Security threats Toolkit

Story: Nasa hacker loses bid to avoid extradition

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I have read all the arguments and still disagree

One of the the effects of aspergers is a disconnection betweeen cause and effect. In years gone by such people would have been harshly dealt with by the courts and "punished" for things that they did not connect with their actions. We are now hopefully in more enlightened and informed society.

In the UK I think it is true to say that we have a mistrust of most justice systems (including our own) ability to deal with things which are outside their experience. We consider that it is our duty to help protect vulnerable people - and I do say that someone with aspergers should not go to jail for downloading pornography because in their case it does not suggest that the interest in doing so comes from the same kind of obsession that would drive most people to do it the obsession may be with finding picturs of girls with red hair that is exactly shoulder length or something else equally benign.

In the UK we do not believe that the US is generally caring towards disabled people of any description - in my observation even some war vets are treated appallingly - this perception may be wrong as I havent lived there and if it is then please convince me that a poor person who loses a leg would be given the latest prosthetics and access to mobility at public expense.

That is why we say he should be tried here because we will judge the case with the understanding that he did not connect the incidence with right or wrong and that even after punishment (that rather archaic notion of something that I thought was supposed to reform) he would have no greater connection with the cause and effect than he did before - that is the nature of aspergers and the challenge to society in helping such people manage their lives.

In the UK we do not spend nearly enough of taxpayers money in supporting disadvantaged members of society (despite a press fueled hysteria that we spend too much)

As far as the US defence system goes then their duty is to protect it with a level of security which would prevent people from doing this - they should be very relieved that the person who hacked it was a harmless young man in a house in London and not an Al Quaeda terrorist.

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