Cold Open

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For the first time in a long time, things were going well in Janis Sharp’s life. She had written and produced an independent movie. Janis’s only child, Gary, had moved out of the house and was living with his girlfriend — a big step for her son who had struggled with social anxiety and the pressures of modern life.

But as Janis drifted off to sleep on January 29, 2002, she had two dreams that forecasted the nightmare that she and her son were about to endure.

The first dream featured Janis’s sister, Lorna, rising like an apparition and staring into Janis’s soul. Her face was serious and cold.

SFX: Echoing: Your life is going to change just like that,

Lorna said in the dream, punctuating the prophecy with a snap of her fingers.

In a panicked sweat, Janis woke up. She looked at the clock in their room. 5:00 a.m. She woke her husband, Wilson, explaining the dream to him. Wilson calmed Janis’s racing mind, and the couple fell back to sleep.

Then, out of the darkness, Janis dreamed of yet another family member delivering a dire message. She saw her sister-in-law Eleanor rising from the shadows. Eleanor’s face was pulled taught in a pained seriousness. Look at Gary, the ghostly visage ordered. And again, with desperation, Look at Gary!

And for the second time that night, Janis woke up in a cold sweat.

Her heart was racing. Her hands shook. She could feel panic emanating across her body in waves. She had to check on her son Gary. She rolled out of bed and dialed the number to the flat Gary shared with his girlfriend, Tamsin.

SFX: Phone ringing

No response. The phone just kept ringing...and ringing...and ringing.

We have to see Gary, Janis said to her husband. We have to make sure he’s okay.

The two Londoners threw on their coats and braced themselves against the bite of the English winter. They raced across North London to get to Gary’s apartment. When they arrived, Janis hopped out of the car and rang the doorbell.

SFX: Doorbell

No answer.

Janis pressed the doorbell again. She waited, just hoping that her son was alive.

And then, the door opened.

It was Gary. He was dressed in his robe, his auburn hair disheveled. His elfin features appeared more pronounced as he was thinner, thinner than Janis had remembered him ever being.

He stared at his mom, blocking the entrance to the apartment. What was she doing at my apartment at 6:00 a.m.? he wondered.

Janis couldn’t explain the relief she felt from seeing her boy. Gary invited his mom and step-dad into his apartment. Janis looked for signs of trouble — drug paraphernalia, weapons, signs of a struggle — but everything seemed normal.

Janis and Wilson left after chatting with Gary for a while, waving goodbye as the sun rose on London.

What Janis didn’t realize, though, was that Gary was indeed up to no good. She failed to notice that Gary hadn’t slept that whole night. She failed to see the computer in the closet, glowing, surrounded by cans and bottles of booze.

And perhaps most importantly, she didn’t realize that her son had become a prolific hacker, compromising the security of the United States military, government, and NASA.

In just a matter of days, Gary would be arrested. In a matter of years, Gary would be labeled the “biggest military hacker of all time,” facing up to 70 years of jail time in the United States.

This is the story of Gary McKinnon, a daring UFO enthusiast who sought to expose the secrets of alien technology and “free energy” hidden by the US government for decades. But exactly what did Gary do to get him blacklisted by the United States and how did his fight for freedom capture the attention of the world?

On this episode: hacking NASA, cyberterrorism and aliens hiding in plain sight. I’m Keith Korneluk and this is Modem Mischief.

INTRODUCTION

You're listening to Modem Mischief. In this series we explore the darkest reaches of the internet. We'll take you into the minds of the world's most notorious hackers and the lives affected by them. We'll also show you places you won't find on Google and what goes on down there. This is the story of Gary McKinnon

Act I

It was a cold night on New Year’s Eve 1999. Gary McKinnon and his partner Tamsin were throwing a party in the flat they rented from Tamsin’s aunt. Tamsin had invited friends and family to the party from all across the U.K., and she was looking forward to the event.

But as Tamsin prepared the flat for the party, welcomed guests, and entertained her family members, there was an elephant in the room. Gary had his massive personal computer set up on the coffee table in the middle of the living room. Cables and cords stretched from the wall to Gary’s computer — an eyesore at best, a tripping hazard at worst.

