Slashdot Mirror
Aaron Swartz Case: Deja Vu All Over Again For MIT
theodp writes "On Saturday, questions for MIT's Aaron Swartz investigation were posted on Slashdot with the hope that MIT'ers might repost some to the MIT Swartz Review site. So it's good to see that MIT's Hal Abelson, who is leading the analysis of MIT's involvement in the matter, is apparently open to this workaround to the ban on questions from outsiders. In fact, on Sunday Abelson himself reposted an interesting question posed by Boston College Law School Prof. Sharon Beckman: 'What, if anything, did MIT learn from its involvement in the federal prosecution of its student David LaMacchia back in 1994?' Not much, it would appear. LaMacchia, an apparent student of Abelson's whose defense team included Beckman, was indicted in 1994 and charged with the 'piracy of an estimated million dollars' in business and entertainment computer software after MIT gave LaMacchia up to the FBI. LaMacchia eventually walked from the charges, thanks to what became known as the LaMacchia Loophole, which lawmakers took pains to close. 'MIT collaborated with the FBI to wreck LaMacchia's life,' defense attorney Harvey Silverglate charged in 1995 after a judge dismissed the case. 'I hope that this case causes a lot of introspection on the part of MIT's administration. Unfortunately, I doubt it will.'"
Is that a loophole?
Surely a copyright violation SHOULD be charged under copyright acts, not interstate wire fraud.
WIRE FRAUD?? Really? Intentional deception of others to personally gain from them? Where? How? Who? did that happen.
Wallstreet junk assets, dressed as prime sold to banks under deception = criminal fraud, yes I can see that. And I was happy to see the heavy criminal sentences handed down to the Wallstreet bankers who lied about assets to sell them onto to their clients. Hold on, I've got confused, I meant the heavy wads of cash handed down to Wallstreet bankers who lied about assets....
At least could you charge those bankers with copyright infringement? Maybe a parking fine?
Department of redundancy department.
MIT sure seems like a petty and vengeful institution. I hope this makes some potential students think about their decision of school.
MIT is all about producing people for business. The connection between business and MIT are obvious. MIT is not publicly funded according to what I've read, though there are arguments against or limiting that notion.
I think attendees at MIT need to do some soul searching of their own. MIT could be forced to close up if enough students decided to not enroll the next go-around. It's a tough choice because having MIT papers backing you makes one's future look brighter. But what about the larger picture? I hope they are considering it. Student protests should happen.
"install a laptop, script file downloads,"
You know those two things are legal don't you?
"evade security, hide my identity"
Yep, this too, completely legal. You as Anonymous Coward should know it's legal to hide your identity! Even Ortiz can come here and spout random garbage hiding her identity.
"lie to campus police and be let go free of charge"
This too, completely legal, campus police are just security guards with no special right to be told the truth.
What he was charged with, was copyright infringement (possibly trespass), written up as hacking and wire fraud. The investigation is to whether the prosecutor was inflated the charges for her political gain. She has a history of it, the prosecutors office wasn't planning on big charges, then she took it off him.
MIT are concerned that they may be a conspirator to this inflation-for-political-gain. See they can see the charges were inflated and they want to make sure their hands are clean of it. Prosecuting a crime based on the law of the crime is one thing, prosecuting on random inflated implausible charges in order to force a plea bargain to score a nice prosecution on your CV, is something quite quite different.
The question now is if Ortiz can remain in office when her view of the law is so departed from the actual laws themselves.
At best she's malicious, at worst she's incompetent*. Either way, that's not someone who should be a prosecutor, let along a head prosecutor.
* I don't think she was incompetent, when she described copyright infringement as 'theft if theft' it showed a disregard for the law she was completely aware of.
To the dispassionate and disinterested outside observer, a mentally disturbed man committed suicide.
No. To a dispassionate and disinterested outside observer, someone was being punished much more harshly than whatever he deserved.
It's simply really. Murder should carry the harshest punishment, whatever "harshest" means in a given culture. Anything that caused less severe damage should be punished less severly, in roughly this decreasing order: a) murder; b) physical damage to another person, c) physical damage to another's property, d) no physical damage to anyone.
Moral issues arise when one does something at 'd' level, but the law (and those enforcing it) are so sick they want to punish him at 'c+' level. Swartz case is a prime example, and clear symptom, of this very sickness.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Don't get your life ruined. Fair deal.
And how could he potentially profit from it? It was free to download anyway, JSTOR just had a usage limit. He downloaded it and made it public (based on a belief, that public funded research shouldn't be locked away in a private paid for document service).
Regardless of his motive, he could not have profited from it, and Ortiz should not have lied to bring the wrong charges in order to force a plea bargain.
