"I Will Continue To Disrupt At The Highest Levels"

H/T: PJ...

Research surveys show that people with disabilities are the least likely demographic group in the country to own a computer and have access to the Internet. That is why here at Assistive Technology of Ohio we have a program where an Ohioan with a disability can obtain a refurbished computer for only $50. We think owning a computer helps people with disabilities learn, work, live independently, and compete in the 21st century.

Or, if your name is Gary McKinnon, it can help you try and prove the existence of little green men, while setting off a world-wide cyber terrorism panic.

McKinnon, of Scotland, sent the U.S. national defense agencies into a spin in 2001 and 2002 when he hacked into 97 United States military computer systems, including NASA, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and, for good measure, the Department of Defense. His efforts were discovered when he mistakenly miscalculated the time difference between the two countries. A Pentagon worker sat down at his computer and saw that someone was controlling it from a remote location.

He was eventually tracked down and arrested under British law, and told that he would likely face nothing worse than public service.

President Bush, however, was not in a charitable mood. The USA, rather than offering pubic service, was thinking something more along of the lines of "the rest of your life at Guantanamo Bay."

Through years of legal wrangling, Mr. McKinnon has managed to stave off extradition to the United States. The walls, however, appeared to be closing in on him in the past few years, when he decided to try a different tack: disability.

In 2008, Mr. McKinnon was diagnosed - for the first time - with Asperger's Syndrome, which he claims greatly contributed to his crime.

Gary does not deny being behind the attacks. But he and his supporters say the hacking was naively motivated by his eccentric search for the existence of UFOs because he has Asperger's - a form of autism which leads to obsessive behaviour.

And while he is now trying to hide behind his (lately proclaimed) disability, that hasn't stopped him participating in international conferences on hacking. It hasn't stopped him from talking to the media about his daring, cyber accomplishment. It hasn't kept him stating assertively that he knows for certain - based on his illegal, hacking research - that the U.S. is burying the existence of flying saucers. But, like all UFO theorists, he JUST MISSED being able to prove their existence.

He claimed to have viewed a detailed image of "something not man-made" and "cigar shaped" floating above the northern hemisphere, and assuming his viewing would be undisrupted owing to the hour, he did not think of capturing the image because he was "bedazzled", and therefore did not think of securing it with the screen capture function in the software RemotelyAnywhere at the point when his connection was interrupted.

He was too "bedazzled" to save the files that would have broken this mystery worldwide? Drats! Haven't we heard this before? "My camera mysteriously went dead..." "When I got home there were no images on the film...." If ONLY he had clicked save, he could have proven once and for all what the U.S. government knows (and what the other 191 countries apparently do not): that we are not alone.

There are efforts across the pond to try and gin up public support to stop him from being extradited for a crime he has readily admitted committing. Marillion, the British rock group whose highest charting U.S. single soared to #74 on the charts - 24 years ago - has made noise about doing a benefit concert for him. The Daily Mail is calling him a "naive hacker," asking him to be treated legally as if he were a child, and wondering why no Members of Parliament are rushing to his defense...

One hacking job could be considered the work of a naive hacker. Ninety-seven computer systems later, that's a different story. I'm not sure I'm buying his story.

After all, if he was just looking for UFO data - which he maddeningly forget to save - what explains this little missive he left on the military computer system?

US foreign policy is akin to government-sponsored terrorism these days... It was not a mistake that there was a huge security stand-down on September 11 last year... I am SOLO. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels.

Those aren't exactly the words of a man trying to figure out if E.T. is real.