Canopus

I have known a few former and serving prison wardens from the US who have provided me much information what life in American prisons is like. Some even quit their jobs because they could no longer support a system they didn't believe in and considered excessively cruel and unjust whilst achieving little positive in practice. One is now an AS activist pressing for changes in the US legal system. Maybe he is. Has Gary McKinnon openly stated he refuses to serve a sentence in a British prison according to that set out in the Computer Misuse Act?

If he gets 60 years he almost certainly won't come out alive. If he get 6 years he may not come out alive. Have you ever seen what American prisons are like? Nasty inhumane places run under very brutal regimes that would be unacceptable in the UK and most of Europe. I wouldn't be surprised if he is killed by another inmate because of his social naivity and lack of 'street skills'. Although such an event could still happen in a British prison it would be far less likely. Read above.

1. Because he committed the crimes BEFORE the extradition laws came into force. 2. Because Britain already has sufficient legislation in place to prosecute him for his crimes. The Computer Misuse Act applies to hacking BOTH British and foreign computer systems from a location on British soil. I could understand a desire for the US to extradite Gary McKinnon if either British laws did not exist to prosecute him or the British government steadfastly refused to prosecute him, but this is not the situation, which makes the extradition plain rough justice. I don't think the media generally likes people with AS. They want to create a society that views people with AS as untrustworthy individuals with low moral standards who do not know right from wrong. I consider the extradition as a human rights issue where AS does not come into the equation at all.

Attitudes of parents towards disability and how disabled is defined varies from person to person. When I was in Y4, an LEA specialist was concerned at my clumsiness and ineptness at PE lessons, but was particularly moved when he read that I couldn't ride a bike and that my handwriting was a scrawl. His only explanation was that I was disabled and should receive disability treatment. A letter was sent to my parents who were deeply offended and upset that an official from the LEA had the audacity to think I was disabled. My parents at the time adhered to a traditional model of disability which excluded any traits I had, so they flatly refused to believe I was disabled in any way.

My LA recommended a residential school because their officials didn't think I socialised enough. This is despite having a few friends and being involved in some societies. The strategy did not work.

The home education community seem to know the twists and turns of this new legislation much better than the AS community. They say it is the start of a slippery slope towards making home education almost impossible unless difficult to comply with criteria can be met - like having facilities at home to teach the best part of the NC before the LA will give the go ahead to home educate. The child abuse issues are a smokescreen based on unfounded allegations. However, a strong possibility exists that home educating parents who don't give their kids the education the government wants will be prosecuted under laws relating to child welfare and not education. I recommend you read the entire report to familiarise yourself with what is going on.

Education Otherwise have been discredited as traitors by large sections of the home education community.

There is a bit of a danger than anybody who asks this question will only look at NC school subjects and exclude other subjects outside of the NC - such as film making. I have a primary school report from 1985. The subject by subject part does not include a section for ICT and neither does it include a section for RE because my school did not teach those subjects at the time - although other primary schools did. Science is headed Nature Study (because 'hard' science wasn't taught in Y3 and I presume that Technology is included under Arts and Crafts.

I'm sure this is unlawful dismissal.

I have mixed feelings towards these companies set up to employ highly skilled people with AS. On one hand it gives people with AS a chance to really shine in an environment they feel comfortable and confident in. On the other hand it produces a culture of segregation into us and them type environments creating the impression that people with AS can, and should, only be allowed to function in their own special islands. I personally feel that a better strategy for people with AS is to make them more welcome and accepted in existing organisations where they work alongside NT staff, as opposed to setting up more companies that employ people with AS. What I hope companies like Specialisterne achieve in the medium to long run is to change many of the current corporate attitudes that work against people with AS, and convince managers and HR types that people with AS have much to offer the company and should not be shot down on silly issues like lacking certain NT traits that are needed to pass the interview but are not needed in the job. It is possible for people with AS to acquire and improve certain 'people skills' providing they are given the right support and training. This support and training is difficult to come by in a world where most NT people are either born with the same people skills or manage to pick them up as they go along.

I believe there are quite a lot of people with AS who are interested in history but hated history lessons at school. I know a teenager with AS who is an expert on ancient Egypt but came dangerously close to killing his history teacher in Y8 because she was an arrogant bag who wouldn't accept she was wrong and didn't know much history outside of the KS3 curriculum. A lot of people enjoy certain mathematical topics like geometry and mathematical art but are not very good at number crunching. IMO the school maths curriculum is too heavily biased towards number crunching and algebra and doesn't cover aesthetic maths. And it didn't fit my interests either. The National Curriculum only covers a small fraction of subjects that can be studied.

I had strengths in maths and the sciences and enjoyed these subjects. Lots of AS kids are good with computers although many find the ICT curriculum rather tedious and not suited to them.

And if the Iranian government decides to extradite the individual for this crime several years later AFTER imposing an extradition treaty which did not exist at the time the offence was committed, then he is Gary McKinnon Mk2. The facts are that ignorance is no defence in the eyes of the law and the severity of the crime is also immaterial. An extradition is an extradition regardless of whether it is for deliberately hacking US government computers or the possession of pork products on Iranian soil. The pending extradition of Gary McKinnon has created an atmosphere of fear hanging over Britain. There is now a possibility that British citizens could be extradited to the US in the future and face trial there because they did something that upset Uncle Sam BEFORE the extradition treaty came into force.