See if you're prosecuting someone for imagined potential crimes, and your imagination is so far outside the realm of viable reality that you're just going for the plea-bargain, you're trying to do an end run around the courts. You've elevated yourself from prosecutor to judge and jury. What Ortiz did was very very very bad.
I think it's a pity Swartz committed suicide. He was probably right about public funded research being available publicly, maybe not his method but his motive. Ortiz on the other hand, if she'd committed suicide, over her misuse of federal law, people would shrug their shoulders and say good riddance to a bad prosecutor.
Karma and all.
"Approximately 30 students gathered yesterday afternoon to protest the administration’s handling of controversies involving students. While the majority of the protest was focused on the Star A. Simpson ’10 arrest, the discussion also touched on administrative reactions to the sodium fire on the Charles River and the felony charges filed against hackers found in the MIT Faculty Club.
The protest, which took place outside of Pritchett Dining in Walker Memorial, consisted of students carrying signs such as “Question the Media,” “Wait for the Facts,” and “Support Your Student.” Students also carried a protest letter that had been circulated across the campus."
http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N41/protest.html
to much higher edu is business / keeping old stuff going.
And that some times why there are so many filler classes old stuff from the past that forced to keep then alive.
To the dispassionate and disinterested outside observer, a mentally disturbed man committed suicide. The only one at fault is the mentally disturbed man.
I've long believed that suicide is nobody's fault except for the one who committed the act. However, I very much want to blame the DA for pushing him to commit suicide. I realize it's an emotional response, but there must be some basis in fact. At what point does provoking someone who then commits suicide become the moral and ethical responsibility of the provocateur?
I know I'm responding to a troll, but it hits upon an issue I've been thinking about for some time. It's well known how DAs threaten disproportionate punishments in order to get a plea bargain. And it's easy to see how this might get someone who was previously not seriously considering suicide to start doing so. Where should the line be drawn? Online/offline bullying? Threats of imprisonment? Threats of physical violence and/or torture? Or is it never someone else's fault?
On one hand supporters want to say that he isn't a criminal because he wasn't convicted. The same group wants to say he was punished unfairly though he received no sentence. Contradiction.
Pffft. Try harder. He wasn't convicted, therefore, regardless of whether he was actually guilty or not, he is not a criminal. On the second point, the DA threatened to punish him. Those punishments were unfair.
There is no contradiction.
AC has a point. Whether it be Swartz, or some lackwit from Outback, Nowhere - if you're going to challenge authority, you'd best be prepared for any consequences.
Swartz freely engaged in questionable activities, of his own free will. No matter what he believed to be right, he declared war on the status quo. He didn't just challenge Mommy's decision over to much television - he challenged an entrenched system, armed with legions of lawyers, tons of money, and buttloads of unscrupulous business people.
Swartz became a casualty because A: he couldn't imagine the forces that would brought to bear against him, and B: he was incapable of standing up to those forces.
MIT may be somewhat culpable, but only Swartz decided to kill himself.
I kinda like the guy. He was actually doing some good, I think. But - if a weak person decides to go one on two with a sumo wrestler and a professional boxer tag team, don't expect me to feel overly sorry for him when he gets pounded into a mudhole.
I agree, the system is sick, but Swartz isn't what I would call a hero or a martyr.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
1a. You can be (i)charged, (ii)prosecuted and a (iii)jury determines your guilt. This situation was at the first stage (i). No foul.
So the next time you get a parking ticket, if you're charged with murder, you'd be OK with that because you'd get the chance to defend yourself in court?
A gross exaggeration of course, but your statement "no foul" about the gross prosecutorial overreach in this case makes me feel sick. How can anyone possibly say that in good conscience???
I might add the Swartz was charged with 13 felonies, with a maximum sentence of 65 years in felony lockup, effectively life in prison. Murder, even multiple murders, has no more harsh a punishment (except in death penalty states).
You're point is valid, but it's, at best,a Type D "crime" being punished as a type A "the most harsh society can inflict" and might not even be a good civil suit for mild contract violation.
Its not users who are broken, it's systems not taking account their likely behaviour and fixing it technically.
On one hand supporters want to say that he isn't a criminal because he wasn't convicted. The same group wants to say he was punished unfairly though he received no sentence. Contradiction.
Not at all. Being subjected to grossly exaggerated charges that only relate to your actual actions in the demented mind of a lunatic prosecutor, spending a fortune on lawyers, and living under the threat of bankruptcy AT BEST and at worst conviction with a monstrously disproportionate sentence--is most certainly punishment. You have to be a fucking sociopath to claim otherwise.
