Prosecution of Swartz Typical for the "Sick Culture" Pervading the DOJ

tukang writes "According to a report in the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, State prosecutors had planned to let Swartz off with a warning and Swartz would not have faced any criminal proceedings or prison time had it not been for the decision of Carmen Ortiz's office to intervene and take over the case." Although the CNET article focuses on Aaron Swartz's particular case, the original article calls attention to general abuse of power within the DOJ: "It seems never to have occurred to Ortiz, nor to the career prosecutors in her office in charge of the prosecution, Stephen Heymann and Scott Garland, that there is something wrong with overcharging, and then raising the ante, merely to wring a guilty plea to a dubious statute. Nor does it occur generally to federal prosecutors that there’s something wrong with bringing prosecutions so complex that they are guaranteed to bankrupt all but the wealthiest. These tactics have become so normal within the Department of Justice that few who operate within the bowels of this increasingly corrupt system can even see why it is corrupt. Even most journalists, who are supposedly there to tell truth to power, no longer see what’s wrong and even play cheerleader."

Comments

An old saying.

[kurt555gs]

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Re:An old saying.

[safrinanoor]

"Swartz would not have faced any criminal proceedings or prison time" yes it is true because Aaron Swartz had planned to let him off with a stern warning, but federal prosecutor Carmen Ortiz took over..... http://x.co/sfEV

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm also very disappointed by MIT's treatment of the man. It makes me sick actually to think what his university did to him.

I know that this is MIT's management, and not necessarily academic staff, but to do this is disgusting.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another effect might be that people quite often replace their personal ethics with job ethics while on the job, regardless of what their job is. They conform to the prevalent culture, and of course play their part in shaping the culture and ethics. The people you work with are always closer to you than the outsiders who are influenced by (the way you do) your work. We have a financial crisis because banks have developed a greed culture and stopped working for their customers. It seems to me many corporations work for shareholders and bonuses and not for customers (the idea of adding value in a market seems to have been replaced with viewing customers as sheep that need to be manipulated into buying things). It can happen in any organization. People who are ambitious career hunters are more likely to go wrong.

I think it was Robert Hare (expert on psychopaths) who informally defined sociopaths as people who behave without concience or empathy to people outside their peer group, but are perfectly normal within that group. In contrast, psychopaths are always ruthless. Gang members may be typical sociopaths. It would be wise to recognise that the effect can occur in any organization, including the DOJ.

A question everyone should ask themselves on a regular basis: is wat I'm doing to the people my organization interacts with something I would do to my friends, and would I like others to do it to me? If the answer is 'no' you have forgotten those others are people too. An important aspect of a civilized society is that we consider everyone to be a member of the same large group.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think he was a student at MIT. He just got in to one of their data closets.

Swartz was a research fellow at Harvard University, which provided him with a JSTOR account; additionally, visitors to MITâ(TM)s "open campus" were authorized to access JSTOR via the campus network.[47] The authorities say Swartz downloaded the documents through a laptop connected to a networking switch in a controlled-access wiring closet at MIT.[48][49][50][51] -wiki

Re:An old saying.

[Weezul]

MIT has an intentionally open wifi setup, like everyone should.

We're having trouble with the fire Stephen Heymann petition, only like 10k signature out of the needed 25k.

What do people think we should do? Start a second more well written and informative petition perhaps?

Re:An old saying.

[DrXym]

Swartz abused MIT's terms of service, abused services they had subscribed to, effectively managed to DOS that service, actively evaded attempts to block his IP and MAC addresses, hid computers in University property to hide what he was up to and intended to disseminate content to non subscribers of that service.

He did something clearly illegal and then had the book thrown at him. Perhaps the DOJ was heavy handed and perhaps his subsequent state of mind should have been a red flag to all parties to drop the charges or let him cop a lesser plea. But I don't believe it was inappropriate to prosecute him for what he did regardless of what his intentions may have been at the time.

Re:An old saying.

[sosume]

You are so right. People who disclose (already public) academic data should be thrown in jail for the rest of their lives! After dragging them through hellish court procedures. How dare they disobey the ruling class! That's your point, right?

Re:An old saying.

[todrules]

Don't start another one. You need 100,000 signatures for the new petitions from now on.

Re:An old saying.

[DrXym]

No. That would be called a straw man.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to post the petition a lot more on the internet and social media. Create a catchy hash tag, then have a concerted campaign with friends to spam the link on twitter.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

...should be thrown in jail for the rest of their lives! ... That's your point, right?

Actually, that's the exact opposite of his point.

Perhaps the DOJ was heavy handed and perhaps his subsequent state of mind should have been a red flag to all parties to drop the charges or let him cop a lesser plea.

(emphasis mine)

But please, do go on. We'd all love to hear your theory of how suicidal people should be exempt from prosecution, or how a crime isn't really a crime if you don't agree with the law. After all, I'm sure Anders Breivik truly believed he was doing the right thing while mowing down dozens of children at a summer camp run by people with opposing political views.

But, you know, well done for showing how Swartz died in vain, offing himself for no good reason as the documents he intended to 'set free' were, according to you, already available to the public. What a way to honour your hero, awesome job!

Re:An old saying.

[Charliemopps]

You do realize they do absolutely nothing about those petitions at all, even if you get the signatures. They're just a honey pot for gathering the names of political dissidents. I know a lot of you don't think this has started in this country but it has.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

how a crime isn't really a crime

Breaking an EULA is a crime now?! Holy crap.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think his point was that we have this thing called cruel and unusual punishment. The penalty must be proportional to the crime and 35 years in prison for what he did is clearly unjust. As an absolute maximum I'd say 2 years and then only if he was doing it for his own profit. If you think otherwise then you're the one with the issue.

Re:An old saying.

[Jaysyn]

Ignorant fucking liar. Change.org alone has thousands of successful petitions, if I had to guess 1/3 of them are government related.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's another: Power is delightful; Absolute power is absolutely delightful.

Re:An old saying.

[headhot]

I wonder, did MIT disclose its terms of service with the users? I suspect not, as thats a contract between JSTOR and MIT.

Did his actions prevent anyone else from accessing JSTOR? As for as I read, JSTOR never went down, so in that case, not its not a DOS.

Re:An old saying.

[Teancum]

I'm curious about what you say are successful? Has any new legislation actually been enacted? There are many petitions like the "Build the Death Star" petition that have been "successful" in terms of getting a response as in somebody at the White House actually sat down and typed up something, but in terms of getting things to happen like having Texas actually secede from the United States has not happened.

