for his future as the man behind the  biggest military hack ever committed. Of course,   nobody jumps from being a teenager learning BASIC  to being an elite hacker overnight, so Gary made   ends meet in the meantime, leaving school when he  was 17 to work as a hairdresser. However, given   his learned aptitude for computing, friends at the  time convinced him to seek out a qualification in   a field involving computers. After completing a  course with a computer certification, McKinnon   would start finding sporadic jobs in tech support  – simultaneously using his technological know-how   to earn some income, while also further  honing his developing skills for coding.  There were, during his early life, a number of  significant events and factors that directly   contributed to Gary McKinnon’s fixations  with both computing and the search for   life beyond Earth. The former is often widely  attributed to the 1983 techno thriller WarGames,   a movie that is credited with popularising the  concepts of computer hacking and bringing the   idea of potential threats to cyber security  to the forefront of the public consciousness.  WarGames follows David Lightman, an enterprising  young hacker portrayed by Matthew Broderick. And,   in an eerie parallel to Gary McKinnon’s  future, David ends up gaining access to   computers belonging to the US military,  unwittingly activating a supercomputer   designed to execute a nuclear strike against the  Soviet Union, and threatening to start World War   Three as a result. While McKinnon’s hacking  escapades never ran the risk of sparking any   conflicts between rival nations, it would result  in a different kind of international battle.  But even though it’s not hard to see why people  would associate WarGames with McKinnon, especially   as he’s admitted to having watched the movie while  growing up in his local cinema in Crouch End,   London. It’s often cited erroneously as the  inspiration that led Gary McKinnon to venture into   cybercrime, but by McKinnon’s own admission, the  connection between him and WarGames is something   of a “red herring” – UK slang referring to any  information that’s intended to deceive or distract   from the truth. In other words, a misdirect. In his own words, McKinnon’s main inspiration   wasn’t WarGames; it wasn’t even a movie, but a  book aptly titled The Hacker’s Handbook written   by Peter Sommer, a British author and expert in  digital forensics who published the title under   the pseudonym Hugo Cornwall. As the title  suggests, the handbook itself details how   the phone systems and early computers of the  eighties could be , with some editions   even apparently containing printouts of actual  hacking attempts, with confidential information   like passwords redacted for the reader. The  methods as laid out by the first edition of   The Hacker’s Handbook were so detailed that it  was widely banned before being republished with   a lot of the more sensitive details removed…  but not before Gary McKinnon could glean a   lot of information that he needed to get his  jump-start into the world of computer hacking.  So, why the search for UFOs? Surely, you must be  thinking, it has to do with his childhood fixation   on science fiction. Well, ing to McKinnon  himself, it goes even further. In an interview,   he claimed to have developed an interest in  Unidentified Flying Objects – now known as   Unidentified Aerial Phenomena – through a close  encounter of his own. While the story has never   been corroborated by anyone, McKinnon claims  that he witnessed a light in the sky at some   point during his lifetime, although he’s never  elaborated as to whether this was during childhood   or in his adult life. Being vague on the details  makes it naturally hard to prove or outright deny   his story. Whether or not this actually happened  is open to speculation, and there has been some   understandable skepticism surrounding this UFO  incident, as often follows the stories of those   who have also claimed to have witnessed alien  life or seen UFOs in the sky for themselves.  Some have questioned whether attaching himself the  idea of searching for UFOs and extraterrestrials   was just a smokescreen deployed by McKinnon  in order to mask his more nefarious hacking   activities. But, for his own part, McKinnon has  stuck by his hunt for life beyond the stars,   claiming he was looking into UFOs long before  the 2000s. ing to one of his statements:   “If I had wanted to distract anyone, I would  not have chosen ufology, as this opens me up to   ridicule.” Say what you will about his methods,  but the man clearly wants to believe that there   is life out there in the universe. Around the turn of the millennium,   McKinnon had found work as a system administrator,  although he would eventually leave his   job and, upon finding himself unemployed, would  begin to conduct the cyber schemes that would   make him infamous in the UK and the United States.  