Gary McKinnon, the British hacker accused of accessing and damaging without authorization 92 computers belonging to the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Department of Defense and NASA, as well as a number of 6 other computers belonging to private businesses, lost his appeal with the House of Lords, who decided he could be extradited to the United States, where he faces up to 70 years in prison.

McKinnon, 42, is considered to be the author of the “biggest military hack of all time,” after American authorities found him responsible for scanning a large number of computers and obtaining administrative privileges that allowed him to access a number of files, delete user accounts and critical system files.

The hacker, who is a former system administrator, has admitted breaking into U.S. government computers from his London home, but only to look for evidence of UFOs he believed the U.S. authorities were hiding, without any malicious intentions of sabotage.

His lawyers claim that their client’s case can be perfectly judged by the British authorizes: “Gary McKinnon is neither a terrorist nor a terrorist sympathizer. His case could have been properly dealt with by our own prosecuting authorities,” they said in a statement. “Instead, we believe that the British Government declined to prosecute him to enable the U.S. government to make an example of him.”

They also added that they intended to take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, in order to prevent their client’s extradition to the United States. According to the same statement, American officials want to see him “fry,” which is intolerable.

According to U.S. investigators, McKinnon is responsible for causing a network in the Washington DC area to completely shutdown, which resulted in the loss of Internet and e-mail services for three day. As for the military organizations, NASA and the private businesses that have been hacked, the estimated loss reached approximately $900,000.

McKinnon was originally arrested in 2002 by the U.K. National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), under the Computer Misuse Act, but he wasn’t charged. However, the United States government indicted him the same year, although he remained free until June 2005, when a new U.K.-U.S. extradition treaty changed things.

The hacker said about himself that he is just a computer nerd, while at the same time suggesting that he wasn’t the only one conducting unauthorized activities on U.S. government computers.

Earlier this year, McKinnon’s lawyers claimed that prosecutors have proposed McKinnon a cooperation deal: 37-46 months in jail if he cooperated, or 8-10 years if he refused to do so. However, McKinnon claimed they refused to make the offer in writing, so he declined it.

If McKinnon will indeed be extradited to the United States, and continues to refuse cooperation, he faces up to 70 years in a maximum security prison. If he agrees to cooperate, he may be repatriated to the U.K. and receive a shorter sentence.