Petitions in general are pretty pointless and useless, and online petitions in particular are even more pointless in terms of getting something to happen. It is a good way to vent steam, and as was said it is a good way to find out who your political enemies might be as well. I agree with the GP post that in many ways the White House website is pretty much a honey pot to track down those people who might be political dissidents and cause problems in the future. Nixon had an "official enemies" list, why not Barack Obama?

Re:An old saying.

[Teancum]

This wasn't "clearly illegal" and in fact was just a "terms of service" violation where most ordinary people doing the things that Swartz was doing would even think was perfectly legal or even expected for legitimate scholarship. Where he crossed the line was doing more of it than most people..... sort of like going to an all you can eat buffet and filling up a dozen plates with food that you can't possibly eat in one sitting.

Perhaps Swartz should have used some better judgement, and had something like his account terminated and perhaps be sent a bill for the "extra resources" he consumed (sort of like the restaurant example charging an extra fee for all of the wasted food), but it certainly didn't cross into the realm of criminal behavior as most people would define the term. Frankly I don't even understand why the Department of Justice was even involved in what was just an ordinary contract violation and should have been handled by a civil court judge at worst.... and a state judge at that. It shouldn't have even been a criminal matter in the first place.

Re:An old saying.

[DerekLyons]

An equally old saying: "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time".

Re:An old saying.

[Scragglykat]

Ahh, this was my first thought as well... you see it in government, you see it in court, you see it everywhere... and there's not much we can do to stop it. By the time anyone gets to a position of adequate power where they can make change for good, they have already been corrupted by the power they have been building.

Re:An old saying.

[DrXym]

That's the potential length of sentence if he was sentenced to the maximum terms possible for all offences, to be served consecutively. I don't think anyone believes he would have served that or anywhere close. More likely it would have been pleaded down or the judge would have set a more reasonable sentence. And even if it did happen there is an appeal process.

All of which is by the by. The best way to ensure you're not looking at jail time, long or short, is not to commit felony offences in the first place.

Re:An old saying.

[interkin3tic]

I don't believe it was inappropriate to prosecute him for what he did regardless of what his intentions may have been at the time.

Strawman . No one is saying Swartz was completely innocent of any crime. Fuck off and stop trying to distort the argument, if that's what you're doing. If you're not trying to make a strawman argument, listen/read what people are actually saying before you jump to a response.

Re:An old saying.

[Sentrion]

So copyright infringement without any possible commercial gain is just as bad as domestic terrorism and mass murder? There are thousands of convicted murderers that serve much less than 35 years. I think the OP has a point that a punishment should fit the crime. Otherwise, why not just take out all your personal adversaries with a modded AK47 if you're already committed to violating their copyright.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Don't worry, though! A bunch of pre-teens with an internet connection and a crippling addiction to bad 90s cyberpunk have already said they'll stop them and save teh day! And we can trust them to do the right thing and not act out of petty spite and malice, because they're seeking revenge for someone we liked! So it'll all be better!

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

No one is saying Swartz was completely innocent of any crime.

Lots of people are. The comment right above yours says so. No mention is made of hiding a laptop in a wiring closet. No mention was made of a totally reasonable plea bargain turned down.

Re:An old saying.

[DrXym]

Thanks but I won't "fuck off" and my comment was entirely legitimate in the context of a discussion thread where a range of views may be expressed directly or indirectly related to the subject. If you don't like it, tough.

Re:An old saying.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

You just described the sick culture of the OP, without realizing it.

Which was also part of the OP's point. Which you also did not realize.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Close. Power attracts the corrupt. Anyone who seeks any kind of power or influence over another person is suspect in my mind.

Re:An old saying.

[Sarius64]

Clearly you're ignoring the fact that Aaron Swartz committed these offenses in order to disrespect Eric Holder, that bastion of truth, justice, and transparency. Aaron is obviously racist.

Re:An old saying.

[DrXym]

Read the indictment. They had him on 4 counts and none of them or the circumstances of his arrest seem unreasonable.

Better judgement would have been to not do it at all, or to at least do it so slowly from a machine in a public area that it didn't DOS the server and set in motion events that ultimately lead to his arrest. If MIT / JSTOR had noticed at all in those circumstance then perhaps they would have done nothing more than tell him to knock it off.

Re:An old saying.

[Cajun Hell]

*I* think the point is that Congress (and presidents) created this problem.

We have a law that people walking on the grass will be killed. Someone walks on the grass. They are killed. You complain about the cop?!

This isn't DoJ's fault. They're supposed to be ruthless scumbags in the service of the evil policies that we demand. We want people to be hurt, and they do this for us.

If you don't like it, change your instructions. Maybe people ought to start voting instead of signing petitions. Every election day, 99% of us say we want an authoritarian central government. And so that's what we have. Scientists should investigate the possibility that there's a relationship between who we vote for, and the laws we have.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer the Dune version, power attracts the corruptible.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, ever had absolute power? Men... say a alot.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, ever had absolute power? Men.. say a lot.

alot* s/alot/lot/

This /. design, is such a pain... :D

Re:An old saying.

[anagama]

Are you joking? TOS violations are WAY worse than terrorism, at least to Holder, the DOJ, etc.

When you decide not to prosecute bankers for billion-dollar crimes connected to drug-dealing and terrorism (some of HSBC's Saudi and Bangladeshi clients had terrorist ties, according to a Senate investigation), it doesn't protect the banking system, it does exactly the opposite. It terrifies investors and depositors everywhere, leaving them with the clear impression that even the most "reputable" banks may in fact be captured institutions whose senior executives are in the employ of (this can't be repeated often enough) murderers and terrorists.
***
So the executives who spent a decade laundering billions of dollars will have to partially defer their bonuses during the five-year deferred prosecution agreement? Are you fucking kidding me? That's the punishment? The government's negotiators couldn't hold firm on forcing HSBC officials to completely wait to receive their ill-gotten bonuses? They had to settle on making them "partially" wait? Every honest prosecutor in America has to be puking his guts out at such bargaining tactics. What was the Justice Department's opening offer == asking executives to restrict their Caribbean vacation time to nine weeks a year?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213

Re:An old saying.

