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McKinnon moves closer to deportation

The UK man accused of causing an internet security nightmare for the US defence department and Nasa by hacking into their systems while allegedly looking for information on aliens has lost his fight to be prosecuted in the UK.

Gary McKinnon will not be prosecuted in the country and is a step closer to extradition after the UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced it did not intend to prosecute on computer misuse allegations.

According to Alison Saunders, the head of the CPS organised crime division, Mr McKinnon's hacking activities were of a serious nature and charges need to reflect the "criminality alleged by the US authorities".

"These were not random experiments in computer hacking, but a deliberate effort to breach US defence systems at a critical time which caused well documented damage," she said.

"They may have been conducted from Mr McKinnon's home computer - and in that sense there is a UK link - but the target and the damage were transatlantic."

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