Gary McKinnon Gary McKinnon Gary McKinnon (born 10 February 1966) is a Scottish systems administrator and hacker who was accused in 2002 of perpetrating the "biggest military computer hack of all time," although McKinnon himself states that he was merely looking for evidence of free energy suppression and a cover-up of UFO activity and other technologies potentially useful to the public. On 16 October 2012, after a series of legal proceedings in Britain, Home Secretary Theresa May withdrew her extradition order to the United States. McKinnon was accused of hacking into 97 United States military and NASA computers over a 13-month period
News International phone hacking scandal to nothing" and excuses his papers' actions as "part of the culture of Fleet Street". By 2002, an organised trade in confidential personal information had developed in Britain and was widely used by the British newspaper industry. Illegal means of gaining information used included hacking the private voicemail accounts on mobile phones, hacking into computers, making false statements to officials, entrapment, blackmail, burglaries, theft of mobile phones and making payments to public officials. Private investigators who were illegally providing information to the "News of the World" were also engaged in a variety of other illegal activities. Between 1999 and 2003,