As the merriment of New Year’s Eve swirled around him, Gary was sitting alone, on the couch, eyes trained on the computer screen, oblivious to everyone around him.

None of the guests said anything, but they all thought it rather odd that this thirty-three-year-old man was playing on his computer instead of socializing with his girlfriend’s family and friends. It wasn’t until Gary’s parents arrived that a small intervention was staged.

Gary’s mom, Janis, knew that Gary was increasingly interested in UFOs and aliens. He would tell her that the world was run by aliens, or that the U.S. government was hiding proof of aliens. As she approached Gary at the New Year’s Eve party, she could feel the discomfort many of the guests had about Gary’s computer use.

She asked Gary to put the computer away, telling him it was in everyone’s way.

Well, they can walk around it, Gary said.

Even as Janis appealed to Gary, pleading with him to socialize with his girlfriend’s family, Gary dug his heels in. It’s my party, too, he said.

In some ways, things hadn’t changed much since Gary was a child. His mother used to joke with him that he was 30-going-on-13, much to the chagrin of Gary.

(Beat)

Gary was born in Glasgow in 1966. From an early age, Gary seemed to be fascinated with planets and outer space. As a toddler, he’d sit on the edge of his bed, looking out the window with his mom at the night sky, and ask, How far away are the stars? What about the planets? Was Noah’s Ark a spaceship?

By the time Gary was 6, his mother had divorced and relocated to London, bringing Gary with her. It was here that Gary met his step-father, Wilson. After learning that Wilson was from Bonnybridge, a town that has the highest number of UFO sightings in the UK, Gary took a liking to Wilson

But once Gary started school, he struggled to make friends. He found the subjects boring, his classmates uninteresting, and his coursework tedious — all at the age of six. Occasionally, Gary would wander home from school in the middle of the day, complaining about the bullying he suffered through. It was only at home, isolated and away from others, that he felt most comfortable.

When he was 12, Gary was heading upstairs to his room in his mom’s Muswell Hill apartment. As he reached the top floor he caught the glimmer of something in the night sky. He rushed to the upstairs window and pressed his face against the glass. There, against the darkness of the night sky, he watched a bright, orange light dart back and forth across the night sky. In less than three seconds, the light had gone from sky to horizon. From that day on, Gary knew that extraterrestrial life existed. Shortly after, he joined the British UFO association at age 12.

In 1980, Gary got his first computer: an Atari that could handle 8K cartridge games. Eventually, though, Gary learned how to code video games. The simple binary of coding was logical and made sense to him. As time went on, Gary became more interested in coding and less interested in school.

By the time he was 16, Gary had dropped out of high school.

To support himself, Gary took a job as a hairdresser in London. There was just one problem though: Gary was terrified of being in public. And public transit was even worse.

One day, when Gary was taking the subway in London, he watched all the people moving about him. Hundreds of people, surrounding him, all rushing and frantically trying to get to their next destination. There was shoving, pushing, cramped quarters, and heat. It suddenly all started to wash over him. The corners of his vision started to get dark. The hustle and bustle of the metro started to blur into a ringing sensation. Suddenly, Gary lost his balance and collapsed on the floor — completely unconscious. This happened twice to Gary.

His mom was concerned that there might be a brain tumor lurking inside of Gary. She immediately took him to a doctor and ordered that he have scans done to find the growth responsible for this strange behavior. But once the scans came back, the doctors said that there was nothing wrong physically with Gary.

It only made sense from that point on that Gary chose to work with computers and not people. Working with individual clients and small businesses, Gary became an IT contractor. Oftentimes he’d take clients' computers home with him to work on them from the comfort of his home.

To take his computer skills to the next level, Gary invested in “The Hacker’s Handbook” a popular how-to guide for an early generation of hackers written by Peter Sommer under the pseudonym Hugo Cornwall. In the book, Sommer gives instructions on how to exploit early computer networks and telephone companies. When Gary got his hands on “The Hacker’s Handbook” an idea so brilliant and so dangerous flashed across his mind: What if I used these techniques to hack into NASA to find proof of extraterrestrial life?