On September 11th, 2001, the historical terrorist   attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon  shook the entire world, and arguably forever   changed society as we now know it today. It might  seem like a non sequitur, but believe it or not,   9/11 had a significant impact on not only the  lives of millions of Americans, but also on   one Gary McKinnon. But what’s the connection?  Was Gary’s hacking activity somehow linked to   one of the most devastating terror attacks in  United States history? Well, indirectly, yes.  Between 2001, when the 9/11 attacks took place,  and March of the following year, Gary McKinnon   was able to hack into multiple different computers  belonging to the United States military and NASA,   operating under the alias of ‘Solo.’ By using  the Internet as his way in, he was able to   identify computers on the US government’s own  networks that were running a Microsoft Windows   operating system. ing to McKinnon himself,  his methods weren’t all that sophisticated. He was   purely using the simple tools that were available  to him, primarily a cheap personal computer and a   dial-up modem that only offered him 56 kilobits of  internet connection per second over standard phone   lines. For those of you born after the advent  of Wi-Fi and don’t know what a dial-up modem is,   we’ll just say that connecting to the  internet was a real hassle back in the 2000s.  McKinnon performed what’s known as a port scan,  a technique that hackers employ to discover weak   points within a network. Port scan attacks  allow hackers to determine what information a   computer is sending or receiving, or what active  cyber security methods an organization employs,   such as any firewalls installed on individual  devices or being used to protect entire networks.  His hacks followed three simple stages, the  first being to identify which computers had   Microsoft Windows present. Once he had found  which of the computers were running the   desired Microsoft operation system, McKinnon  would then use a port scan to see if he was   able to communicate with these computers from  his own. Finding any systems that were open,   that either didn’t require passwords to access  or were using default passwords, McKinnon was   then able to a backdoor software called  ‘Remotely Anywhere’ on the vulnerable machines.  As its name implies, this program  could grant him remote access to   each computer the program was installed on,  allowing him to control these computers,   including accessing any of their functions  or their stored data at any time, anywhere,   and all while avoiding detection. Once Remotely  Anywhere got him inside a computer, McKinnon   could view other devices connected to the same  network and port scan them for vulnerabilities,   seeking to gain access to them as well. The exact number of computers he was able   to access is up for debate; when he was later  arrested, he was accused of accessing 92 machines.   However, charges later levied against him claimed  that Gary McKinnon shut down well over 2,000   computers, as well as deleting critical operating  system files that stopped these machines from   working correctly, and blocked access for 2,400  users – all employed by NASA and the US military.  During countless hours spent at his computer,  over many sleepless nights, McKinnon wreaked   havoc throughout the US government’s  computers. His goal was to find answers,   taking advantage of the more lax cyber security  measures implemented as a result of the 9/11   attacks to seek out any information linked to…  you guessed it, UFOs. In his search to uncover   whether or not we’re truly alone in the vastness  of the cosmos, McKinnon would alter the course   of his own life forever, and draw the ire of a  United States government already on high alert   in the wake of a massive terror attack. Initially, to avoid detection, McKinnon   conducted his hacks on NASA’s networks  at night, so that any strange activity on   their computers was less likely to be noticed.  But, the more he uncovered, the more bold and   brazen McKinnon became, eventually growing  overconfident in his abilities to the point   that he started leaving hostile messages  on the machines he gained remote access to.  “Your security system’s crap,” one message goaded,  with another being an outright threat that stated:   “US foreign policy is akin to government-sponsored  terrorism these days... It was not a mistake   that there was a huge security standdown on  September 11th last year... I am Solo, and I   will continue to disrupt at the highest levels.” Of course, one burning question remains: After all   this effort, did McKinnon even find the proof of  the UFOs he was looking for? Well, yes… at least,   enough to confirm his own pre-existing  suspicions. As far as McKinnon tells it,   he found images of what looked to be otherworldly  spacecraft. He describes downloading files as   painfully slow as his dial-up connection would  move at a snail's pace (again, that was another   common pain of using the internet in the 2000s),  so much of this evidence was left on the US’   machines. McKinnon asserts that he came across  several high-resolution photos of UFOs that were   being kept, he believed, in Building Eight of the  Lyndon B Jonson Space Centre, in Houston, Texas,   NASA’s main center for coordinating space flights. Based on some claims made by a NASA photographic   expert, McKinnon believed that the space agency  was regularly using photo editing software to   airbrush out UFOs from the high-resolution  images taken by satellites and stored at the   Johnson Space Centre. Investigating this for  himself, using his self-taught hacking skills,   he logged on to the NASA computers he had  illegally accessed and started searching   around the relevant department. ing to  claims he made during interviews with the press,   while remotely accessing these NASA computers,  McKinnon found a folder titled ‘Unfiltered.’   Opening it up, he saw what looked like the  answers he’d been seeking, contained in huge,   high-resolution image files that took him  a considerable amount of time to download.  Securing the satellite images was tricky  with the basic tools at McKinnon’s disposal.   It’s often understated how, in just over two  decades, we’ve gone from having to download   large files over a slow, wired connection,  to being able to do so almost effortlessly,   downloading photos and images from the  internet wirelessly in a matter of minutes.  Of course, our technology for viewing large image  files like these has also improved since the early   2000s. So, how was Gary McKinnon able to view  the high-resolution images he stole from NASA?   ing to the man himself, he used his own  remote access to NASA’s computers to actually see   the files he was stealing. By manually changing  the computers’ display settings to a lower   resolution, and adjusting them to four-bit color,  he was able to view one of the images briefly…  His testimony is the only description of the image  we have asc naturally; the photo in question has   never been published anywhere publicly. Whether  or not he actually saw what he described, or was   simply seeing what he wanted to, is impossible  to determine. As McKinnon describes it, though,   the satellite photo showed a large, silvery  object in the shape of a cigar, with curved,   half spheres on either side. As far as he could,  allegedly, see, the object had no rivets or   noticeable seams to its metalwork, leading him  to assume that it couldn’t possibly have been   made on Earth or by human hands. It certainly  didn’t seem to resemble any man-made vehicle;   that much was certain. It was hard to even gauge  the size of the object thanks to the angle of the   satellite image, which seemed to have been looking  down directly at the unidentified silver object.  Whether it was a prototype for some unidentified  piece of space flight equipment, or an actual   alien spaceship, exactly what Gary McKinnon  saw remains unknown. Using a Java application,   McKinnon claims to have taken a screenshot  of the image, but this too has never been   seen by anyone other than him, as it was not  saved into his temporary internet files. But,   at what he referred to as his crowning  moment, McKinnon’s activity on NASA’s   computers was discovered by an employee, and  his remote access was abruptly disconnected.  McKinnon’s discoveries in his search for  undeniable UFO proof didn’t end at a single image,   though. While he was probing (roll snare drum)  for more information, McKinnon describes coming   across an Excel spreadsheet that was titled  ‘Non Terrestrial Officers.’ Reading through it,   the hacker saw lists of names and ranks  corresponding with members of the United   States Air Force. The most curious part about  this list was… these names weren’t listed anywhere   else. Not on any other computer, or in any other  files, there was no other record of these airmen   and women being registered with the US  Air Force beyond this strange document.  Digging deeper, McKinnon noticed that this  spreadsheet also contained information about   personnel transfers between ships. He took  note of the names of the vessels mentioned   and started to notice an alarming pattern.  None of these ship names corresponded with any   aircraft carriers or other military vessels that  existed anywhere in the United States’ arsenal.  “None of these were ocean-going ships. It was  astounding. They [weren’t part of the] navy,   they [weren’t part of the army]  army, and not even [the] air force.”  This led Gary McKinnon to the only conclusion  left: these Non Terrestrial Officers, and the   mysterious vessels they were transferring  to and from… weren’t even on Earth.  “I was thinking they must be an off-planet  space force or space fleet at least.”  