While I agree with you, a system of law where "no physical damage to anyone" has the smallest punishment would be remarkably kind to my plan to steal the world's money with my ingenious Hollywood computer virus.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
No, he deserved it and was, in fact, being treated quite mercifully. He was screwing with an international scientific, medical, and educational resource worldwide, and repeatedly knocking its servers offline. He *deserved* some jail time for that, just like somebody taking truckloads of sand home from a local levee should go to jail for putting people's lives and homes at risk in the next flood.
According to Jammie's requested fine for copyright infringement of 22 tracks, $1000 of copyrighted material would be a couple of seconds of one track of an MP3.
Now, if a prosecutor decided to take that for investigation, and that they were investigating you for running a paedo ring got leaked, are you OK now?
a) murder; b) physical damage to another person, c) physical damage to another's property, d) no physical damage to anyone.
You forgot e) victimless crimes, such as drugs, gambling, prostitution, etc.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
I agree with you on the groupings above but what winds up happening is they throw in so many other charges on top of it. For example, you download one article, that's "one count" of the violation. Say the penalty for that is 1 day in jail and $100 fine. Now what happens if you do this to a million articles? How about conspiracy? Server crash - well that's obviously destruction of property (that Microsoft is never charged with) and you can also put damages on the time this server was unavailable for use. IT time to try to fix the problem, etc, etc. That's how it adds up and that's how it gets larger than if someone killed a person.
I don't have a way to make this more fair but this is just what happens in our legal system. After all, that's how they got Capone. Who cares if it's an open secret that he had so many people killed or how many dozens of laws he's broken - hey the guy didn't pay taxes, off with his head! That's where laws like these got their start - because prosecutors and police couldn't do their jobs right and find evidence to put away real criminals. Well, it's now ensnaring relatively innocent people like Swartz and I'm sure we're not far behind.
P.S. just a reminder that if you're convicted of a felony, there's a good chance you can't vote. So just look at the types of people who are being banned from voting since they're typically ones that are directly affected by the laws they now cannot change by voting in different people.
You forgot e) victimless crimes, such as drugs, gambling, prostitution, etc.
No, because those shouldn't be in a list of punishable offenses to begin with. ;-)
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
It makes perfect sense to blame the DA for overreaching and harassing Swartz but not blame her for the suicide.
They detected an intruder illegally breaking into their network and worked with the authorities to catch the perpetrator in the act. What happened afterwards is not MIT's fault. If you decide to "stick it to the man" then be prepared for some blowback.
I don't have a way to make this more fair
I think the solution is simple: it doesn't matter how many stuff you did at a level, if you get convicted, your total punishment cannot be more than the minimum punishment in the next level.
So, let's say 'c' had a minimum of 2 years in jail. Then 1 document downloaded or 1 million documents plus server crashes etc., the maximum punishment for your set of 'd' crimes should be 2 years (minus 1 second) tops. Got out of jail, committed another sequence of 'ds', and got caught? Another 2 years (minus 1s). And so on and so forth, for as long as you kept committing d-level crimes. And what if you committed a huge set of 'd' crimes, plus a single 'c', all grouped into a single prosecution? Then your punishment should be equal to two minimum 'cs' minimum up to that 'c' typical one plus one minimum 'c', both together limited to the minimum 'b'. Rinse, repeat. Any finally: after you're out of jail, any new conviction for old crimes in the same level you already were punished for could, at most, add be for the remaining time until you achieved that maximum (if you got 1.5 years jail time for a set of 'd', new charges for old 'ds' would only be able to add up to 6 months of new jail time, so that the total would still be below a c-minimum).
That'd keep things balanced. The only way to increase the punishment would be by changing the minimum next-level punishment. Absent that, no matter how much of a dick a prosecutor or a judge were, they'd be limited by the maximum punishment limit.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
This appears to be a pattern with this DA's office; see the recent case of the Motel Caswell:
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/01/triumphant_motel_owner_slams_carmen_ortiz
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/01/ortiz_motel_owner_we%E2%80%99re_not_done_yet
Note that:
* There was/is more crime at the Home Depot, Motel 6 and Wal-Mart on the same street and less then 1/4 mile away
* Tewksbury did not request the forfeiture of the Caswell
* Caswell is privately owned with no Mortgage
Why did the DA's office step in and try to cease the property?
Based on these two cases it appears this DA's office likes to beat up overly aggressively on the little guy who can't defend themselves as easily.
Why? Maybe people in the department have political aspirations? Does prosecution stats help them at all? This makes no sense to me.
The best part -- Ortiz easily lost the Caswell case but actually had the gall to talk about appeal! Ortiz needs to be removed.
