A danger to America? No, I'm just a harmless hippy hacker: Self-styled anarchist tells of police swoop on family home Lauri Love, 25, is accused of stealing confidential US government data Was in his pyjamas when he was arrested at his parents' house in Suffolk Would turn up at a Glasgow University protests with trademark white hat By Steve Bird At first glance, it would be difficult to identify Lauri Love as a serious threat to the security of the West. As a student at Glasgow University, he would turn up to demos in his trademark hat and white tracksuit daubed with inane, contradictory political slogans. On his chest he had drawn a marksmen's target inviting police to "aim here." He had an anarchy symbol on his stomach and on his shoulder he had scrawled a hippyish slogan "Long Live Love." Protest mode: Lauri Love's antics were derided by many students Yet, according to American intelligence agents, Love - the 28-year-old son of a Baptist minister - is a key figure in a sophisticated gang of hackers who targeted some of the US's most sensitive computer networks. An indictment presented before a grand jury in New Jersey, says Love tried to steal confidential data and told three other hackers "we can do some hilarious stuff" with information they obtained, adding that they could even "f*** with the US government." Speaking yesterday for the first time about his arrest at his parents" Suffolk home, Love said it was a "surreal" experience. At 6pm on Friday, October 25, his mother answered the door to a police officer posing as a delivery man. He asked for Lauri Love. When she confirmed her son was there, more than a dozen officers charged in. "I was in my dressing gown, pyjamas and a T-shirt when I went through into the hall," said Love, a slightly built and softly spoken man. Occupation: The 28 year old man from Newmarket, Suffolk would turn up at demonstrations in a trademark white hat with slogans written on his t-shirt Suddenly I was grabbed and handcuffed. It was a very surreal experience - I was very tired because I had been on a work programme and getting up very early. A man sat across the kitchen table from me and said I was facing serious charges of hacking into computers in America. They searched the house for hours and took away my computer and mobile phone. I was not formally cautioned but put into the back of a police car. They couldn't get the seat belt on so the policeman who sat next to me had to hold the belt while we raced through country lanes. The police called in a local solicitor and on his advice when I was questioned on Saturday morning I made no comment. I was questioned for an hour and a half by two people from the National Crime Agency who kept asking me if I had attacked the computers in America. They wanted to know what data I had taken, what I had done with it and where was it stored - and who else was involved and how much I had been paid to do it. If extradited and convicted, Love faces ten years in a US jail. But what led to Love being accused of hacking into US army and Nasa databases to steal "massive amounts" of confidential information? Is this yet another example of America's heavy-handed approach when it comes to relatively harmless, if obsessive, computer geeks? Or should we be concerned that Love's computer wizardry poses a real threat? Love was brought up in a deeply religious family. His Scottish father, the Rev Alexander Love, worked at a number of Baptist churches after marrying Sirkka, a teacher from Finland. The family moved to the small village of Stradishall, near Newmarket, five years ago. Mr Love, 60, is a vicar at the nearby Highpoint Prison and his wife, 59, teaches inmates there. Data: The former Glasgow University student allegedly told other hackers 'we can do some hilarious stuff' with the information Lauri is one of five children. It was during his 20s that his fascination with the internet and political activism took hold. He dropped out of Nottingham University, completed a year of compulsory national service in the Finnish army - he has dual citizenship - and worked in a genetics laboratory. He went to Glasgow to study physics and molecular biology, using Twitter to chat to fellow computer whizz-kids. Bizarrely, he named his Twitter account Smedley Butler, after a major general in the US Marine Corps. His activism came to the fore and he became a ringleader of a campaign to fight cuts at the university. "I shared their energy and passion for things - not just politics," he said. I was one of those who took the initiative - it was not an abstract theory, it was real and I felt that I was making a valid contribution. I became deeply embedded in the movement. His infatuation with the Occupy movement culminated with him living in a tent in the city and abandoning his studies. It was only when his parents intervened that he returned to Suffolk. "I had become acutely depressed and really unable to look after myself - I felt worthless and at times suicidal," he said. Since then I have been at home and for the last year or more I have felt I couldn't move outside the four walls of my bedroom. 'Surreal experience': The 25-year-old said he was in his pyjamas when he was arrested at his parents' home in Stradishall, Suffolk He claims he has been diagnosed with acute depression and anxiety, conditions from which he has suffered since childhood. However, to other students at Glasgow, he was an attention-seeker. His hat with a Joker playing card lodged in the rim earned him the nickname "The T*** in the Hat." Fellow student David, 23 - who did not want to give his real name - recalled their first encounter at a lecture: "He arrived ten minutes late. He took out several items from his bag - none of which was a notebook - and placed them down on the desk in the loudest and most disruptive way possible. Love would just sleep, read the newspaper, or disagree with the lecturer whenever possible. If he managed to remain awake, he would cough and blow his nose loudly to cause further disruption. Everyone thought he was an egocentric, infuriating person. When students protested against spending cuts in February 2011 by occupying the university's Hetherington House, Love revelled in the limelight as a leader of the sit-in. He was pictured alongside Left-wing singer Billy Bragg, who visited the occupation as it attracted nationwide media coverage. However, the university's student union condemned the occupation and the police evicted the students. While he was popular with the protesters, Love was widely disliked by most of the student body. He was booed when he took to the stage at a public meeting about the occupation. The seven-month protest eventually ended that August. The graffiti on walls cost thousands of pounds to repair. Love was undeterred. At anti-austerity protests in Edinburgh a few months later, he was again a key player. However, fellow students such as David believe that Love's grandstanding was simply an attempt to boost his ego. "It seemed as though he didn't care for the cause," he said. He only cared about doing it to make him feel better about himself. Love's arrest on hacking charges has not elicited much sympathy from those who knew him at Glasgow. One alumnus said: "He was, and I presume still is, an egotistical creepy hippy t*** who didn't respect women's personal space. Uncertain future: If extradited and convicted, Mr Love faces ten years in a US prison Don't think many who came across him in the student movement will be particularly sympathetic to his current situation, which I am sure is a result of his ego yet again. If Love is a sophisticated hacker and the claims of the intelligence agents are accurate, he is certainly not very good at covering his tracks. A nine-page court document claims that US agents found the breaches of security came from a domain paid for by a PayPal account linked to an email account in Love's name. That payment was said to be linked to an Internet Service Provider address in the UK owned by Rev A B Love in Suffolk. To Janis Sharp, who successfully fought attempts by the US government to extradite her son Gary McKinnon over hacking charges, the bid to extradite Love is another example of America's relentless pursuit of "young British geeks." The Mail successfully campaigned to prevent Mr McKinnon, who suffers from Asperger's syndrome, from being extradited after he hacked into Nasa and Pentagon computers to look for evidence of the existence of extra-terrestrials. Miss Sharp said: "They are just young geeks sitting in their bedrooms; they're not murderers, they're not selling secrets, they're just searching for information. Extradition was meant for terrorists, not some young British geek.