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US Attorney Chided Swartz On Day of Suicide
theodp writes "The e-mail that Defendant Swartz's supplemental memorandum (pdf) cites as paramount to his fifth motion to suppress [evidence against him] is relevant, but not nearly as important as he tries to make it out to be,' quipped United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz (pdf) in a court filing made on the same day Aaron Swartz committed suicide. In the 1-7-2011 e-mail Ortiz refers to, which was not produced for Swartz until Dec. 14th — almost two years after his 1-6-2011 arrest — a Secret Service agent reported to the Assistant U.S. Attorney that he was 'prepared to take custody anytime' of Swartz's laptop, although no one had yet sought a warrant to search the computer. In Prosecutor as Bully, Larry Lessig laments, 'They [JSTOR] declined to pursue their own action against Aaron, and they asked the government to drop its. MIT, to its great shame, was not as clear, and so the prosecutor had the excuse he needed to continue his war against the "criminal" who we who loved him knew as Aaron.' Swartz's family also had harsh words for MIT and prosecutors: 'Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's office and at MIT contributed to his death. The US Attorney's office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims. Meanwhile, unlike JSTOR, MIT refused to stand up for Aaron.' With MIT President Emeritus Charles M. Vest currently serving as a Trustee of JSTOR parent Ithaka as well as a Trustee of The MIT Corporation, one might have expected MIT to issue a statement similar to the let's-put-this-behind-us one JSTOR made on the Swartz case back in 2011."
Typical american. You'd fight to have Guantanamo closed and I'm sure you criticize him for keeping the place open -- yet when it comes to someone you don't like, you have no problem condemning them to torture, physical and otherwise. You're no better than the attorney himself.
If you want to stop something like this from happening again you need to take a good, long look in the mirror as a country. You're all guilty, guilty of negligence by putting these people into power and then sitting on your thumbs when they commit atrocities like this. Flail your arms and point fingers all you want but you are ALL TO BLAME.
1. To reform the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 to rationalize it with the 21st century by the following measure
A. Repeal any and all language from the CFAA that originated in the Espionage Act of 1918 or its amended forms such as the McCarran Internal Security Act or the Subversive Activities Control Act of the 1950s.
B. Alter the definition of "Protected Computer" so that the act only covers Federal Government and Financial computer systems, and no others.
C. Remove any and all language that creates a crime simply because a computer is involved in an activity, where otherwise the activity would not be considered a crime.
D. Specifically state that the Interstate Commerce Clause does not apply to the Act. Almost all modern communications are 1. done on a computer, and 2. interstate in nature. Whereas it is against the spirit of the Founding Fathers to have the Federal Goverment control every single communication in a Free country, this act should be adopted by the congress and signed by the President.
The Man(tm) wanted to put him away for virtually his whole life.
yes, at that age, x+35 IS your whole life.
I bet a lot of people would off themselves if faced and what is, effectively, the end of their lifes and the absolute end of their freedom.
NH says 'live free or die!'. I think living free is so important, maybe NH has a point, there.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
No, we expect prosecutors not to be utter shitbags.
But we do expect them to be shitbags. We reward prosecutors based on conviction rates, rather than just outcomes. Prosecutors are especially rewarded for winning "tough cases" (ie, cases where the defendant is likely to have been innocent).
This one Carmen M Ortiz is obviously a psychopath that should never ever serve in a public office.
Stop blaming an individual, when the real problem is the adversarial system.
Systems like this have been fixed before. In the 1970s and 1980s police were evaluated by their arrest rate. So the police were "successful" as arrest rates climbed as crime rates soared. In the 1990s we switched to evaluating the police on overall crime rates, and gave them an incentive to proactively discourage crime rather than just react to it. The result has been lower crime rates, and especially lower violent crime rates.
Now it is time to do the something similar for prosecutors.
So hiding a laptop in a closet in order to download scientific articles is a crime worthy of decades in prison?
Palm trees and 8
Kevin Mitnick got royally shafted for the crimes he committed. He was grossly mistreated and denied a swift trial, access to the evidence in the case against him and by all means, fair representation. What can happen to Mitnick, could happen to any white/grey/blackhat hacker, regardless of what they are accused of or how much of what they are accused of is actually true. In reality, Swartz could very well be looking at 5 years behind bars and the rest of his working life probation. For some reason US courts tend to put people in jail longer for hacking a computer and not stealing anything than for multiple violent armed robberies lately. He may not have gotten 35 years, but losing everything you have and not having a way to get back on track when you're out of jail is going to make most people rather depressed.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I have an alternate proposal. The total cost of investigation + prosecution must be available for the defense. That is, if the cops and the crime lab and the prosecutors office spend $500,000 on the case, then you get that amount for the defense.
The reason is simple - if someone is clearly guilty, the investigation is comparatively cheap. And if the cops spend a million bucks on prosecution, this usually means their case is weak and they are trying to amplify this weak signal as much as possible.