By 2000, Gary was still living with his girlfriend Tamsin at her aunt’s flat that they rented. Gary’s computer and his ensuing obsession with UFOs and hacking started to take up more and more time and space in his life. Gary traded sleep for sleuthing, food for file browsing, and human interaction for network penetration.

But if you ask Gary, even today, whether he considered what he did hacking, he would most likely chuckle at you. It was more like fishing, he would say.

SFX: Typing noises

For starters, Gary was able to locate publicly available IP addresses that were listed on NASA’s website. From his experience working as an IT contractor, Gary also knew that the Windows operating system that the US Government used was easily exploited and lacked hefty security features.

The exploit Gary wanted to test out revolved around weak administrator passwords or computers that never set up a password. But there were over 65,000 computers that Gary had to test and see if their password was simply “password.” Even easier, he just had to see if there was even a password.

To save himself time and energy, Gary wrote a bit of script in a programming language called Perl — short for program extracting and reporting language. Perl is typically used for text manipulation and system administration, which is exactly why Gary used it.

In his script, Gary had his computer test the passwords of every IP address in a network. Sometimes he discovered that computers didn’t even have passwords set up, and other times the passwords were just password.

During these late-night sleuthing sessions, Gary began to wrack up a serious amount of computers with compromised passwords — somewhere close to 100 computers.

To make accessing the computer easier, Gary decided to download RemotelyAnywhere onto his computer and the compromised computers. This software allowed him to use the computer as if he were actually at the desktop, moving the cursor around and monitoring if an actual NASA employee was trying to log onto the network.

But the obsessive behavior came at a cost. Gary completely withdrew from society and focused all of his energy on hacking. He rarely spoke to his girlfriend Tamsin. He stopped bathing, letting his auburn locks grow greasy and unkempt. He rarely ate, and never took time to have a proper meal.

It’s bad enough having an addiction to using technology. But Gary’s obsessive quest for knowledge of UFOs began to fuel that addiction even more. One night, while Gary was checking the list of IP addresses, he remembered hearing about a NASA contractor named Donna Hare who witnesses the routine airbrushing and doctoring of images. What exactly were they airbrushing out of their photos? Aliens.

Gary heard that these photos were stored at Building 8 in the Johnson Space Center, which is where he turned his attention to. Fortunately, NASA had a consistent naming convention for their computers in the network, which allowed Gary to identify the exact computers in Building 8. From there, he ran his Perl script and found over 200 computers in Building 8 that he could access with RemotelyAnywhere.

Gary couldn’t believe that he was actually in the network. It was as if Gary were sitting in the chair in front of a computer in a top-secret location, inside a secured building, in a secure compound. Had Gary tried to just waltz into the Johnson Space Center, he surely would have been arrested. But here he was, perusing the files and folders of NASA computers, desperately searching for evidence of aliens, free energy technology, and lunar bases.

One of the easiest ways to search the computers was to do something called a LAN search. This allowed Gary to find all files that contained a specific keyword, like “Alien” or “extraterrestrial.” During one of these searches, Gary ended up finding an excel spreadsheet titled “Non-Terrestrial Officers.” The spreadsheet had a list of officers' names and ranks. When Gary tried to google search the officers or the concept of non-terrestrial officers, he found no search results. What dark secrets was the US Government hiding?

Shortly after finding the list of non-terrestrial officers, Gary stumbled upon a folder that contained photographs. Gary wasn’t sure what he might find in there, but he was hoping that it would give him definitive proof that aliens do exist. There was just one problem…

The files were 200 megabytes, which may not seem very big today. But for Gary on his 56-kilobyte dial-up internet, it was going to take Gary about 5 minutes per megabyte — or roughly 16 hours to view the photo. So, instead of waiting to download the file from NASA, Gary used the RemotelyAnywhere program. He clicked on a random user in the network, made sure that the computer wasn’t in use, and proceeded to remotely access the computer.

