Press Frees McKinnon From Guantanamo, Puts Him in a Virginia Supermax

Fifty-two percent of IT professionals believe UK hacker Gary McKinnnon shouldn't be extradited to the United States (read "Mordor") to face charges of hacking into Pentagon computers, according to an online survey of 240 people conducted by security company Sophos.

I'm surprised that number's not higher, given the silly press coverage in Europe. To its credit, one newspaper -- The Scotsman -- broke with the conventional European wisdom on Sunday by predicting that McKinnon won't wind up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead, the paper reports, his "most likely destination" is a maximum security cell at the Red Onion State Penitentiary in southwest Virginia.

Located in the town of Pound -- population 1,089 and a place where they recently banned dancing because it "entices sin" -- the jail is one of two 'Supermax' prisons in the state and has infuriated human rights campaigners with its ultra-harsh regime. According to a recent report, it "restricts inmate movement and activity to a far greater degree than other maximum security jails".

One ex-inmate recalled: "Upon arrival, I was told that I was at Red Onion now and if you acted up, they would kill me and there was nothing anyone could or would do about it."

Yes, McKinnon, who is charged federally, is somehow going to wind up in a state prison, surrounded on all sides by the townies from Footloose.

The Scotsman doesn't reveal how it picked Red Onion from the 44 state prisons in Virginia, so I'm guessing it just picked the most brutish lockup it could find in a Google search. But what really impresses is the related scoop that the formerly unclassified computers McKinnon cracked while stoned are now "top-secret military and Nasa sites" containing "top-secret computer programmes." On the plus side, the British spelling really classes up the FUD.

(Photo: W.Sharp)