[bbelt16ag]

would it of really of mattered? the damage is already done, he would of been broke and umeployable in his field of IT? Everytime i go for an interview its always have you been arrested or convicted of a crime blah blah blah. At that point if you have you are at a disadvantage and your stuff is thrown in the trash since you are alibility to hr and the company. Tell me i am wrong on this people i dare you. I want evidence. once you are caught in that system you are punished until the day you die and stigmatize by the world.

Re:An old saying.

[sjames]

He didn't. He committed a misdemeanor. The prosecutor inflated it into multiple felonies.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious about what you say are successful?

I'm pretty sure they publicly released the White House beer recipe in response to a petition. That one appears to have been a complete success.

Oh wait, did you mean anything remotely useful to the governing of the country? Oh, well, no then.

Re:An old saying.

[Applekid]

Because Obama is the savior of the left, while Nixon is an evil kitten-stomping Republican.

Re:An old saying.

[anagama]

No really, you need to fuck off. Where do you get off saying it's OK to charge a person with crimes that could bring 50 years for what Swartz did? Especially in the context where the same DOJ rewards people who helped drug kingpins and terrorists launder money for a decade. Where do you get any moral authority at all to say that the government should be able to absolutely crush ordinary citizens for barely recognizable crimes, all the while letting massive rampant Wall Street fraud that practically brought down the world economy go not just unpunished, but rewarded with the hard earned tax dollars of millions of Americans. Why is it OK for AT&T to help the Feds do illegal wiretapping and then be grantied retroactive immunity for that crime? Yet downloading some articles at a rate higher than allowed is supposed to warrant a possible life sentence, or at least almost all of a life on average?

So yeah -- in all seriousness -- fuck off. You are part of the problem. Being silent is bad enough, but offering excuses for the oppressors -- that's beyond the pale. You are an enabler of this kind of corruption and slime, and you don't even get it. Wise up or fuck off.

Re:An old saying.

[Weezul]

Interesting that got modded flamebait. I guess people really don't like open wifis! Or maybe someone here knows Stephan Heymann? hmm

Re:An old saying.

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

. The best way to ensure you're not looking at jail time, long or short, is not to commit felony offences in the first place.

You can be jailed for a misdemeanor, and people frequently are. Aside from that, not committing a felony is harder then you think since the proverbial citizen commits three felonies a day .

Re:An old saying.

[anagama]

Good luck with that. You probably commit three federal crimes per day (as of 2009 -- they add more crimes every year) without even knowing it and your intent to be a good citizen is of no relevance.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842.html

This is about pure oppressive power. When the laws are so vague and vast that anyone can be imprisoned in the largest prison system in the world for virtually their entire life for totally random acts -- the government has absolute control over any forms of dissent.

Re:An old saying.

[heteromonomer]

And academic articles should be paid-access even though the authors of the articles paid for publication, and the public has paid (through taxes) for the research in those articles. Right?

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit how is this nonsense modded informative? Fucking slashdot. You just keep getting worse.

Hey, Charliemopps, do you have ANY proof of that? Do you have any proof, whatsoever, that the gubment is rounding up the names of political dissidents? Fucking come on.

Re:An old saying.

[HiThere]

Yeah, but it's slightly wrong. It's not power that corrupts, it's lack of consequences.

Of course, it's often hard to observe this distinction, because even honorable people with power tend to act to shield themselves from the results of their actions. Nobody likes to be blamed or punished, no matter how much they might warrant it, and also no matter how honorable their intentions.

Re:An old saying.

[Teancum]

The problem here is the presumption that these actions should be criminal. I disagree with that assumption which is the assumption that you are making here by saying that none of these counts are unreasonable. Furthermore, it is one real idiot of a computer security guy to possibly think that a single laptop logged into a "guest account" could possibly do as much damage as is claimed. If your security system is so screwed up that such an attack is of concern, I would say that the folks in charge of security at either JSTOR or MIT should be fired.

Aaron Schwartz didn't "hack" into the system other than to automate the formation of URLs for access of the JSTOR servers. Hell, he should have been given an award with thanks for exposing security vulnerabilities.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Petitioning the White House for Texas to secede from the USA is a bit like petitioning MIT to suspend gravity for a day.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Change.org alone has thousands of successful petitions

And when Obama refuses to honor his promise to respond to them, how can you call them successful? He lied about having an open and transparent administration. Instead, he has been ignoring the petitions, and even in a few cases, mocked them publicly.

Re:An old saying.

[Charliemopps]

Are you drunk? What the fuck did the president, or any member of government do... exactly... after one of these petitions were "successful" and I mean, besides fuck a hooker.

Re: An old saying.

[Eskarel]

He got offered four months not fifty years and not even child molesters get maximum sentences served consecutively, he did something he knew was illegal and incredibly stupid.

Dud he deserve fifty years? No. Was there a snowball's chance in hell he'd have gotten fifty years? No. Do you have a legal right to a slap on the wrist and a warning because you're stupid? No. Aaron Schwartz killed himself, to avoid four months in jail and a felony conviction which for someone with his name recognition sound have had virtually no impact. Is that a tragedy? Sound there probably be a misdemeanor version of these crimes for people like assertion Aaron. Of course, but being told the maximum sentence isn't abuse, and if his defense lawyer didn't tell him that before he even rejected the plea the lawyer should be sacked.

Re: An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

As has already been said, but obviously needs to be repeated until you get it: Fuck off.

Re:An old saying.

[slashrio]

Yes, and the people have accepted that process of corruption of power for so long now, that they are filled with fear for the government (which indicates a state of tyranny), instead that the government fears the people (which would have meant democracy).
I think it was Jack Otto who said: "The land will only be 'of the free' for as long as it's the home of the brave."

The more the government is flexing its muscles in civic areas, the more the civilians should cling to the second amendment.
And requiring licensing to have the right to bear arms *is* already the infringement of a right that 'should not be infringed upon'.

Re: An old saying.

[Eskarel]

And you need to find the right problem to try and solve.

Congress made what Aaron Schwartz did a felony, and in many cases the same actions with different intent should be a felony. This left the prosecutors with the choice of giving him a slap on the wrist and calling him a naughty boy or charging him with a felony. There was no intermediate action for them to take it was felony or nothing because there is no misdemeanor version of the acts he committed. If he'd plead down to some totally unrelated crime, a judge would probably have rejected the deal.

Yes you have a prosecutor trying to enhance his career with a celebrity case, but that isn't necessarily evil in and of itself, as letting him off with no penalty at all was not the right thing to do either. He knew what he was doing was wrong and needed to face a penalty for that.

