Blog Week 8B

While reading "Britain Refuses to Extradite Computer Hacker sought in U.S.", an article from the New York Times, I noticed a few phrases that could have an extended definition. This means that it can be elaborated to show exactly what it is they mean, without being to vague or giving a generalized definition.
One of the phrases was "British authorities on Tuesday blocked a longstanding demand for the extradition of Gary McKinnon, a computer hacker wanted in the United States to face charges of intruding into Pentagon Computer networks in a case that has become a touchstone of the delicate jurisdictional balance between the two countries since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001". This very long sentence has several subjects in it that can, and probably should be elaborated upon. The part I'm mainly concerned with is the ending discussing the delicate jurisdictional balance between the UK and the US. Why is it so delicate? This is explained later in the article. The US and the UK made a treaty in 2003 that deals with the process of extraditing people from the UK to the US. The reason it is such rocky ground is because it has faced a lot of opposition. One of the critiques of it is that it is a one sided deal. The US reaps all the rewards without returning any sort of benefit to the UK. And on top of that, many British critics feel that since the treaty doesn't clearly distinguish between a major and minor offense, the US has taken advantage by extraditing people that didn't threaten our national security.
Another phrase found within the article is "American officials have described his actions as "the Biggest military computer hack of all time."" What exactly is it that makes this hack such a major issue? The answer lays within various parts of the article. The main reason is that he hacked into a very large amount of high security computers in a relatively short amount of time. Within only 13 months, he managed to gain unlawful access to 97 government computers. And not only that, but he also caused $566,000 in damages while doing it.
The final bit of information found within the article that required further explanation was Ms. May saying "Mr. McKinnon is accused of serious crimes, but there is also no doubt that his seriously ill. He has Asperger syndrome, and suffers from depressive illness. The legal question before me is now whether the extent of that illness is sufficient to preclude extradition." The piece that mainly needed further explanation was the part about his illness, and how that should effect their decision to extradite him. Their main concern for this is that the severity of his depression could be to such an extent that he would commit suicide if extradited. Their argument is that to put forth such a risk would go against his human rights.