Gary saw the sparsely populated desktop, just a few shortcuts, and icons. He did a quick search for the photo file and started to open it. The photograph rendered line by line, pixel by pixel. Gary was sweating, anticipating the evidence that would have made all the hacking and sleuthing worth it. The photo started to appear all fuzzy and grey. And then, slowly but surely, Gary couldn’t believe what had appeared before his eyes.

But before he could begin to download the photo and send it to himself, there was an even bigger problem: an unexpected guest had arrived.

Act II

On the outskirts of Houston, the Johnson Space Center stands as a triumph of the United States’ multi-billion-dollar space program. Built in 1962, the 1,620-acre facility is home to mission control and the astronaut program. From within the hallowed walls of this facility, the first humans were guided towards the moon. When astronauts use the callsign “Houston,” as in, “Houston we have a problem,” they’re talking to mission control at the Johnson Space Center.

SFX: Radar Pinging

But perhaps deeper in these walls, more closely guarded secrets were kept. Lunar samples are housed in one secure building. White Sands Test Facility, home to NASA’s chemical and hazardous materials labs, is managed through the Johnson Space Center. By the 1970s, stories of technicians airbrushing out visual proof of UFOs circulated widely in conspiracy theory groups. Among UFO organizations, discussing whether the moon landing was fake became as banal as learning the A-B-Cs. The bigger question was how much the US knew about alien technology.

But to learn any more about this, you’d need to gain access to the sprawling compound. There’s one entrance for the walled site, staffed by armed guards, trained to verify NASA-issued photo IDs and spot counterfeit credentials. In most of the lobbies to more than 100 buildings, more armed guards watch over the doors. And even if someone snuck past all of that, the buildings are monitored by video cameras — inside and out.

Suffice it to say, the Johnson Space Center — and by a greater extension, the United States — prided itself on its security.

So when a Space Center employee who happened to work in Building 8, the Video and Photography laboratory, walked in to work in early 2001, they thought it was going to be just like any other day. They moved through the linoleum-floor passages bathed in white fluorescent lights. They entered their office, sat down at their computer, and turned the monitor on.

And that’s when they knew something horrible was going on.

The cursor was moving by itself, hovering over a top-secret photo that was for Building 8 employees only. The employee, not knowing what else to do, immediately shut the computer down, catching their own panicked face in the black mirror of the monitor.

SFX: Windows 95 error message

Almost 5,000 miles away, Gary McKinnon sat in front of his computer, stupefied. Before the NASA employee shut the computer that he had infiltrated down, he had glimpsed the first and only proof he'd seen of a UFO.

Before he lost the connection, he caught the image of a silvery, large, cigar-shaped spacecraft with geodesic spheres on either side. Gary couldn’t make out any rivets, any kind of seams that would make it look man-made. It was too smooth. It was...alien.

From that day on, Gary would continue to look for any kind of proof of UFOs and alien technology on US government computers. Working off of his list of computers with either no password or the word “password” as the password, Gary worked his way through computers belonging to the US Army, Navy, Department of Defense, Air Force, and NASA. For 13 months, from February 2001 to March 2002 Gary’s thirst for UFO secrets was insatiable. He tore through the files and documents of roughly 100 computers scattered across the United States. Two of the computers existed inside the Pentagon, one of the US’s most secure facilities. 16 of the computers were housed within the hallowed and secure walls of NASA compounds.

As Gary moved through computer after computer, server after server, he would occasionally leave notes. “Your security system is crap,” he wrote on one computer. “I am Solo. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels.”

Whether it was because he hadn’t been caught yet or because he wanted to make a political statement in the face of the conservative US government that curtailed many civil liberties in the post-9/11 world, Gary’s messages concerned the U.S. investigators. Not just because there was a hacker in their network, but because that hacker could be anyone — Al Qaeda, China, Russia, domestic. In the eyes of the US government, he was a threat they had almost no intelligence on. He was unpredictable.