Fundamentally in this case you have a brilliant young man who did something idiotic as young men often do. He was offered a couple of quite generous plea deals which for reasons of his own he rejected. After that he seems to have been brought to understand exactly what he was facing which was something damned scary. Again for reasons of his own he chose to end his own life rather than facing that pressure. Whether his current circumstances were the direct cause or just the straw that broke the camel's back neither you, nor I, nor anyone else will ever know. This was a tragedy for everyone involved including himself as, as I have stated, other options existed. I cannot say for certain he wouldn't have gotten 50 years, but even murderers generally don't get maximum sentences served consecutively. Personally I'd have been surprised if he got 5 years in minimum security, and he could very well have walked free.

The point of this is not to blame Aaron Schwartz, he did something stupid and suffered from a mental illness which got the better of him. It's not to say the prosecutors were angels. The point is to say that no one here was a monster. No one tortured Aaron Schwartz. No one killed him. Things could have been handled better and in hindsight maybe they would have been, but I've seen no evidence of gross misconduct on the part of anyone involved in this, maybe there's more we don't know about, and using threats of maximum sentences no one is going to serve to avoid a trial isn't exactly saintly behavior, but it's the behavior of humans, not monsters. Mostly what I haven't seen is evidence the justice system failed him, because it wasn't given a chance to.

We'd all rather Aaron Schwartz was still alive, we'd all rather he'd have been offered a plea that didn't involve a felony and that he'd taken it, but he isn't, and he wasn't, and no one killed him.

Re:An old saying.

[DrXym]

I didn't say it would be okay. That would be a straw man of your own concoction. Seriously there are some morons around here.

Re: An old saying.

[DrXym]

You're being too reasonable about it all. Some people on this thread can't possibly countenance the idea that everything that happened to Swartz was a direct result of his own actions, and that at most he was most likely looking at a few years if found guilty, probably less even if he pleaded it down. No, we must all assume he was going to be locked away for the rest of his natural life and anyone who tries to inject reason into the discussion should be told to fuck off.

Re:An old saying.

[DrXym]

That's the way the system works whether you like it or not. Removing content from a paid subscription service to disseminate for free is called theft. And DOS'ing the service provider and doing so by unauthorised means just makes the charges stack up.

If "information wants to be free", then a better approach by activists is to produce a better JSTOR than JSTOR and encourage publications to use it.

Re:An old saying.

[lsatenstein]

MIT has an intentionally open wifi setup, like everyone should.

We're having trouble with the fire Stephen Heymann petition, only like 10k signature out of the needed 25k.

What do people think we should do? Start a second more well written and informative petition perhaps?

The above statement is more or less true of all religions, but more so of extremists in the religion.

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are SO INSIGHTFUL! How long did it take you to figure out the Obama-as-messiah-figure angle to strawman people with?

Re:An old saying.

[bbsalem]

Oh, and journal publishers are making SO much money on thousands of arcane research articles that maybe five people read in a year? Copyright ought to have a lower bond on usage, it expires if the annual use is lower than the cost of printing or casting into some tangible product. It should pass into the public domain. The only reason a publisher can enforce copyright is that articles are in a printed form, otherwise they are fair game, and if that removes incentives to publish them then researchers can get peer-reviewed and then put the article in the public domain. Who needs publishers, anyway?

Re:An old saying.

[Wolfrider]

--The difference being, MIT may actually have a shot at it

/ ba-dum-tish

Re:An old saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please take that government guy's cock out of your mouth so I can understand what you're saying.

Re:An old saying.

[DrXym]

Whether they make money or not is completely irrelevant. I might post pictures on my website with no expectation of making money. It doesn't mean you can come along and steal them to use for your purposes. Same with these publications. They saw fit to make it available through a subscription based service as is their right.

Again, if "information wants to be free", then activists need to produce a better JSTOR than JSTOR. Reach out to these publications and ask them if they wouldn't mind contributing their content to a free resource. Perhaps some would, perhaps some wouldn't. Perhaps it would be enough to make the free site a valuable resource for researchers in its own right and it would gather momentum. Systematically ripping content from a pay service is just theft.

Re:An old saying.

[bbsalem]

Yes, "Stealing is Theft", but the wisdom of giving things away might be that it is cheaper than trying to control them. It is a trade-off. It might be better to allow some people to "steal" then to enforce that everybody pay, and it might create better good will. An example of that you pay for "free" stuff and it might be better to give it way: There is a site that gives away "free" fonts, but I have stopped going to the site because they want information from me in exchange for downloading the font file. Now not all of the fonts on the site are free and it is obvious that they will probably begin sending me e-mails about products I'd have to pay for. Now it isn't the case that I am interested in a new font very often. I'm not a designer who needs to try out lots of fonts and has a budget to spend on getting fonts. In addition I have to trust that the site owners will otherwise respect my privacy, which is by no means a given. So I had decided not to visit that site again. They should consider that if they are going to offer free fonts that there be no strings ( pardon the pun) attached. I think that pay walls from journals could be open more both to stimulate use of research and because the return as articles age does not merit the cost of keeping them behind it.

And you do know about copyright exceptions for educators? Maybe colleges and universities have to pay someone for the right to allow faculty and students to copy materials under copyright in their library collections. This is allowed because restricting use of these materials is worse than preventing out-right theft. Contrast that with the effort by the recording industry to force public libraries to charge a fee for lending CDs against the possibility that the CDs would be illegally copied. That didn't fly because it was not practical to reinburse the recording companies.

Dual justice systems

[starworks5]

How else can you hold up the charade of a dual track justice system, if some people are hunted down by the authorities with extreme prejudice, and at the same time others are too powerful to fail, you create an illusion of order and safety and create bogeymen to keep people in fear.

Honest journalism? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

'Even most journalists, who are supposedly there to tell truth to power'. Tell that to the jounalists of Fox News!

Re:Honest journalism? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Journalists of Fox News...

You're a funny one.

Re:Honest journalism? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or any of the news channels. They are all liars.