"install a laptop, script file downloads,"
You know those two things are legal don't you?
The fuck is he smoking? You're telling me that if I entered your private property and hid a laptop in your closet and attached it to your router and started retrieving everything sent across or hosted locally and then retrieved it at a later date, that would not be illegal?
Wow, Slashdot is really scraping the bottom by modding that drivel up.
What he was charged with, was copyright infringement (possibly trespass), written up as hacking and wire fraud.
What's the matter you couldn't take the time to read the docket? Go ahead and say that the prosecutor was seeking overreaching charges but for fuck's sake, people, a lot of the things he did should still be crimes!
Under your(extremely flawed) world view no one who isn't a millionaire *at least* several times over is capable of standing up to these goons.
The system is sick. Swartz isn't exactly a hero, but he has made himself a martyr because his only other option was attempting to flee the country, and his face had been too widely publicized to make that an option. He downloaded a ton of files he had been given legal right to access. No one ever said he couldn't download them all. He's been prosecuted for things that aren't even crimes. MIT even acknowledged that and MIT has a history of being vindictive about these types of crimes, if they are in fact "crimes".
Besides that, even if he had ran, where would he go? You can run as far as Canada and just stay there for murder charges a lot of times. You can run to Canada, The U.K., Germany... most any european country for murder crimes, rape charges, etc, and while they may end up extraditing you if you're found in that country, they will at least examine the charges and potentially fight on your behalf to keep you there.
Copyright infringement on the other hand... the RIAA and co just prosecute you in the country you go to, which usually constitutes being subjected to laws just as bad. You'll end up with some copyright conglomerate strong arming the local government into using its full authority against you. Its absolutely insane. The copyright conglomerates wield more international influence than any country in the world.
I might add the Swartz was charged with 13 felonies, with a maximum sentence of 65 years in felony lockup
Wow, looking for a martyr? From this soruce:
Those charges carried a maximum penalty of 50 years in prison.
Today it's 65, tomorrow it's 75, soon it will be life in prison and lastly he will actually have been executed on a cross.
I don't believe that I made any mention of wealth, did I? There are people who are crazy in the opposite direction. The harder you lean on them, the more you abuse them, the harder they fight.
Had Swartz been a little more - savvy is the term I guess - he would have foreseen that Corporate America would pull out their biggest guns to deal with him. Then, he could have intelligently decided whether the fight was worth it.
Jamie Thomason wasn't especially savvy, but she did fight the good fight. Single Mom takes on Corporate America. She lost, but at least she had fight in her.
A guy I work with has a saying, with which he mocks some of our coworkers: "Kieth sure has a lot of quit in him!" It applies to Mr. Swartz, I'm afraid. It doesn't apply to Ms. Thomason.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Drugs aren't a victimless crime if the family has to deal with it.
Swartz isn't exactly a hero, but he has made himself a martyr because his only other option was attempting to flee the country
Or go to trial, or take the deal and spend a mere 6 months at Club Fed.
> I also notice that there is a severe bias in this case with regard to sexuality.
I've been following this case, this is the first time I realised that he was gay. His sexuality neither adds to nor subtracts from the injustice.
> 1a. You can be (i)charged, (ii)prosecuted and a (iii)jury determines your guilt. This situation was at the first stage (i). No foul.
Ha ha, how quaint. you think that he was going to be given a chance to defend himself in a fair trial.
No, the truth is, the prosecutors have far more resources to throw at the case than the defendant. They can throw so much spam at any trial that it would take the defendant ten years of epic-level stress and tens/ hundreds of thousands of dollars to have a chance of achieving anything like justice. The prosecutors, who don't give a shit about justice as long as they can increase the number of notches on their briefcases, effectively bypass the courts by a process of "pleas-bargaining." This is where the defendant is given a choice between going to court (where he is guaranteed to get fucked over) or pleading guilty and throwing himself on the mercy of the judge who, if s/he's in a good mood, might let the guy off with just a few months or years in a 3rd-world standard shithole where he must tattoo his face with Nazi symbols and slogans just to survive. But hey, as long as the lucrative private prisons can increase their head count, it's all good, right?
Ah yes, America, where travellers are treated like suspected criminals, suspected criminals are treated like convicted criminals, convicted criminals are treated like sub-human scum and absolutely everybody is treated like a total idiot. Would somebody with no sense of irony please finish this post for me by talking about "the land of the free/ home of the brave"? Bonus points if you can work in "they hate us for our freedoms." Kthnxbai.
The author of the LaMacchia Loophole seems to think BitTorrent existed in 1994. The BitTorrent protocol was designed in 2001. May be the author thinks BitTorrent is a generic term for downloading stuff.