This became increasingly clear through 2001 and into 2002. At one point, Gary logged onto a computer network that was located inside the Earle Naval Weapons Station in New Jersey. While snooping through some files, Gary accidentally crashed about 300 computers, causing the base to shut down for a week.

In another sleuthing session, Gary logged onto a computer that was located inside the Military District of Washington. With a few accidental clicks, Gary had once again crashed the computers.

While he didn’t think much would come of it at the time, prosecutors in the U.S. were slowly building a case against their mystery hacker. Prosecutors alleged that Gary had caused about 1 million dollars in damage at least. The problem was getting out of hand for the US authorities.

So, when NASA passed along some information to US prosecutors, they got the biggest break in their case yet. When NASA reviewed the computer that the employee said had been hacked, they noticed a small, seemingly benign program installed onto the hard drive. It was called RemotelyAnywhere.

When investigators looked into the source of the program, they saw that the RemotelyAnywhere application was tied to a paid account. In other words, someone had to input a credit card to install RemotelyAnywhere on a device.

When the US investigators contacted RemotelyAnywhere and informed them of the situation, they saw that the billing address used to pay for that version of RemotelyAnywhere was located in London. Before long, the British authorities were contacted and briefed on the severity of the situation: there was a hacker who was taking out military base IT infrastructure up and down the US. He needed to be stopped before something worse could happen.

And it was that urgency, during a time when the world was still reeling from one of the most deadly and dramatic terrorist attacks in the world, that convinced the British authorities to move on the supposed hacker.

On March 19, 2002, Gary McKinnon found himself in an interrogation room in North London. The British Hi-Tech Crime Unit was the one who showed up for him. They showed up at Tamsin’s aunt’s apartment and brought both Gary and Tamsin in for questioning.

Gary and Tamsin were held and interrogated for about eight hours.

As Gary was questioned by the investigators, he realized he was in good company. The Hi-Tech Crime Unit dealt with cybercrimes. They understood the lingo, and perhaps would even be sympathetic to what Gary had done. Sure, he had broken the law by snooping around the networks for the Pentagon and NASA. But, he swore that he never caused any harm.

The Hi-Tech Crime Unit patiently listened to Gary’s story, the mentions of UFO evidence on NASA computers, and something about non-terrestrial officers. While the stories seemed interesting, the Hi-Tech Crime Unit was mostly interested in determining if Gary had committed any crimes on U.K. soil. They decided to release Gary on bail and not charge him; however, the Crown Prosecution Service notified Gary that they would charge him with a crime, most likely computer misuse, which carried a sentence of 6-months of community service.

Gary’s mother, Janis, knew that this sentence would be hard to come by since Gary had accessed many of the most secure facilities in the United States. To ease her mind and calm Gary, she invited him on walks in Hampstead Heath, a manicured and lush garden district in London. While Janis attempted to gauge her son’s emotional health, she noticed his nonchalance and carefree attitude.

Gary had entirely underestimated the consequences of his actions.

On August 8, 2002, Gary was interviewed by the Hi-Tech Crime Unit again. However, thanks to Tamsin, Gary had legal representation present during this round of questioning. Karen Todner, Gary’s Lawyer, would become one of Gary’s steadfast supporters from that day on.

But instead of getting a 6-month community service sentence Gary, Janis, Tamsin, and Karen had hoped for, the Crown Prosecution Service decided to drop all charges against Gary.

At first, Gary and his family were elated by the news, but as the Crown Prosecution Service continued to talk, their elation faded into deep concern. Instead of prosecuting Gary, the British government was stepping aside to let the US government seek extradition.

The family hung onto the word “extradition.” If Gary was extradited, he wouldn’t be facing community service anymore.

By November of 2002, Gary and his family read out his indictment from a US federal jury in the District of Virginia: seven counts of computer-related crime, each of which carried up to a 10-year jail sentence. In separate New Jersey-based charges, Gary faced 5 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.

Janis started to panic, fearing that her son was going to end up rotting away in Guantanamo Bay for the rest of his life. There was nothing that Gary and his family could do except wait. There was one thing Janis did know, though: if Gary was extradited, he’d never step foot on home soil again.

