Lawyer for Brit hacker accused of targeting US authorities claims they should be ‘thankful’ it was him and not terrorists
Alleged computer-whizz Lauri Love, 31, is fighting extradition to the US where he faces 99 years in prison if he is convicted
US authorities should be “thankful” a British hacker targeted them instead of terrorists, a court heard today.
Alleged computer-whizz Lauri Love, 31, is accused of stealing 23,000 personal details of government employees from the US Federal Reserve, the FBI and NASA.
US officials have already filed an extradition request for Love to be taken from his home in Suffolk to face the charges, which could mean 99 years in prison if convicted.
Asperger’s sufferer Love, an activist in the Occupy movement, is alleged to have stolen "massive amounts" of confidential information from thousands of computers.
But at Westminster Magistrates' Court today, Love's defence lawyer Ben Cooper said his client did not “gain financially from the hacking” and there was no evidence of harm to individuals who had their information accessed.
If he were to face trial, it should be in the UK instead, he added.
Love appeared agitated throughout the hearing, mumbling and shouting in the dock, while about 20 supporters sat in the public gallery.
Cooper said: "It is relevant in this context, that prosecutors will readily admit there are vulnerabilities in the system that have to be cured.
"Given these institutions are targeted by hostile foreign governments, by terrorists, it is thankful in one view that they did not get there first.
"Mr Love, through his political activism, alerted those agencies.
"Again, one has to look at this in context when taking account of the reality of hostile countries and hostile political movements, who do engage in cyber crime for nefarious and dangerous means."
Cooper added: "He was committed to hacktivism, a form of protest through computers.
"A very socially isolated form of protest, in which one is not really encountering ordinary people, or the sorts of ordinary experiences that may cause one to question and think again as to precisely how far one is going, when you consider the reclusiveness nature of this type of offending, and how interrelated it is to mental illness.
"This is someone of precarious mental health who was not in it for themselves.
"It is relevant therefore that he did not financially gain at all."
Summarising the medical evidence, Cooper said: "Mr Love's Aspergers syndrome is a very severe disability.
"Mr Love was not at the lower end of the scale, but on the contrary he suffers from a severe form of this."
Separating Love from his parents, who are his sole carers, would leave him unable to take part properly in a trial, he told the court.
Cooper said: "The public interest in any criminal prosecution and any criminal sentence is such that rehabilitation of the defendant is a fundamental part of that process.
"It is difficult to rehabilitate that defendant if they are so far removed from their carers.
"There is a very real risk that Mr Love will be simply unable to cope with the separation from his family and everything that he has here, and the trauma of being incarcerated in a foreign country."
Love would be on suicide watch in a US prison from "day one", he told the court.
Cooper said: "There is simply not enough money or manpower to attend to someone with Mr Love's needs and conditions."
The "exacerbation" in Love's mental health would affect his fitness to plea, and his ability to stand trial, he added.
Cooper said: "And accordingly, the justice process could be frustrated.
"There is a real risk of the prosecution failing in the United States.
"It's entirely practical for all the evidence to be given in the single jurisdiction - in Southwark Crown Court.
"And in that scenario, any evidence of those three separate jurisdictions would be given in one go. Without the threat of additional prosecutions hanging over Mr Love."
Love is accused of working with other online hackers around the world to steal the sensitive information including credit card numbers, telephone numbers, passwords and commercially sensitive data of private companies.
He is facing 12 counts of hacking between October 2012 and October 2013 in New York, New Jersey and Virginia.
Love is challenging his extradition under human rights legislation - article 3, prohibition from inhumane treatment, and article 6, the right to a fair trial.
The hearing continues.