...and justice for all

[Anonymous Coward]

Halls of Justice Painted Green, Money Talking
Power Wolves Beset Your Door, Hear Them Stalking
Soon You'll Please Their Appetite, They Devour
Hammer of Justice Crushes You, Overpower

The Ultimate in Vanity
Exploiting Their Supremacy
I Can't Believe the Things You Say
I Can't Believe
I Can't Believe the Price You Pay
Nothing Can Save You

Justice Is Lost
Justice Is Raped
Justice Is Gone
Pulling Your Strings
Justice Is Done
Seeking No Truth
Winning Is All
Find it So Grim
So True
So Real

Apathy Their Stepping Stone, So Unfeeling
Hidden Deep Animosity, So Deceiving
Through Your Eyes Their Light Burns, Hoping to Find
Inquisition Sinking You, With Prying Minds

The Ultimate in Vanity
Exploiting Their Supremacy
I Can't Believe the Things You Say
I Can't Believe
I Can't Believe the Price You Pay
Nothing Can Save You

Justice Is Lost
Justice Is Raped
Justice Is Gone
Pulling Your Strings
Justice Is Done
Seeking No Truth
Winning Is All
Find it So Grim
So True
So Real

Lady Justice Has Been Raped, Truth Assassin
Rolls of Red Tape Seal Your Lips, Now You're Done in
Their Money Tips Her Scales Again, Make Your Deal
Just What Is Truth? I Cannot Tell, Cannot Feel

The Ultimate in Vanity
Exploiting Their Supremacy
I Can't Believe the Things You Say
I Can't Believe
I Can't Believe the Price We Pay
Nothing Can Save Us

Justice Is Lost
Justice Is Raped
Justice Is Gone
Pulling Your Strings
Justice Is Done
Seeking No Truth
Winning Is All
Find it So Grim
So True
So Real

Seeking No Truth
Winning Is All
Find it So Grim
So True
So Real

Borrowing money

[musikit]

How many of you did similar things when you were a kid? you want $10 from mom..."mom can i have $50", "umm no", "ok $25", "no", "$10", "ok"

it should be illegal via sentencing the prosecutor to the maximum sentence of the charged crime for charging someone with a crime only to inflate charges.

Re:Borrowing money

[wisty]

It's how the plea bargaining system is.

The US has decided that the 6th Amendment was a bad idea. That jury trials just aren't worth it. The only way to strip criminals of their rights is by "rewarding" them, by dropping some of the charges. And since dropping reasonable charges will be too soft on criminals, you have to keep increasing sentencing guidelines.

Re:Borrowing money

[DerekLyons]

The US has decided that the 6th Amendment was a bad idea. That jury trials just aren't worth it.

Um, no. It's not quite that simple. The US (the vox populi) doesn't like it's justice system to appear "soft on crime" - and the justice system doesn't like defendants going free on appeals because the court dockets are too full and they couldn't get a speedy trail because that too gives the appearance of being "soft on crime" (and not doing their jobs). Hence, the plea bargain system evolved to unclog the pipeline, save the taxpayer's money, and send the defendants to jail (all wildly popular with the vox populi).

Not to mention the increasing reluctance of the vox populi to actually serve on juries when called...

Re:Borrowing money

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing you said adds anything meaningful to the explanation of the poster before you. Literally all you are doing is agreeing that the sixth amendment is all difficult and costs money 'n' shit

what

[phantomfive]

Even most journalists, who are supposedly there to tell truth to power,

I just want a journalist to tell me what happened. Do some research, so I can read it, because I don't have time to do it all myself. I don't want reporters to shove their ideology and viewpoint at me. That's what editorial pages are for.

Re:what

[bloodhawk]

Even most journalists, who are supposedly there to tell truth to power,

I just want a journalist to tell me what happened. Do some research, so I can read it, because I don't have time to do it all myself. I don't want reporters to shove their ideology and viewpoint at me. That's what editorial pages are for.

^this, nowadays it is impossible to trust most articles as every reporter or wannabe reporter thinks part of writing an article is giving there own personal spin on the facts to push their personal viewpoints. I will take the dry facts without the bullshit anyday compared to the shit most journalists publish.

Re:what

[SuricouRaven]

Doesn't happen so much any more. Journalists are under far greater time pressure than they once were - editors expect them to write more in less time, to satisfy our new 24-hour news culture. Investigative journalism is a very time-consuming process and can take weeks or months to produce a story. So it has been largely abandoned in favor of a form of 'production line' news which focuses on just collecting quotes and getting them broadcast as quickly as possible.

Re:what

[muon-catalyzed]

What happened? He downloaded some papers from the public library in an automated fashion and shared them for his colleagues. Criminal proceedings for violating a public library website terms? But who is surprised? This is a country where even a monkey can buy assault weapons. 50 million people without health insurance. NASA under axe while half of the nation's HDP is funneled to the war machine..

Re:what

[vlad30]

I think when they started calling themselves journalists they knew they dropped quality :- note the definitions

journal - Noun

1. A newspaper or magazine that deals with a particular subject or professional activity.

2. A personal record of occurrences, experiences, and reflections kept on a regular basis; a diary.

report - Noun

1. An account presented usually in detail.

2. A formal account of the proceedings or transactions of a group.

Journalists give personal opinions Reporters give detailed facts

Re:what

[Anonymous Coward]

That's terrible, biased, outright false reporting. You'll fit right in!

Re:what

[gl4ss]

_planned_ to share them to colleagues.

Re:what

[Anonymous Coward]

This was not "some papers from a public library". JSTOR is a private, non-profit subscription service, there's nothing "public" about it even though it provides access to public data. They earn their fees by maintaining a *huge*, well indexed catalog. Swartz tried to copy *ALL* of it, including the indexing, by sending a web spider through it.

He was pulling so much traffic he was crashing JSTOR servers, he hid that he was doing it, and he worked around the blocks MIT put in to protect the service from abuse. This isn't "getting a few files" from a public library, this is showing up with a moving van and a copy machine, copying *ALL* the books, and blocking the door to the library in the process.

Swartz deserved his well-earned jail time.

Re:what

[Anonymous Coward]

So he was inconsiderate. It's not against the law.

Re:what

[muon-catalyzed]

eh, i didn't meant to offend, sure it was an overblown sarcastic argument to highlight the underlying issue, namely that nobody was harmed by his actions.

Re:what

[cavreader]

The problem today is people go searching for the "facts" until they locate the some information that justifies their point of view. Any contradicting "facts" that might interfere with their sacred beliefs is immediately discounted as lies and propaganda.

Re:what

[yog]

"nowadays"? How old are you? This has always been the way of the world. Ideals and outliers aside, journalism is not about telling the complete truth and nothing but the truth. It's about making a name for oneself, influencing decisionmakers, having power over people.