But while Gary and his family worried over his future, the US case against Gary began stalling out. Thanks to the existing extradition treaty signed by the U.S. and U.K., there needed to be prima facie evidence amounting to 5,000 dollars per machine for the crime of computer misuse to be an extraditable offense.

And, while the U.S. alleged exactly that amount of financial damage in their extradition charges, no evidence was ever submitted to the U.K. authorities. Gary was being threatened with extradition, but no evidence was ever brought forward — therefore, no formal extradition charges were filed.

After months had passed, Gary’s legal team met with a legal attache to the US Embassy. During the visit, the attache explained that there was one state in particular that wanted Gary “to fry”— implying the death penalty and that, to avoid that, Gary should take a plea bargain from the US prosecutors. However, because there was never a written offer of a plea bargain, the reduced sentence that was being offered couldn’t be guaranteed. Gary maintained that he shouldn’t be extradited to begin with, and refused any plea bargain.

As the months ticked by, Gary continued to live life in fear. Because of the press and media attention he was getting, Gary wasn’t able to find anyone who wanted to hire someone who was possibly facing extradition charges. He eventually stopped leaving his apartment, afraid that any police van could be the extradition squad, ready to bag him and boot him to the US.

Gary’s relationship with his girlfriend faltered, and the two separated, further isolating himself. But as months turned into years, Gary began to ease up. He left his home and met a new girlfriend named Lucy. Her easy-going spirit and smile helped Gary overcome his anxiety for a while. When Lucy and Gary became closer, he told her about the US indictment and the extradition. It had been almost three years since his arrest, and he figured the US had just moved on from him. The two took comfort in the inaction and resolved to make a fresh start of things in their lives.

But while Gary was just starting to gain some sense of normalcy in his life, darker forces were actively plotting to punish him.

SFX: Phone Ringing

On June 7th, 2005, Janis got a phone call. It was from Gary. She knew right away something was horribly wrong. And then, she heard the words no mother ever wants to hear uttered from their child.

“Mum, I’ve been arrested...I’m in Brixton Prison”

Act III

For the three years that passed between Gary’s first arrest and his arrest in 2005, the U.S. and U.K. governments were confronting an influx in terrorism threats. The 9/11 attacks shifted counterterrorism activities into high-gear. One way to combat the global threat of terrorism, at the cost of human rights and due process, was the extraordinary extradition treaties signed by the U.S. and the U.K.

Whereas the previous extradition treaty required prima facie evidence to extradite a U.K. citizen to the U.S., the new extradition treaty of 2003 removed this requirement. Instead of providing evidence that a crime had been committed, all the U.S. needed to file was reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed.

So, as Gary was walking in his neighborhood on June 7th, 2005, his worst nightmare was coming true.

SFX: Wheel screeching to a halt

SFX: Car door opening and closing

The extradition squad had arrived. After confirming Gary’s identity, they hauled him into the police car and booked him in Brixton Prison, an almost 200-year-old prison in south London.

For Gary, his situation deteriorated quickly. Gary, his mom Janis, and his legal team began appealing the extradition. The legal team, consisting of Karen Todner and Edmund Lawson stood before judges, court date after court date, pushing for Gary to remain free.

The small victory Gary got was being released on bail conditions, which included having no access to the internet and singing into a police station every night. This last condition was eventually changed to twice a week to ensure Gary remained in the country.

Once the British Home Secretary John Reid signed the extradition order for Gary on July 4th, 2006, the legal team once again mobilized to appeal based on human rights and the statute of limitations. They believed it was cruel and inhumane to lock Gary up for that long given the crime. They also argued that because the crimes were committed under the older extradition treaty, the new one couldn’t be retroactively applied to Gary McKinnon.

But time and time again, they lost their appeals. From the European Court of Human Rights to the House of Lords, Gary couldn’t catch a break.

It was in this dire moment when all hope seemed lost and extradition was all but certain, that Gary’s mother encouraged him to appear for a television interview with Ben Scotchbrook on ITV’s London Tonight. While the interview was one of the first instances of the public hearing Gary talk at length, there was one thing viewers all across the world started to notice…

Gary’s behavior was, well, atypical. He talked quickly through his answers, appearing emotionally detached from his responses.

