Let's not creep into another misuse of legal powers

JOHN SCOTT "US foreign policy is akin to government-sponsored terrorism these days . . . It was not a mistake that there was a huge security stand-down on September 11 last year . . . I am SOLO. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels . . ." These words, left on one of 97 computers hacked at NASA and the Pentagon between February 2001 and March 2002, were not the chilling threat of a terrorist or the start of an episode of 24 but a personal message to the US Government from unemployed Glasgow-born computer systems administrator, Gary McKinnon. They were sent not from his underground island lair but from the bedroom of his girlfriend's aunt's house in London. They marked not the beginning of a concerted attack on the US defence infrastructure but part of Gary's continued quest for proof of the existence of UFOs.