IT services and digital material sold on the internet are things like asking somebody to write a program to solve equations emailed to you as an executable file or some graphics downloaded as .png files. They are non-physical products delivered via the internet and do not pass through customs like physical goods do.

You don't get it do you. In 1999 I witnessed what I think was a British citizen drop a sweet wrapper right outside the entrance of the Iranian embassy in London and the event was caught on a CCTV camera belonging to the embassy. Big deal you might think. However, the wrapper had some of the sweet stuck on it and the sweet in question contained pork gelatine. I happen to know some Iranians who have reliably assured me that pork and its derivatives are illegal in Iran and the penalties for throwing pork products in the street are draconian. The Iranian government could decide that throwing pork products outside their embassy in London is just as illegal as throwing them in the streets of Tehran, and therefore will result in a trial in an Iranian court with a maximum penalty of being hanged in public rather than a fine for dropping litter imposed by the British government.

Would you be happy to see a British citizen extradited to Iran and trialled in an Iranian court for dropping a sweet wrapper on the pavement outside the Iranian embassy in London ten years ago? If found guilty he will be hanged in public from the hook of a crane. I can assure you that the law on littering as it stands in Britain does not allow for such a punishment. If Britain were to implement an extradition treaty with Iran in the future then it is very possible that the aforementioned scenario may indeed materialise. The Iranian government might interpret the crime as an attack on Iran. Britain already has sufficient laws to prosecute people for littering pavements with sweet wrappers.

Reading between the lines I get the message that if the British government refuses to co-operate with the US government, but instead prosecutes Gary McKinnon in Britain, then it will result in serious repercussions for the Britain in the future. A friend who is more knowledgeable about international affairs than I am says that the whole situation is school playground style bullying where if a weaker kid (namely Britain in this instance) does not take orders from a big bully (namely the US in this instance) to do something he doesn't want to do, then he will get his face punched at breaktime.

I've found this http://www.yortime.org.uk/yortime/asp/grou....asp?groupid=22

I have previously stated that US law does not apply in Britain and the extradition treaty was not in force at the time he committed the offences. You might also be interested in knowing that the EU thinks its law applies in the US and every other non-EU country. In 2003, the EU demanded that e-commerce companies based outside of EU countries start charging EU VAT on sales to customers in EU countries, then hand over the revenue collected to the EU. An American friend runs an internet based business and DOES NOT charge VAT on sales of IT services and digital material sold on the internet to EU customers. He says there is no legislation in US Federal Law or the State Law of Indiana demanding that he charges VAT to EU customers, and EU law does not apply in the US. Only if there are changes in the law on his side of the Atlantic will he start charging VAT to EU customers. In the US, IT services and digital material bought on the internet are exempt from state Sales Tax. My friend has told me that if a reciprocal extradition treaty between the US and Britain was in force, then he (and thousands of other Americans) could theoretically be extradited to Britain and trialled in a British court for tax evasion under British and EU law.

It's all too easy to inadvertently access a video nasty on the internet. In my experience of things, there is often little information next to the video that states it is banned in Britain. The fact is, extraditing Gary McKinnon is rough justice and a 'hidden extra' punishment. I previously mentioned the timing of the introduction of the extradition treaty so it is likely that the law as it stands today with regard to hacking US computers from Britain is different from that in 2001/2.

This is a very good point. An increasing number of banned videos are now available to watch on the internet that are stored on servers outside of Britain. Even young kids can easily access them (and don't give me any rubbish about filtering software that really is as much use as a chocolate teapot) so should foreigners who uploaded these banned videos be extradited to Britain and tried in a British court for breaking a British law?

I would hazard a guess it's like people may be happy to break a certain law if the penalty is a £10 fine, but few will consider breaking the same law if the penalty is extradition to Saudi Arabia and beheaded in public. I certainly think that the timing is a stronger defence than having AS. I have not checked if there is (and IMO dishonest) wording in the extradition treaty to extradite people based in crimes committed before it came into force. I don't really think AS comes into the equation at all. I personally think that Gary McKinnon should face trial in Britain and I would oppose the extradition just as much if he were NT. Britain already has sufficient laws to deal with computer hackers.

I don't subscribe to the view 'break the law and take whatever punishments you are given'. If judges and senior politicians were able to dish out whatever punishments they wanted on an individual basis, rather than those written into the law, then there will be a lot of very rough justice. I strongly believe that criminals should only receive whatever punishments are already written into the law at the time they committed the crime and there must be no hidden extras. Gary McKinnon hacked into the US government computers during 2001 and 2002, BEFORE the extradition treaty came into force in 2005. In that case why isn't Gary McKinnon being trialled in an international court for breaking international law?

FACT Northants http://www.factnorthants.org.uk

FACT Northants http://www.factnorthants.org.uk