British Hacker's Mom Asks Obama For Help

The mother of British hacker Gary McKinnon called on President Barack Obama to intervene in a British High Court ruling that rejected his appeals to avoid an extradition for hacking into U.S. government computer systems.

McKinnon, who suffers from a form of autism known as Asperger's Syndrome, will likely be tried in the U.S. for breaking into NASA and the Pentagon computer networks in search of UFO reports after losing an appeal Friday to avoid extradition.

McKinnon's mother Janis Sharp said to reporters Friday that the dire nature of the situation called for an intervention by President Obama. "This is a from the Bush era, it is a hold-over from the Bush era," she said."Obama would not want this to happen."

Sharp expressed anger over the latest ruling, saying to the BBC that her son had been "nave enough to admit to computer misuse without having a lawyer and without one being present."

The recent ruling signified one of the last chances of a British trial for McKinnon, concluding a three-year legal battle to avoid extradition, which has included appeals to the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights.

McKinnon is charged with shutting down 97 U.S. Pentagon and NASA computer systems for more than 24 hours in 2001 and 2002, following the 9/11 attacks. The hack was what military authorities call "the biggest military hack of all time," resulting in $700,000 in damages, according to Reuters.

British High Court judges dismissed arguments by McKinnon's lawyers who contended that a U.S. extradition would jeopardize McKinnon's health, and that he was "clearly not equipped" to deal with the U.S. prison system, according to the BBC.

The court also rejected calls by McKinnon's lawyers for a judicial review of past rulings. In February, the Crown Prosecution Service refused to bring charges against McKinnon in the UK, following a ruling by former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith that failed to take into consideration McKinnon's Asperger diagnoses in a ruling that allowed a U.S. extradition.

McKinnon, known as a UFO eccentric, admitted to hacking into Pentagon computers to media sources, claiming he was obsessed with UFOs and was using the Internet to comb military records in search of documents verifying the existence of alien life.

He also told media that he evaded U.S. government security measures by hacking into the system on his own computer with a 56K dial-up modem with no password protection and manager in his London home, Reuters reports.

McKinnon was arrested in 2002 after the U.S. charged him with hacking into government computers at NASA and the Pentagon. If convicted in the U.S. McKinnon faces up to 70 years in prison.

The impending extradition has been met with a backlash from the public and British media, who strongly argue that McKinnon should be tried on British soil.