No reasonable person would expect nuclear war to result from two ordinary cars from russia and the US crashing into each other with no fatalities.
This is something similar. He took things that he wanted to make free, as most(I believe all, but I could be missing something) of them aren't licensed with anything to prevent copying and distribution. The only thing preventing it is the only easily accessible copies are stored on that particular database. The retaliation of 20 years in jail for things that can only be considered crimes because the law as written is ridiculously broad.
So why aren't lazy, messy, asshole, and poor financial skills crimes, too? My sister didn't feed the dog and I had to deal with it. What's her charge?
4.3% of the words in that summary is MIT.
Time to make an example outta her, the stupid power-hungry political climbing CUNT that she is: That's all, pretty simple.
---
Swartz didn't face prison until feds took over case, report says:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57565927-38/swartz-didnt-face-prison-until-feds-took-over-case-report-says/
---
* It's funny - you see the savings & loan scandal SCUMBAGS get away with all the crap they did, same with hedge fund scammers who burned 1,000's of unionized construction workers too...
I think people have had QUITE ENOUGH of assholes with ca$h pulling their shit at the expense of the rest of us, money-wise, but when it comes to someone's LIFE being taken?
Enough, is enough... see above - they want to make examples? Tit for tat - give their "kind" (the biggest TRASH there is) a dose of their OWN medicine...
APK
P.S.=> I absolutely "HATE" their kind, like you all have NO IDEA - they are trash, ruining our society, like cancer (slowing, by draining the life & WILL out of the people, not just our monies)...
... apk
After these events, what American in their right mind would attend MIT? I say leave that musty institution to foreigners. Let it rot.
The University system should provide Sanctuary for its students. It takes the most brilliant and promising children of each generation, and takes the best of them to the frontiers of human knowledge, and encourages and teaches them to push and develop these frontiers. This is one of the highest callings of the University system. This also gives the Universities a great responsibility -- to protect those young bright minds who are going boldly where none has gone before. They need to provide Sanctuary for these students, to have their back when they push the boundaries of our society. This does not cover murder or other violent sociopathic acts. But it should protect students from most of the reckless overreaching laws, and especially in all gray areas of our society. Rather than give students up for minor unlawful activities, the University system should give them Sanctuary. When they do give them up, they break this Sanctuary promise to their students. They teach them and encourage them to the frontiers of our society, and then betray them when they give them up to local (or federal) gendarmes.
I call on ALL University administrators to develop proactive policies of Sanctuary, which should include refusing EVER to give up students for minor or gray area "crimes". They should at the very least, refuse all cooperation with police agents, and at the best, provide a defense for students. But NEVER break your moral contract with the students you teach, by turning them over to outside law. This policy can include ejecting students who break University laws. But it should never extend further than sanctions or expulsions. The University systems should develop a non-cooperation understanding with all police forces. Exceptions only would include violent sociopathic crimes such as rape, murder, violent assault, bombings, etc. But the University should be a Sanctuary for non-violent crimes where the student (or faculty for that matter) is pushing the boundaries of society.
This awesome article at New York University, The University as Sanctuary, says it more powerfully and elegantly than I ever could.
This Horse (and Andrew) is dead.
Quit flogging it.
...has concurrent jurisdiction.
He hadn't been punished at all yet. He would likely have received a sentence somewhere between zero and six months. Federal sentencing guidelines wouldn't have allowed a maximum of more than three years. All of that is completely normal, both within the US and compared to other nations.
You can't total up times that way. It isn't merely unlikely that he would have received such a sentence, it is impossible under federal sentencing guidelines. Saying that he faced a "maximum sentence of 65 years" is wrong, plain and simple. To put it differently, people who actually get 65 years usually face a maximum sentence of hundreds of years.
Swartz actually faced a maximum sentence of about three years. He had been offered a deal of six months in a minimum security prison by the prosecutor. Realistically, that's also about the maximum term a court would have imposed anyway.
Drugs may lead to crimes such as theft, in order to support the habit, and vandalism and battery if the user goes into a psychotic rage, or negligent homicide and property damage in the case of the drunk driver, but drugs alone shouldn't be criminal. Drinking is not a crime, DWI is. It is in any case a terrible approach to what may not be a problem at all, and where it is a problem, it may be better handled as a health issue, not an issue of moral failing. We have figured out that throwing the book at the insane is unproductive. In cases of drug habits that lead to problems, the family needs the help of an addiction center, not a jail cell.