Some viewers, familiar with autism and Asperger’s syndrome, a form of mild autism spectrum disorder, wrote to Gary's legal team and encouraged them to get Gary a neurological screening and diagnosis.

The secretary at the law firm fielding calls the day after Gary’s interview that it was all some kind of sick joke, and began ignoring the calls. But, when she went on break and a lawyer picked up the phone, he realized that this might be the very thing that could save Gary McKinnon.

(Beat)

September 8, 2008. Janis, her husband Wilson, and Gary piled into the family car. Gary had been diagnosed just weeks earlier with Asperger’s syndrome, but Gary’s lawyers wanted another medical opinion. They wanted someone globally recognized as an expert to confirm Gary’s diagnosis — that way it could stand up in trial.

As Gary and his family left London to drive to Cambridge, Gary looked exhausted. The media attention was still taking its toll, and now he was being subjected to neurological tests to see if he had Asperger’s syndrome.

They were headed to Professor Simon Baron-Cohen’s clinic just about an hour outside of London. Baron-Cohen was and still is, an expert in autism spectrum disorders. Gary’s legal team believed a diagnosis from him would hold up in court.

As Wilson guided the car onto the highway, he noticed that someone seemed to be following them. His eyes darted back and forth between the rearview mirror and the road in front.

To see if the car was indeed following them, Janis told her husband to do multiple laps in a roundabout, until they were behind the car they thought was tailing them. Wilson watched the suspicious car turn off of the roundabout, taking an exit that wasn’t towards Baron-Cohen’s clinic. The family collectively gave a sigh of relief.

But once they arrived in Cambridge, Janis and Wilson kept constantly checking the parking lot of the clinic. What if the extradition squad had planned this day as the day to snatch Gary up? What if they were just waiting out there in some unmarked van?

Fortunately for Gary and his family, there wasn’t a van full of police in the parking lot. And by that afternoon, Gary was back at his mother’s house, with a positive Asperger’s syndrome diagnosis.

What started as a secretary thinking people were prank calling the law office quickly changed the course of Gary’s entire case.

Once he had the Asperger’s diagnosis, Gary started receiving more press and advocacy. The National Autistic Society began campaigning for Gary’s freedom, demonstrations were held in London protesting the extradition orders.

SFX: camera lights flashing

The Free Gary movement was in full swing, and the added legal complication of extraditing someone with an autism spectrum disorder gave Gary a new lease on life. The argument is that it was inhumane and unnecessary to remove Gary from his family and homeland.

Soon enough, Gary became a cause celebre for many politicians in the UK. Boris Johnson, while he was the mayor of London, wrote an impassioned letter in the Telegraph stating, “Gary McKinnon believes in little green men — but it doesn’t make him a terrorist.”

And, even though Gary had all this support from friends, family, and strangers, the pressure was still getting to him.

Being in a constant state of limbo, in-between appeals and court dates and interviews, started to exact its toll on Gary. One day, Gary asked Janis to pick up some things from the grocery store. As Janis looked at the list Gary provided her, she noticed an odd request: potassium chloride.

As Janis googled the chemical, she saw the typical mundane information about its molecular makeup. But as she scrolled through the search results, she came across some shocking information: potassium chloride is one of the chemical agents used for lethal injections in the U.S.

The thought of Gary taking his own life terrified Janis. When she pressed Gary, he explained that he wouldn’t survive being in the U.S. prison system, that he’d rather kill himself than be extradited. His mental health was quickly deteriorating.

Janis rushed to get psychiatric help, taking Gary to a meet with Professor Baron-Cohen as well as Professor Jeremy Turk. During the evaluation, it was confirmed that Gary was indeed suicidal and was put on medication.

Death threats against Gary, his family, and journalists that sided with Gary began to surface. “We will start hurting British citizens every day that you continue your stance against US extradition,” read one email. “You will be contacted when this happens so you know we are for fucking real.”