As for "justice", this too has always been an arbitrary, agenda-driven kind of goal. This poor, depressed kid was obviously victimized by an abusive DOJ prosecutor trying to make a name for herself. His conviction would not have brought any kind of justice. All he did was unlock something that millions of college students and professors and affiliated academics already have full access to. Thirty-five years! This Ortiz is the one who should go to prison.

Re:what

[DerekLyons]

I just want a journalist to tell me what happened. Do some research, so I can read it, because I don't have time to do it all myself. I don't want reporters to shove their ideology and viewpoint at me. That's what editorial pages are for.

Doesn't happen so much any more. Journalists are under far greater time pressure than they once were - editors expect them to write more in less time, to satisfy our new 24-hour news culture.

Doesn't happen so much any more? You're looking at the past with very rose tinted glasses - because it pretty much never happened. Newspapers have pretty much always been biased (any city of any size used to have both Democratic *and* Republican papers). The news cycle has been fast (trying to get scoops) for almost as long - especially back in the day when a newspaper might publish as many as eight issues in a single day, from the early edition (hitting the streets as early as 6AM) to the late edition (hitting the streets as late as 10-11PM).

Re:what

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but you're missing one vital component: how news is monetized.

You can't copyright facts. If your report is strictly factual, it can be copied and rebroadcast, possibly within seconds, by your rivals. So there's no margin in purely factual reports.

You can, however, copyright opinions (or "analysis", as they are euphemistically known). So journalists are actively encouraged to mix "analysis" inextricably into their reporting, as a form of copy protection. Sort of how map makers put in a few fake streets and names.

It's a problem with how news is monetized in our system, which is a holdover from the days when the news content was inextricably attached to a physical medium. It won't go away until someone comes up with a whole new publishing model. This is one case where adding the words '... on a computer' to the original definition really does make a difference.

Re:what

[slashrio]

Journalists nowadays are for telling you what lie to believe, not to find out the truth.

Double Standard

[zippo01]

We have such a double standard in this country. We scream when a person who is charged with a crime, makes a choice and takes their life because they where charged with a crime, that we are to tough. The next day we scream when another person charged with the same or a different crime gets off or only gets a light sentence. It is all subjective to the individual. What do you find important, right or wrong. I have no problem with them stacking charges, as long as they can show cause. The court system is already backed up, could you imagine if every charge when to trial. Nothing would ever get done, and most important people would complain (louder then ever before) about being called for jury duty all the time. You can't blame others, for the choice of an individual to take their life. If you do, where does the blame end? It wouldn't...

Re:Double Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no problem with them stacking charges, as long as they can show cause. The court system is already backed up, could you imagine if every charge when to trial.

Showing cause isn't the same things as proving guilt though, and if you stack the charges you're massively loading the consequences if the person actually tries to prove their innocence. Like the summary points out, the issue here is that many "prosecutions (are) so complex that they are guaranteed to bankrupt all but the wealthiest". This isn't justice, it's more or less blackmail: "We reckon we can charge you with a ridiculous number of tenuously linked crimes. If you try to fight it it'll bankrupt you, and our fancy-pants legal shenanigans will ensure you'll probably do time for something anyway, so why don't you save us all the bother by admitting your guilt in this plea bargain...".

If the court system is backed up that's a reason to either streamline the system or expand it, not to circumvent what is meant to be the point of it: justice.

Re:Double Standard

[mwvdlee]

You can't blame others, for the choice of an individual to take their life. If you do, where does the blame end? It wouldn't...

Just because a lot of people would be blamed doesn't mean you can't blame them.
Just because a lot of people are guilty doesn't make them all innocent.

Re:Double Standard

[zippo01]

It may, but you have the right to counsel. So the court will pay for it, when dealing with criminal charges? Unless you have the money to pay for it. And if the charges are that outlandish, it is easy to get them thrown out.

Re:Double Standard

[sjames]

The catch is that you only get a public defender if you are indigent. If you have means, they'll be sucked dry first, then you can have a public defender. So you are finally found not guilty, but you have effectively paid a ruinous fine anyway.

Re:Double Standard

[UltraZelda64]

It is only subjective to a point. The problem is, there is no neutral ground... just the extremes of "you fucking pathetic, weak, filthy criminal, die by my hand!" and "meh... you're a corporation with a lot of money and good lawyers, we'll let it slide if you pay us ten grand."

They use their power to crush the weak (poor) to gain publicity, and the money talks for rich and famous fucks. There is no fucking "justice" in the current so-called United States "justice system." None at all.

With your view of good or bad, right or wrong, crime or no crime... you're forgetting one little thing. Relativity. Stealing a single candy bar from an already heavily profiting candy store is not the same as murdering someone, and should therefore have a more relaxed--dare I say it, sane--punishment.

Re:Double Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that old adage of "Innocent until proven guilty" still exist? Or did the media (there, I said it) crap all over it with sensationalist headlines and fuck people over "in the court of public opinion"?

IIRC, the burden of proof lies with the prosecution. If *they* were to start stacking up charges, I'd say let them! They're the ones that'll have to provide evidence of such in a court of law AND they are also obligated to present the defense with the list of charges, evidence, witnesses and such that they intend to use against the defendant so a proper response can be prepared. So, you want to bring 100+ counts of whatever, bring it!

It's like when we were kids. You show me yours, I'll show you mine...but you go first.

Hopefully, in time, the judges will start complaining to the DA's Office (or GA, or whatever applies to each particular court circuit, IANAL) that they are wasting the taxpayers' money and the court's time with ridiculous lists of charges and that they keep bringing up, only to have them dropped or dismissed for a lesser conviction or plea bargain.

Having said that, the biased media (and in today's world, who isn't?) will have you tried and convicted in the name of headlines, viewer/readership before you even get to your first day in court. It's even likely the people called to stand as jury will be tainted by something their favorite media outlet had published. You know, "because the people have a right to know", really? Are doing the CNN thing and "just leaving it there"? can't we (all of us) take some responsiblity?

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-12-2009/cnn-leaves-it-there

Re:Double Standard

[Daniel Dvorkin]

We have such a double standard in this country. We scream when a person who is charged with a crime, makes a choice and takes their life because they where charged with a crime, that we are to tough. The next day we scream when another person charged with the same or a different crime gets off or only gets a light sentence.

The "we" in those two cases aren't necessarily the same people. People tend to shout the loudest about the things they're unhappy about; thus in the first case you'll hear mostly from those who think the justice system is too harsh, while in the second case you'll hear mostly from those who think it's too lenient.