Consider that Prohibition did not work. It was a popular idea, but it was the wrong answer to the wrong problem. The real problem was that changing technology in the late 1800s caused an across the board increase in alcoholic content in popular drinks. People who didn't change their drinking habits were having trouble staying sober, when before there was no problem. The last thing we needed to do about this problem was go all moralistic about it. We painted it up as personal failings, brought out the big stick of the law, and started the beatings. After a few decades of this approach utterly failing to solve the problem-- if anything, people were drinking even more than before, in part to spit on the Man's laws-- we came to our senses and gave up on Prohibition. We have yet to see the light on the War on Drugs.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
have no respect for MIT?
Quick! Moron Fight! Moron Fight!
Everyone gather round for the Moron Fight!
"What, if anything, did Dave learn from his involvement in the destruction of HAL (the most reliable computer ever made) back in 2001?"
Wait, I'm confused. According to the article, and to Wikipedia, the NET Act of 1997 made unauthorized "receipt" of copyrighted material illegal. Unless I remember completely wrong, not so long ago there was a lot of arguing about P2P file sharing relying on the claim that unauthorized uploading of a file is illegal and unauthorized downloading is just fine. Was that not correct? Is the NET Act still in effect, or no?
I really wish he had gone to court because I do not believe any jury in MA would convict him.
His attorney is the one who recommended he reject the plea bargain offered. Why? Because the defense attorney was confident that he could prevail in a trial.
If he were convicted and sent to prison, he would have gone to a minimum security prison, where he would have hung out and baked cookies with other low-risk white collar criminals. He wouldn't have been starring as the new meat for a new season of "Oz."
You seem bitter about that. Perhaps you should stop and ask this question: 'everybody treats me like I'm a total idiot. Is it possible that I'm a total idiot?" Judging from the hysterical tripe in your post, I'd say it's pretty likely you are.
Or go to trial, or take the deal and spend at least 6 months at Club Fed.
The deal offered was a recommendation of 6 months. He could have taken the deal and still gotten 50 years (based on the amended charges) because the judge isn't limited by the recommendation.
really, you're *that* stupid and you manage to find yourself on slushdat ? ? ?
impressive...
I kinda like the guy. He was actually doing some good, I think. But - if a weak person decides to go one on two with a sumo wrestler and a professional boxer tag team, don't expect me to feel overly sorry for him when he gets pounded into a mudhole.
I agree, the system is sick, but...
So one bit of your post is the equivalent of "I'm not a racist, but...", and the rest is a great demonstration of just-world fallacy. Well done.
Saying that he faced a "maximum sentence of 65 years" is wrong, plain and simple.
Good thing the attorney wasn't rubbing those sorts of figures in his face shortly before he was pushed over the edge of suicide then.
Oh...
How should we know? They're your screwed-up thoughts.
WTF did "I'm not a racist, but..." come from?
The just-world thing? I guess that's possible. But, my thinking is more military than philosophical. You just don't challenge authority, unless you're prepared to DEAL WITH authority. It's a matter of relativity, if you care to think of it that way. A squad of trained men can take on a panzer, with the right weapons. We'll call it a sapper team. Two to six unarmored men, with a limpit mine can go up against a tank, if they are stealthy and lucky.
But, by no stretch of the imagination does this mean that a recruit straight out of boot camp can take on a platoon of panzers, armed with only an assault rifle. If he's dumb enough to try, he will die.
Stupidity kills. It doesn't bargain, it doesn't warn, it doesn't care - it just kills.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Thank you, that answers my question perfectly. An immoral act is immoral in and of itself. Someone's suicide does not affect the morality of the original act.
Makes perfect sense to blame her for that as well, when she was warned of the possibility and still tried to cut off his proverbial arm for shoplifiting a pack of gum. It's like buying an alcoholic a round of drinks and then pretending you had no involvement when he gets in a drunken car crash.
Yeah. You can. That's why prosecutors split up a single alleged crime into a dozen felonies: so they can be sentenced to a longer prison term or get them for one charge where others might fail. Like: kidnapping + crossing state lines + rape + assault + gun charge....
Not if the judge was as trigger-happy as the prosecutor. And the judge wouldn't have been restricted by the plea deal - that's between the defendant and the prosecutor.
And face bankruptcy.
And face the real chance of being raped in prison.
And possibly lose the right to vote or own a firearm.
And have the Scarlett Letter of a felony conviction for his every rent or employment application for the rest of his life.
And face the possibility that the judge would go ahead and throw the book at him, regardless of any plea deal with the prosecutor.
All the assholes wondering why Swartz didn't bend over and take it should give martyrdom a try before telling anyone what hot shit it is.
Drugs aren't a victimless crime if the family has to deal with it.
