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JSTOR an Entitlement For US DoJ's Ortiz & Holder
theodp writes "If Aaron Swartz downloaded JSTOR documents without paying for them, it would presumably be considered a crime by the USDOJ. But if U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz or U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder did the same? Rather than a crime, it would be considered their entitlement, a perk of an elite education that's paid for by their alma maters. Ironically and sadly, that's the kind of inequity Aaron railed against with the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, a document the DOJ cited as evidence (pdf) that Swartz was a menace to society. On Thursday, Ortiz insisted Swartz — who she now characterizes as 'mentally ill' — received fair and reasonable treatment from the DOJ. But that wasn't good enough for Senator John Cornyn, who on Friday asked Eric Holder to explain the DOJ prosecution of Aaron Swartz."
Federal prosecutors have come under heavy criticism for their handling of the Swartz case. Legal scholar Orin Kerr provides counterpoint with two detailed, well-reasoned posts about the case. Kerr says that, as the law stands, the charges against Swartz were "pretty much legit," and that the law itself should be the target of the internet community's angst, rather than the prosecutors. "...blame the system and aim to reform the system; don’t think that this was just two or three prosecutors that were doing something unusual. It wasn’t." James Boyle, co-founder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain, disagrees with Kerr (partly), arguing that Swartz's renown is simply drawing people together to collectively shine a light on poor legislation and poor prosecutorial practices.
While he may have had issues, it's dangerous to characterize different opinions as mentally ill.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
First let me say that my area of research is medicine. There is a lot of tax payer funded research that is inaccessible to the public despite their hand in its creation. I think that this aspect needs to be discussed, as well.
Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
While true that, in theory, prosecutors are just enforcing the law, they have significant discretion when it comes to things like even bringing any charges in the first place. As any victim of petty crime and they will usually have a tale of how the police or prosecutor just didn't bother doing anything even though the law said crime was committed.
Indeed, this is hate mongering. JSTOR dropped the charges and is putting out an olive branch (granted it's a tiny one). Now if this were about pushing publicly funded articles and papers to the Library of Congress or otherwise opening that up to the public, then that is a discussion worth having. Trying to paint the prosecutors as part of a privileged "elite" evil is unproductive. The issue is getting the public access to public information, not the perceived hypocrisy of who currently has access.
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Prosecutors have been running rampant all over the country for years now for their personal aggrandizement. This time they just chose a very public and sympathetic target.
Hang 'em all.
expandfairuse.org
From the second Kerr link:
Why are you hearing that Swartz faced 35 or 50 years if it was not true? First, government press releases like to trumpet the maximum theoretical numbers. Authors of the press releases will just count up the crimes and the add up the theoretical maximum punishments while largely or completely ignoring the reality of the likely much lower sentence. The practice is generally justified by its possible general deterrent value: perhaps word of the high punishment faced in theory will get to others who might commit the crime and will scare them away. And unfortunately, uninformed reporters who are new to the crime beat sometimes pick up that number and report it as truth. A lot of people repeat it, as they figure it must be right if it was in the news. And some people who know better but want you to have a particular view of the case repeat it, too. But don’t be fooled. Actual sentences are usually way way off of the cumulative maximum punishments.
So if it serves as a deterrent we should be fooled, but if it applies to ourselves we shouldn't be? Personally I would be scared shitless if I saw the DOJ itself make statements like that about me. Just be truthful. The US already is highly punitive [pdf, see page 11-12] compared to other western countries (27 times as high as where I live). If that by itself doesn't work as a deterrent then exaggerations probably won't do much either, apart from increasing the likelihood of people killing themselves.
If bullying is part of the system, then yes, the system should be targeted. But not just by outsiders, the prosecuters themselves should have opposed the system instead of participating in the bullying. And as they did participate they should be targeted as part of the system.
I guess she should know a thing or two about mental illness since she is, herself, a sociopath.
It's a bit disingenuous to drive someone to suicide and then claim that the fact that they did so means they were mentally ill. It's kind of like throwing someone in the East River wearing concrete shoes and blaming them for being unable to swim.