It might sound like pure science fiction,  but whether the spreadsheet of names that   McKinnon saw was real or not, his statement did  end up predicting the future. In December 2019,   the US Space Force was formally established  after being signed into law under the United   States Space Force Act. It’s the smallest of the  US armed forces, with only 8,600 active personnel,   and the second most mocked, right  behind the United States Marine Corps.  Now, before we go jumping to any conclusions, it  does seems like a bit of a reach to say that the   alleged spreadsheet that Gary McKinnon uncovered  was proof that the Space Force, or another outer   space division of the US military. Some have  speculated that what McKinnon discovered could   have been simply a strategy game played using  an Excel spreadsheet, or an outline of purely   hypothetical situations. McKinnon himself  has refuted these alternative explanations,   believing wholeheartedly that the Untied States  wants to establish military dominance over space.  As if possible images of a UFO and a list of US  military personnel operating off-world weren’t   enough, McKinnon also claimed to have  unravelled a vast conspiracy through his   remote access exploits. He purportedly found,  among the computers he his way into,   files that detailed the suppression of technology  that could potentially provide clean, renewable,   free energy to the entire planet. This advanced  source of potentially unlimited power was,   ing to McKinnon, being hidden by the US  government in order to prevent the public from   having access to an affordable and sustainable  alternative to fossil fuels that have directly   contributed to global warming and climate change. However, by 2002, with McKinnon becoming more   brazen with his scathing messages and file  stealing, his activity on NASA’s computers had   been noticed. Exploiting security vulnerabilities  in the computers’ operating system, and bypassing   weak passwords had led to significant disruptions  within the systems McKinnon had been accessing,   and it didn’t take long for traces linking back to  him to appear to those looking into what McKinnon   had been doing. Details like his IP address,  and the fact he’d used a former girlfriend’s   email address to sign up for a trial version of  the backdoor software he was using, all pointed   towards a hacker in London being responsible for  the biggest computer hack in US military history.  In March of 2002, Gary McKinnon was arrested by  British police, and charged with hacking into   highly sensitive United States military  computers, between February of 2001,   and March of 2002, as recent as the very  same month he was arrested. However,   while you might expect McKinnon to be sent  straight to jail and never be heard from   again, the story was far from over. The United  States Justice Department sought to indict him   on 8 counts of cyber crimes in 14 states, accusing  McKinnon of causing $566,000 in damages. McKinnon   was also accused of stealing sensitive information  including system users’ private account details   such as passwords, as well as manipulating and  deleting critical files, which left some of   the computers he accessed completely inoperable.  Gary McKinnon was facing up to seven full decades   in a United States prison, which would have  landed behind bars until 2072 at the earliest.  However, and here’s where it gets interesting:  the US Justice Department also wanted him to   face trial for his crimes on American soil.  And that haste to have the man behind this   large-scale hack face justice Stateside might  have been the key that McKinnon needed to slip   away and live as a free man. You see, the  United States has a long-standing bilateral   extradition agreement with the United Kingdom,  thanks to an agreement signed in 2003. However,   this particular agreement only came into  effect after Gary McKinnon had been arrested.  On top of that, he hadn’t been charged with any  crimes by British authorities, despite having   confessed to the police who arrested him that he  had, indeed, gained access to NASA and US military   computers. This provided McKinnon’s lawyers  grounds to oppose the extradition proceedings,   which UK authorities had given the US the go-ahead  to begin, effectively bypassing the UK’s own   legal system in favor of the American one. It was argued that the United States was   seeking to make an example out of Gary McKinnon, a  political action likely taken to hit back at this   hacker for breaching their military’s systems.  Keep in mind, in the wake of 9/11, America wasn’t   exactly keen on looking weak or vulnerable to  attacks, and the fact that a lone hacker in a   small apartment in London had managed to gain  access to supposedly secure NASA files would   have severely undermined the strong image the  US was seeking – and still seeks – to maintain.  