Poor you, the weight of your family obligations must be absolutely crushing. Seriously, what kind of family do you live in, where if a family member is struggling your response is to have them thrown in jail?
No, you can't because federal sentencing guidelines prohibit it.
Yes, they do, and for the reason you say: they try to get them on one charge where others may fail. That's why you can't total the charges up like that. Defendants usually get one of the sentences, not all simultaneously.
The prosecutor wasn't "trigger happy", she was implementing the law as written. And there is no indication that a judge would have done anything different. If the sentence had been too harsh, Swartz could have challenged it in a higher court.
But if the prospect of a lengthy federal trial wasn't to his liking, he shouldn't have broken the law. Swartz knew what he was doing and he knew the potential penalties.
So a record of multiple felony convictions would have no effect whatsoever on the rest of his life? Last I checked, it didn't work that way in the US. Not even close.
If he had been found guilty, I assume it would have had an effect. What does that have to do with the sentence the prosecutor asked for? Why shouldn't it have "an effect" if he had been found guilty?
The deal offered was a recommendation of 6 months. He could have taken the deal and still gotten 50 years (based on the amended charges) because the judge isn't limited by the recommendation.
Judges typically follow the recommendations of the plea bargain; while there's a chance of the judge coming up with something more harsh it is very, very unlikely. In any event while suicide might be a rational response to an actual 50-year prison sentence, it is not a rational response to an unlikely but theoretically possible 50-year sentence. Swartz's timing is what's so weird.
A friend of mine went to a dinner for prospective M.I.T. students and their families (his didn't want him going out of state to M.I.T.) and one thing stuck in his mind. A professor/administrator bragging about the fact they had a high rate of suicides at the time.
This would've been years ago now but his telling sticks in my mind as well.
I wonder if this twisted sense of priorities persists to this day at M.I.T. ? I wonder how it might relate to the current situation.
wartz actually faced a maximum sentence of about three years.
Cite your sources.
He had been offered a deal of six months in a minimum security prison by the prosecutor. Realistically, that's also about the maximum term a court would have imposed anyway.
Do it again here. And further explain why he should have had to spend day 1 in jail for the 'crime' he committed.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
I'm not claiming suicide was the right answer, just correcting the whole "all he had to do is take the deal" claim. The significant risk for him was that he would have to swear under oath that he was guilty of 13 felonies, meaning no matter what the judge might do, he couldn't take that back. He was already facing a legal system that was clearly gone crazy, so he could be forgiven for having more than a little apprehension. It's easy to say "just take the deal" when you're not the one facing the deal.
The prosecutor's deal included Swartz gaining a felony record. In the US (and many other nations) a felony record carries its own punishment that lasts long after any actual prison sentence itself is served.
Serious question: would you rather spend three years in prison without a felony record or six months in prison with a felony record, and would your answer change depending on which US state you lived in?
You can't spend three years in prison without a felony record; a felony is defined as any crime that potentially carries a prison term of longer than one year. If he was convicted under CFAA at all, he would have been a felon, no matter how long he served.
There are plenty of sources you can read up on. Jennifer Granick is very sympathetic to Swartz, and even she admits:
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/01/towards-learning-losing-aaron-swartz-part-2
If you want to know the exact maxima, you have to look at the sentencing guidelines (I get 2-3 years as a maximum).
The above reference contains more info.
Why should he spend time in prison? If a court finds him guilty, because he violated a law that clearly applies to his case, was passed by both parties, signed into law, and is intended to apply to these kinds of cases. I believe CFAA is a badly written law that should be changed, but it isn't the job of prosecutors or judges to ignore laws just because they like the defendant or his politics.
Oh, and you might consider being less rude, in particular if you simply don't know the facts.
Very well. Let's say you'd been charged by a prosecutor with a proper sense of proportion, under a statute that didn't carry a prison term longer than one year. Would you rather serve six months with a felony record or one year without?
I don't see how that is relevant to anything. All violations of the CFAA are automatically felonies; the prosecutor didn't have a choice.
The prosecutor had the choice not to use the CFAA, and you didn't answer my question. If you don't want to, that's fine. Me, I'd take a year and no record over six months and a record. But Swartz didn't have that option, since as you say, it was prosecuted under CFAA and that's automatically a felony record. So no matter how short or long he was in a physical prison for, he'd be stuck with that felony record for the rest of his life, yes?
Indeed, the prosecutor could have chosen to let him get off free. But why should she?
Yes, that's the consequence when you break a federal law with a potential penalty of more than one year.
I find the outrage over Swartz hypocritical. The same people who couldn't give a f*ck over prosecutorial overreach and an encroachment of federal laws on states' rights for decades, many of the same people who are still busy creating laws strengthening this overreach and encroachment, want a special exception for someone because they like his politics and ideology. I don't think so.