Re:Double Standard

[sesshomaru]

"could you imagine if every charge when to trial"

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. -- Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Re:Double Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

It is only subjective to a point.

Which is to say, all of it.

Re:Double Standard

[Fished]

The other catch is that the public defender will be payed less -- usually dramatically less -- to defend you than the prosecutor is paid to persecute you. In Virginia, the state pays public defenders $120 to represent you for a class 1 misdemeanor, which carry up to five years of jail time.

At the standard legal rate around here, that means you get half an hour of representation, if you're lucky.

Re:Double Standard

[geminidomino]

The court system is already backed up, could you imagine if every charge when to trial. Nothing would ever get done, and most important people would complain (louder then ever before) about being called for jury duty all the time

Abso-fucking-lutely. Maybe then the courts would spend their time productively, prosecuting actual criminals, rather than for breaking one of the constant stream of bullshit laws we're buried under because of bad business models, idiotic ideologies, and someone's magic sky daddy shaking his finger.

It would be an improvement the courts actually had to weigh the choice of holding a trial for an axe murderer, or the guy with peculiar dietary tastes because dipping your fries in your Frosty is an abomination unto Nuggan.

Re:Double Standard

[Rockoon]

Not liking the outcome doesn't make the steps leading to it wrong.

Re:Double Standard

[mwvdlee]

Indeed.
All that can be said is that the mere fact that there are many people instead of few who have taken those steps does not automatically make them right.

Re:Double Standard

[sjames]

And to top it off, the public defender's caseload will be so large that he can't even remember all of the names of his clients on any given day.

Re:Double Standard

[s.petry]

In theory you are correct, and that is how it is supposed to work. In practice we see the exact opposite. The only people in the US that are innocent until proven guilty have paid a legal team an enormous amount of money. Go spend a day in circuit court watching cases. Usually they are open to the public. You may find it rather enlightening.

Re:Double Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

And to top it off, public defenders don't put any effort into anything but the most serious capital cases. They don't have the time or resources that the so-called 'Department of Justice' has.

Re:Double Standard

[0111 1110]

IIRC, the burden of proof lies with the prosecution. If *they* were to start stacking up charges, I'd say let them!

Talk is cheap. Let's see how you feel when those stacked up charges could result in you spending the rest of your life in prison based on the opinions of 6-12 strangers you know nothing about and whom the prosecutor has had a chance to dismiss for being too sympathetic to 'innocent-until-proven-guilty" and "cops sometimes lie". Your innocence and their lack of evidence will not necessarily keep you out of prison.

Re:Double Standard

[CodeBuster]

The first amendment to the US Constitution specifically mentions the right of speech in redress of grievances and our courts have a long history of allowing pro se representation in cases heard before them as part of that right. The record for pro se defendants, especially in criminal matters, is not as bad as generally believed. For example, only 26 percent of the pro se defendants in one study ended up with felony convictions, while 63 percent of their represented counterparts were convicted of felonies (see TFA). A college educated adult probably stands as good a chance as most public defenders when arguing their own case and may even have certain tactical advantages over the prosecutor, especially in a jury trial where careful and well reasoned arguments may serve to elicit additional sympathy from the jury for the "honest citizen" representing himself.

The United States has it's own propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Memorable quotes for
Looker (1981)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082677/quotes

"John Reston: Television can control public opinion more effectively than armies of secret police, because television is entirely voluntary. The American government forces our children to attend school, but nobody forces them to watch T.V. Americans of all ages *submit* to television. Television is the American ideal. Persuasion without coercion. Nobody makes us watch. Who could have predicted that a *free* people would voluntarily spend one fifth of their lives sitting in front of a *box* with pictures? Fifteen years sitting in prison is punishment. But 15 years sitting in front of a television set is entertainment. And the average American now spends more than one and a half years of his life just watching television commercials. Fifty minutes, every day of his life, watching commercials. Now, that's power."

##

"The United States has it's own propaganda, but it's very effective because people don't realize that it's propaganda. And it's subtle, but it's actually a much stronger propaganda machine than the Nazis had but it's funded in a different way. With the Nazis it was funded by the government, but in the United States, it's funded by corporations and corporations they only want things to happen that will make people want to buy stuff. So whatever that is, then that is considered okay and good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it really serves people's thinking - it can stupify and make not very good things happen."
- Crispin Glover: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000417/bio

##

"It's only logical to assume that conspiracies are everywhere, because that's what people do. They conspire. If you can't get the message, get the man." - Mel Gibson (from an interview)

##

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William Casey, CIA Director

##

"The real reason for the official secrecy, in most instances, is not to keep the opposition (the CIA's euphemistic term for the enemy) from knowing what is going on; the enemy usually does know. The basic reason for governmental secrecy is to keep you, the American public, from knowing - for you, too, are considered the opposition, or enemy - so that you cannot interfere. When the public does not know what the government or the CIA is doing, it cannot voice its approval or disapproval of their actions. In fact, they can even lie to your about what they are doing or have done, and you will not know it. As for the second advantage, despite frequent suggestion that the CIA is a rogue elephant, the truth is that the agency functions at the direction of and in response to the office of the president. All of its major clandestine operations are carried out with the direct approval of or on direct orders from the White House. The CIA is a secret tool of the president - every president. And every president since Truman has lied to the American people in order to protect the agency. When lies have failed, it has been the duty of the CIA to take the blame for the president, thus protecting him. This is known in the business as "plausible denial." The CIA, functioning as a secret instrument of the U.S. government and the presidency, has long misused and abused history and continues to do so."
- Victor Marchetti, Propaganda and Disinformation: How the CIA Manufactures History

##

George Carlin:

"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehous

Re:The United States has it's own propaganda

[OneSmartFellow]

I think the problem is that there is regrettably very little we can do about it. Sure, the revolution is coming, but for now, the revolution looks more painful than the present reality. Eventually that balance will shift, and then, it won't be pretty either.

Re:The United States has it's own propaganda

[s.petry]

Wrong! There is absolutely something you can do about it. You can wake people up to the problem. This a first and necessary step in order to facilitate change.

The reason the US was able to revolt against England a couple hundred plus years ago is that the people wanted (majority) to revolt. To get the populace to that point it took people like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Revere to wake them!

The US was not freed from British rule because Washington went out and kicked every British soldiers ass. The US was freed because the majority of people were awake and fought for change.

Being a defeatist will never change anything. Waiting on other people to wake the masses won't work either. Not while the media is controlled at least. It takes people actively waking others up to the problems, and those people waking others, and those people waking others, until there is enough critical mass to force the change.