McKinnon and his lawyers were prepared  to oppose any attempts to have the man   sent to the United States. During the extradition  hearing that began in July 2005, over three years   after McKinnon’s initial arrest, Mark Summers, the  lawyer representing the United States government,   claimed that McKinnon had made a calculated and  intentional attack against the US government. By   gaining unauthorized access to the computers  he’d , McKinnon was, in the eyes of the   US Justice Department, trying to intimidate them. Over a year into the proceedings, in May of 2006,   Bow Street Magistrates’ Court in London reached  a ruling that Gary McKinnon should be recommended   for extradition to America. However, the  courts could only offer a recommendation,   not an outright grant for the extradition. This  was an outcome that McKinnon and his legal team   had expected, and it now meant that the decision  on whether or not he’d be sent to the US now lay   with the UK’s Home Secretary, John Reid. Two months later, the Home Secretary approved   the United States’ request to extradite the  hacker. But McKinnon wasn’t done when it came   to opposing the ruling, and launched an appeal to  the UK’s High Court to overrule the decision made   by the Home Secretary. His lawyers even argued  that the move to the US would breach McKinnon’s   human rights. In April 2007, the High Court  dismissed the appeal case, but McKinnon and   his legal team were not deterred and took the  case higher, arguing against the Home Office’s   decision in the House of Lords – one of the  most powerful sectors of the British government,   able to directly affect the legislation  and law that governs the entire country.  What was interesting was that McKinnon had,  in 2003, rejected a plea offer made by the US.   The terms of this agreement would have seen him  serving only a light prison sentence of between   six months to a year, housed within a low-security  penitentiary on American soil. This more lenient   sentence would have then been followed by a  safe transfer back to the UK, where McKinnon   would’ve had a further six months of parole.  Considering the gravity of what he’d done,   this could have been a win-win for McKinnon and  the US government seeking to make an example of   him. But Gary turned down the plea deal, convinced  that, once he arrived in the United States,   the American government would go back on the  agreement and instead send him to Guantanamo Bay.  Given what he’d found relating to UFOs –  or claimed to have found, at least – Gary   McKinnon felt that he was on a moral crusade.  He never claimed any ignorance to the fact that   hacking into US government computers is super  illegal. In fact, he freely admitted to being   guilty of the charges levied against him by the  United States. But on principle, he fought back   against the extradition request, believing that  the US and its intelligence agencies had access   to crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft, and  that they’d not only found a way to use that   technology to create a clean energy source free  from pollution, but that they were also keeping   this information away from the general public. Now, the cynical or legally minded among you   might ask, ‘maybe all this talk about UFOs was  just something he used to cover his crimes.’ None   of McKinnon’s supposed findings have ever been  made public, and while he vehemently stands by   his story, it’s entirely possible that this was  a strategy put in place by his legal defense.   Perhaps, to convince the public and the courts  that McKinnon was unfit for extradition and   standing trial in America, he was told to make  outlandish claims about alien technology and   suppressed secrets. This could have been done in  order to paint McKinnon as someone who seemingly   innocently poked around in NASA’s computers  because he’s just a crazed conspiracy theorist   who got in over his head. Whatever the case, it  makes you wonder, was Gary McKinnon after more   than just pictures of UFOs when he into  those machines? If this was just a cover for   his real crimes, then it would explain why the US  government was so adamant about extraditing him.  In June of 2008, the legal team representing  Gary McKinnon argued to the House of Lords   that to allow the hacker to be extradited to  the US would be an abuse of proceedings. They   claimed that the American government had made  threats of life imprisonment against McKinnon,   with a potentially lesser sentence depending on  whether he cooperated or not. Once again though,   the appeal against the extradition was rejected,  and the House of Lords accepted the case made   by the Home Office, that no threats had  been made against McKinnon. Still though,   he wasn’t done fighting back, and continued to  push back, taking the case to the European Court   of Human Rights. (Remember, the UK hadn’t made  their ill-informed decision to leave the European   Union yet, so they were still subject to EU law.) But still, you already know where this is going.   