Why should she? Justice, perhaps?
Is that consequence acceptable to you? Do you find it "just"?
I don't find the outrage over Swartz hypocritical. We're not all those same people you refer to. And for anyone still outraged, who still objects to prosecutorial overreach etcetera, you can't say they want a special exception for Aaron now. He's dead. He didn't get an exception. What happened to him just helped make it a little more obvious to us sheep, that the exception he (and many others) didn't get should in fact be the rule.
Yes, I think charging him was just. Whether he was actually guilty and whether there were extenuating circumstances was for a court to determine, not the prosecutor.
That could be a valid response, but I don't think it is in this case. I think failure to even acknowledge and identify the more general problem while condemning the prosecutor harshly in this particular case itself constitutes hypocrisy.
No, unfortunately that's not the case. There hasn't been a groundswell of opposition to gun control, the war on drugs, or federal laws on abortion, or any of the other heavy-handed federal laws that make lots of people subject to arbitrary prosecution. All these supposedly beneficial federal activities ultimately translate into punitive laws with strong penalties to back them up.
Odd, the NDAA's National Prosecution Standards says it is for the prosecutor to determine (4-2.4, Factors to Consider). That a court may subsequently agree or disagree does not absolve prosecutors of their responsibilities. Or do federal prosecutors use a completely different set of standards? http://ndaa.org/pdf/NDAA%20NPS%203rd%20Ed.%20w%20Revised%20Commentary.pdf
Hypocrisy, what comes around goes around, or social inertia? Some of all three, I think. Harshly condemning society for harshly condemning a member of society who used the power invested in them by that society to harshly condemn another member of society? I would say she should be investigated fairly and justly, but by your own words, isn't whether she was actually guilty and whether there were extenuating circumstances up to a court to determine, not her prosecutors?
I think there is a groundswell of opposition to all of those things. But society is an animal with some of its nerve endings a long way from some of its muscles, if that makes sense.
I didn't say that prosecutors should never consider it. I'm saying that in this case the acts Swartz committed were serious enough that the decision should be left up to the court. A grand jury obviously agreed.
What law do you believe she actually broke? I don't know of any. Even if she had maliciously overcharged Swartz to further her political career, that would still be legal. She might get disbarred, I suppose; good luck with that.
Maliciously overcharging someone to further a political career is legal? http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/civilrights/color_of_law/color-of-law
Of course, I'm just an idealistic foreigner, in a foreign land, who believes in all that "truth, justice and liberty" stuff from experiencing American cowboy and superhero literature/cinema as a child, so... well... um... dammit.
Thankyou for the dialogue.
Show me the law that it would violate.
You don't seem to understand that with liberty comes risk.
And if Swartz had done what he did in Europe, Japan, China, or Australia, he'd already be serving a couple of years.
What?
Oh, and you might consider being less rude, in particular if you simply don't know the facts.
I asked you to cite facts. And then to explain why you think that something that has been established as a civil case should result in jail time. And you think I'm rude?
Really?
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
A minute on Google would have let you check the facts yourself. Yes, you're intellectually lazy and rude.
You just don't challenge authority, unless you're prepared to DEAL WITH authority.
Not unless you're mentally ill, which his suicide suggests.
But also he obviously misjudged the likely reactions to his actions. If they'd just considered his activities to be a minor nuisance, and so not pursued it, or if once they'd caught him had simply considered him to be 'precocious' or a "boy being a boy", and not taken him seriously, he'd have been fine. But obviously SOMEONE took him as a serious threat to something, and believed that throwing the book at him (then writing another book and throwing that at him) to be an appropriate response.
Unfortunately, history shows us that computer and phone crimes are usually massively over-reacted to. Probably because prosecutors and management does not understand the technology, considers it basically to be "magic", and are so very afraid when youngsters can make it stand up and dance to any tune they whistle. Especially when they make it do unexpected things. People have been banned from using PHONES at all because of this fear.
Stupidity kills. It doesn't bargain, it doesn't warn, it doesn't care - it just kills.
As does ignorance.
THINK! It's patriotic
They are constantly "updating" laws so that "criminals" get whatever the prosecutor wants. They've even charge people for acts committed before they became crimes.
What's to stop them from doing it in this case?
THINK! It's patriotic
That's what happens when an upstart, supposedly powerless individual scares the powerful. There is no bigger sin in this world.
Rape, mass murder, theft of life savings, all are forgivable, as long as the powerful are not made to feel insecure.
It always has been, and probably always will be.
THINK! It's patriotic