The stress started to get to Janis. For most of 2010, whenever she got in her car, she’d sweep the underside and trunk for evidence of car bombs. One day, she found a small device that looked like a mobile phone with magnets attached to the underside of her car. One of Janis’s friends blurted out that it was a tracker, and the two immediately smashed it into the road.

For the following years, the family felt almost entirely helpless to the whims of the political machinations happening within the British government. The Conservative party championed Gary’s cause, saying the 2003 extradition treaty with the US was a blatant abuse of American power. But the more liberal and US-aligned Torey party continued to uphold Gary McKinnon’s extradition.

So, while Gary was heavily medicated, deeply depressed, and losing the will to fight, the world watched and waited, hoping that someone within the British government would stand up to the US extradition orders.

SFX: Muffled voices, gavel banging calling for order

On October 16, British Home Secretary Theresa May stood before her peers in parliament. She wore a stately brown dress with large pearls hanging from her neck. Speaking clearly and confidently, she read from a prepared speech.

Secretary May stated that since she had come into office, “the sole issue on which I have been required to make a decision is whether Mr. McKinnon’s extradition to the United States would breach his human rights.”

She did not shy away from the severity of his crimes, but she also acknowledged that Gary was, “seriously ill.”

Just mere moments into her speech, Secretary May said “Mr. McKinnon’s extradition would give rise to such a high risk of him ending his life that a decision to extradite would be incompatible with Mr. McKinnon’s human rights.”

The members of parliament flanking Secretary May gave out a firm “yea,” approving of the decision.

And just like that, with the strong words of a conservative politician who would go on to champion the U.K.’s departure from the EU, Gary’s nightmare was finally over.

By December of 2012, the Crown Prosecution Service notified Gary to let him know they weren’t going to charge him for any crimes. Gary and his family were elated.

For almost 10 years, Gary lived a life that forced him to live in fear: fear of being snatched from his family and homeland, fear of being brutalized in an American prison, fear of being the target of a car bomb, fear of losing everything he had ever known.

Act IV

Today, Gary is still very much into UFOs. While he doesn’t seem to be hacking into NASA’s computers anymore, he’s still very passionate about researching UFOs. His Twitter feed is a mix of music recommendations, current affairs, and video game news.

Since the extradition order was blocked in 2012, Gary started his own business called SmallSEO, a search engine optimization firm that helps businesses show up in search engine result pages.

While Gary’s home life has been relatively quiet since his high-profile fight for freedom, his case has had lasting impacts on the relationship between “hacktivists,” the U.K, and the U.S.

As recently as January 2021, a British judge blocked the US extradition of Julian Assange, the famous WikiLeaks founder, on the same grounds that Gary McKinnon’s extradition was blocked: mental health issues and a worry that Assange wouldn’t be treated properly in a U.S. federal prison.

And, while Gary’s moniker as “the biggest military computer hacker of all time” still stands, he hasn’t thought about leaving the U.K. If he did, the U.S. would likely try to extradite him from whatever country he was in.

So, instead, Gary has made a decent life for himself in the U.K. Besides, he never liked leaving home that much anyway. At least he has access to the internet now.

I’m Keith Korneluk and you’re listening to Modem Mischief

CREDITS

Thanks for listening to Modem Mischief. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe or follow button in your favorite podcast app right now so you don’t miss an episode. This show is an independent production and is wholly supported by you, our listeners and the best way to support the show is to share it. Tell your friends, your enemies, try screaming it from the hilltops. And another way to support us is on Patreon. For as little as $5 a month you’ll receive an ad-free version of the show plus monthly bonus episodes exclusive to subscribers. Modem Mischief is brought to you by Mad Dragon Productions and is created, produced and hosted by me: Keith Korneluk. This episode is written and researched by Jonah Svihus. Mixed and mastered by David Swope aka Dat Dick on the Dials. The theme song “You Are Digital” is composed by Computerbandit. Sources for this episode are available on our website at modemmischief.com. And don’t forget to follow us on social media at @modemmischief. Thanks for listening!