Pentagon hacker 'could aid US security'

The United States should recruit computer hacker Gary McKinnon to prevent future WikiLeaks revelations rather than imprisoning him, a Tory peer has said.

Glasgow-born Mr McKinnon has spent the past six years facing the threat of extradition to the US after he hacked into top secret military computers

The 44-year-old, who now lives in north London, suffers from Asperger's syndrome and insists he had been looking for evidence of UFOs.

Baroness Browning, an MP until this year's general election, asked Home Office minister Baroness Neville-Jones: "Do you agree that in the light of the damage caused to the American government by WikiLeaks that rather than trying to imprison an autistic savant, the Pentagon would do well to employ Gary McKinnon to sort out the weaknesses in their computer system?"