Much to his dismay, McKinnon lost his appeal to  the European Court of Human Rights. His lawyers   had tried everything to defend him against  extradition, revealing that he’d recently been   diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, which can not  only cause difficulties with social interaction,   but also can present itself in repetitive  patterns of behavior. Lawyers also argued that,   because his crimes were committed on  British soil, any prosecution brought   against McKinnon should, as a result, have  come from British authorities, not the US.  In September 2008, McKinnon and his lawyers  made another appeal to the newly appointed   Home Secretary, Jaqui Smith. Yes, their battle  against the US government’s extradition had   gone on for so long that John Reid was  no longer in the role of Home Secretary.   However, Smith still ruled to permit the  extradition, so a different Home Secretary   did little to change Gary McKinnon’s fate. Then, in January of the following year, McKinnon,   who had already openly admitted to being guilty  of hacking into US government computers, signed   a written confession. Naturally, even though he’d  confessed to his cyber crimes upon his arrest,   the US couldn’t convict him while he was still  in the UK. But signing this written confession   wasn’t done to appease the American government,  who were still out to put McKinnon in prison – it   was done to spite them, and to attempt to further  prevent him from being extradited. By signing the   confession and taking culpability for his actions,  McKinnon was opening himself up to the possibility   of facing trial in the UK, where there was a  chance any sentencing passed would be far more   lenient than in the US. The Crown Prosecution  Service started to consider the option,   and shortly after, McKinnon also filed a judicial  review, on the basis that extradition would put   this health at risk, owing to his Asperger’s. In February 2009, the Crown Prosecution Service   refused to bring any charges against McKinnon.  They acknowledged that there was enough evidence   that McKinnon was guilty of obtaining unauthorized  access to classified documents, and that would   normally mean he’d have faced a criminal trial  in the UK for that charge. ing to the   Crown Prosecution Service, the evidence they  had found didn’t reflect the criminality that   the United States was alleging McKinnon of. Still looking for a way to avoid extradition,   the hacker was met with another rejection when  he sought permission to make an appeal to the   UK Supreme Court, the highest authority court  in the United Kingdom. The case was deemed as   not having sufficient public importance to warrant  the Supreme Court’s time, however, the Home Office   would place a temporary hold on the extradition  while they assessed psychiatric evidence   surrounding McKinnon and whether his health  would be endangered by being sent to the US.  This wasn’t quite a stay of execution that  Gary McKinnon and his lawyers had hoped for,   as in November 2009, Home Secretary Alan Johnson  (yes, there was once again another new Home   Secretary by now) announced he couldn’t  block the extradition on medical grounds,   as the US authorities had made assurances  they’d take McKinnon’s needs into account.   Still undeterred, McKinnon and his lawyers  fought back, presenting reports highlighting   that US prisons wouldn’t be equipped to deal  with someone under McKinnon’s circumstances.  In May of 2010, McKinnon’s lawyers made yet  another appeal to the Conservative government’s   Home Secretary (yes, another one), Theresa May,  who agreed to adjourn the case and potentially put   a stop to the extradition process. The case  was even discussed by Britain’s then Prime   Minister David Cameron, and US President Barack  Obama, during a visit to America by Cameron.  Eventually, it was Theresa May – then Home  Secretary and future Prime Minister – who   would permanently block the extradition  request in October of 2012. It was left   up to the House of Commons’ Director of  Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, to come   to a decision on whether or not McKinnon could  face prosecution in the UK. Within two months,   the answer had come back as a resounding no,  since the chances of a conviction were deemed   not high enough for the case to be taken to trial. Gary McKinnon spent ten years battling against   extradition. That’s nine more than he would have  spent in a US prison if he had accepted the plea   deal offered to him. Who’s to say if he really saw  proof of alien life? Whether to avoid losing his   cover, or because he really does believe, he’s  stuck unwaveringly to his story. Regardless,   the hacker who pulled off the biggest military  computer hack in history walks a free man. Like   the truth, Gary McKinnon is still out there. Now check out “US Special Forces Confession - I   Recovered Crashed UFOs.” Or  watch this video instead!