Carmen Oritz routinely destroys other people lives in order to advance her career without any signs of conscience. For me this is psychopatic behavior. And if her career is the only thing she actually cares of, I'd even call her narcissistic psychopath. Unfortunately, the economic and political system in US promotes psychopaths at the cost of basically everyone else.
I wouldn't pay much attention to what she has to say, she just covers her ass. Psychopaths typically don't show any remorse for their actions - when caught on misbehaviors and lies, they tend to cover it with even bigger bunch of lies.
Moreover, if either Holder or Ortiz had hacked systems and exceeded their authorized access as Swatz did, playing a cat&mouse game with sysadmins at their home institutions and JSTOR, they'd have likely faced the same consequences as Aaron. The article is FUD.
Is it? Or is this article an attempt to paint and shame the prosecutors as privileged? I suspect it's the latter.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit and dropped the charges against him. They offer some articles to individuals for free, and now have opened more articles via the Alumni Access program. What they do isn't evil. Rather, they could do more, provide more access. So why are we sitting debating about what access the prosecutors had to JSTOR? It's irrelevant to the larger conversation.
The discussion we should be having:
1) Should all scientific studies be public domain?
2) If so, how should access be provided? Who pays to maintain upkeep?
3) Should all publicly funded science be made public? (probably and obvious yes here)
4) If so, how should access be provided? Who pays to maintain upkeep?
I'd like to think Scwartz's goal was bigger than these small-minded, egotistical prosecutors. Lets talk about how we can open up the data, not how to engage in a witch hunt. Prosecutorial overreach, to me, is a separate conversation.
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What a bunch of crap. The system allowed for Mrs. Ortiz to not Charge Aaron at all if she so chose. Certainly, she didn't have to charge him with a dozen of felonies. http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/aaron-swartz-and-prosecutorial-discretion/
The meme that the public does not have access to this stuff is just wrong.
There are large public libraries that offer public access to JSTOR. For example the Boston Public Library.
JSTORs fees are graduated based on the size of the library, so even a small library can afford access.
Many universities offer library cards to the public; for example my employer paid for my Princeton University Library card for about 10 years. Not cheap but in fact it gave me access to pretty much the sum total of all human knowledge. And maintaining a collection like that is clearly not free.
"It's not my fault, I was just following orders."
I thought as a society we had long ago decided that was not an excuse. I thought all lawyers on whatever side were agents of the judicial system and were looking for justice.
It seems our society has forgotten something. If you are doing wrong you are responsible, no matter the chain of command, it is an individuals responsibility to not do wrong and to reject a bad system. This should go doubly so for any agents of the justice system.
Shame on the system. Shame on the individual.
What should happen next?
If any of this seems over the top, consider how over the top the accusations and threats against Swartz were.
I'm wondering about Senator Cornyn. Could he actually be in support greater intellectual freedom? It seems 99% of politicians and judges are crusty old fools who blindly swallow publisher propaganda, and their knee jerk reaction to any alleged copyright violation is to believe the accusers and join the pack screaming that it's "theft" and howling for the blood of the accused. A demonstration of this is Ortiz's profound words of wisdom: "Stealing is stealing". But perhaps Cornyn, who sponsored PIPA, is having a change of heart?
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
" Kerr says that, as the law stands, the charges against Swartz were "pretty much legit," and that the law itself should be the target of the internet community's angst,"
No, BOTH should be the target of the "internet community's angst" and societies in general. One can't happen without the other, prosecutors continually demand more harsh and less restrictive laws "to catch the bad people". And when it is proven beyond all doubt that they targeted the wrong people with their near unlimited "proprietorial discretion" they demand complete indemnification from criminal/civil responsibility because prosecution of the "bad guys" would be imperiled if they had to worry about their freedom & livelihood. They can't have it both ways, at least not in a free & just society. They can either have extensive powers with severe penalties if they mess up, or they can have very limited powers with limited liability. To do otherwise breeds nothing but corruption & imprisonment of the innocent.
Cornyn should shut his fat hypocritic yap. It's his kind that wants to make IP abuse a criminal matter where it should be civil. He's in the crowd who would make violation of TOSs a federal crime. Now he is crying crocodile tears that the Justice Department applied laws he rabidly supported?
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