Nasa Hacker’s Mother Standing In Election

The mother of Gary McKinnon has announced she is standing against the former Labour home secretary Jack Straw in the general election.

Janis Sharp is set to contest Jack Straw, the current Minister for Justice, in his Blackburn, Lancashire constituency. However in a statement, posted on a site set-up by the campaign to prevent Gary McKinnon from being extradited to the US, supporters acknowledged that Straw hadn’t directly dealt with the case.

“Interestingly, Jack Straw is the only former Labour Home Secretary who has not had to deal with the Gary McKinnon extradition case, as he had been edged sideways by David Blunkett, by the time Gary was arrested in April 2002,” the campaign stated.

McKinnon is facing up to 60 years in jail in the US after he hacked into 97 military and NASA systems in a bid to find secret information about aliens and UFOs. The US alleged his hacking caused it to shut down critical systems and networks in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and caused damages of approximately £435,000.

But despite not being directly involved in overseeing the case, the so-called FreeGary campaign states that Straw was still culpable. “He was Foreign Secretary at the time of the UK Governments secret extradition treaty negotiations with the US Government which resulted in the Extradition Act 2003, which Gary McKinnon and other extradition cases to the USA have fallen foul of,” the site states. “He is personally at least as much to blame for the ongoing legal travesty and betrayal of British sovereignty as any of his Labour Government colleagues.”

In a TV interview, Sharp said that she wanted to take on the former home secretary over his stance on individual rights. “It would be much easier to stand against someone in London but I felt it had to be Alan Johnson and Jack Straw because what really concerns me is the erosion of civil liberties that it taking place,” she said.

A spokesman for Jack Straw told the London Tonight programme that Sharp had the right to stand against the Minister for Justice if she wanted. “It is right in a democracy people are able to stand in elections and make their case.”

A judicial review on McKinnon’s planned extradition will be held at the High Court at the end of May. The review will examine Home Secretary Alan Johnson’s conclusion that a US trial would not breach McKinnon’s human rights.  In an interview with the Enfield Advertiser in March, Alan Johnson said he still believes Mr McKinnon should be extradited. “Having Asperger’s isn’t a reason why you can’t face the courts,” he said. “Actually, there are people who have much more serious mental illnesses than Asperger’s who the courts have decided must still face the music for what they’ve done.”

However even if he wins the right to stay in the UK, Sharp said she was still concerned for her son’s health. “I am incredibly worried about Gary because even if he does win, I am scared that we won’t get Gary back because it has changed him so much and that is one of my main fears,” she said.

Commenting on the case, security expert Graham Cluley said that a poll of IT professional conducted by his company in 2009 had revealed that 71 percent of respondents felt that McKinnon should not be extradited. “Clearly McKinnon’s case is worth considering if so many of those tasked with normally protecting computers from hackers are so supportive of his fight against extradition,” said Cluley.