Re:The United States has it's own propaganda

[OneSmartFellow]

You are missing the point.

The problem is not that we (the people) are not willing to stand up and say enough. It's that we're not willing YET to say enough. The reason is that the revolution will be a very unsavory experience, and the current situation is (marginally) more agreeable.

That the revolution is coming, I have no doubt. The only question is how soon.

Re:The United States has it's own propaganda

[cenerentolo]

les mots juste! but in the meantime, we can ALL SIGN THE PETITION TO REMOVE THIS WHORE OF SATAN FROM POWER https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck REMEMBER: todays prosecutors are the desparate shysters that are dying to do anything and lie about whatever they have to so they can become tomorrows federal judges

Re:The United States has it's own propaganda

[s.petry]

This reads much differently than your original post. What you originally posted matches the futility rhetoric being passed around to make people complacent. I still don't discourage what I stated since in order to make the change we must get more people woken up.

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't pass the smell test. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. He STOLE. I'm sorry if you're all sympathetic to him because he was so screwed up he killed himself, but the fact is, he broke the law and should have known what was coming to him.

Re:Nope

[powerspike]

First, I'm Australian and not American, However i know how wrong this is.

He Stole:- Well no he didn't. If anything it was IP Infringement - and because of the way a law was made in 1984 it means it was a felony and he was going to spend 5+ years in Jail For. The DOJ took the case over from the state. The State was going to let him go with a warning, the DOJ took the case, and started stacking up the charges - 9 of them the i read - which was going to be 25+ years in jail.

Lets make this clear - if he *STOLE* a hard drive with the files on it, it would of been a slap on the wrist.
The law basically means if you break the T&C of a website or service, it's a federal crime which is what happened here.

He tried to do a plea bargain - but the DOJ said you have to plead guilty to all of them. He had a choice - fight and go bankrupt, then to jail. Plead guilty and goto jail, Or take his own life. He chose to take his own life.

Seriously, The People in the DOJ of the case should either be charged with some type of assisted suicide charges, or involuntary manslaughter.

Re:Nope

[spire3661]

You and Carmen Ortiz need to learn the LEGAL definition of theft. She should have been reprimanded for accusing him of 'stealing' in her statement. In no legal sense did he STEAL anything and quite honestly Ortiz's comments are, IMHO, defamatory.

Re:Nope

[Sique]

He didn't steal. Not even in the copyright sense of words. He violated the Terms of Use. He had the right to download from JSTOR. What he didn't had was the right to use scripts to download from JSTOR. He used scripts that unattended downloaded documents from JSTOR, so he violated the Terms of Use.

Re:Nope

[LordLucless]

He actually had a fourth choice, which Americans have increasingly taken up over the last couple of decades - go postal and shoot a bunch of people. I'm sort of surprised he didn't try and take the prosecutors with him. If you want to look at reasons for those sort of things, maybe you need to pay attention to the pressure corrupt systems like these place on individuals.

Re:Nope

[MartinSchou]

He had a choice - fight and go bankrupt, then to jail. Plead guilty and goto jail, Or take his own life.

That is a really, REALLY unfair claim to make.

And I say that as someone with multiple suicide attempts behind me (yes, I'm a failure, I know), so allow me to rephrase that.

That is a really, REALLY stupid and ignorant claim to make. There - much better.

People do not commit suicide because of a single thing. It's not the rape alone that makes rape victims suicidal, it's the associated shame, social isolation, finger pointing and blame (it's never the victim's fault) as well, and those come from society - not the rapist, no matter how despicable the crime is.

Pinning Swartz' suicide on overzealous prosecutors is as fair as pinning Jacintha Saldanha's suicide on the radio hosts. It may be a contributing factor, but not the only one.

People are WAY too keen to blame a single thing (person or otherwise) as the cause for whatever evil they see, and are WAY too scared of thinking let alone saying that people may have a mental illness. Just look at how quick people are to blame video games for the acts of murderers these days.

You don't attempt suicide (successfully or otherwise) if you're not mentally ill, be it temporary, short term, long term or chronic.

Yes, he made the choice to take his own life. He also made the choice of knowingly breaking the law (unreasonable or not). Rosa Parks made a similar decision as did Nelson Mandela and many others around the world. But unlike Swartz, they didn't choose to take their own life.

And you can say a lot of things about the US prison system, but I'm pretty sure it is a LOT more comfortable than what Mandela went through.

Re:Nope

[penix1]

which completely discounts the fact that he broke into a storage closet, Setup the laptop hooked without authorization to their network to run the scripts that violated the TOS.

Look, he knew what he was doing was wrong and that there would be consequences or he wouldn't have gone to the elaborate route he did to gain access to that closet and network. That, IMO is what caused the wire fraud charge.

Re:Nope

[Sique]

Yes, he set up a computer to perform the downloads. Yes, this was violating the terms on which he was on campus and getting access to JSTOR. But he didn't steal, and that's what I was correcting. If he actually stole something out of the closet, he would have gotten an one year sentence, and be done with it. But he was charged with 25+ years of prison and an US$1 mio fine. And that's where things go out of hand. And that's why some people are upset. It's like shooting people for spraying walls.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

"...he broke into a storage closet" ==> which is not theft
"setup the laptop hooked without authorisation" ==> which is not theft
" violated the TOS" ==> which is not theft

What was your counterpoint again?

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

*IF* the claims were correct, he was not guilty merely of violating the Terms of Use of JSTOR, but also trespassing at MIT. Yes, neither of these are theft, but it is an oversimplification to claim he only violated the Terms of Use. It's like breaking into someone's office in order to illicitly photocopy something. Even if "photocopying without permission" is a pretty mild crime, and even if it were dismissed as "minor", there would still be the issue of breaking into someone's office and (temporarily) taking stuff.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

liar liar pants on fire. It doesn't help your argument to present allegations as facts. Without proven facts the rest of your post is manure.

Re:Nope

[taz346]

He did not "break in" to a storage closet. He walked into an unlocked room that was already being accessed by others, including a homeless man. He was never charged with the crime of breaking and entering. MIT had the option to have him charged with that, and they declined to do so. He covered his laptop as any sensible person might have done, to conceal it from others who could have walked into the unlocked room (and did) and taken it had they seen it sitting there in the open. Again, MIT had ample opportunity to have him charged with breaking and entering, as well as trespassing. They, as well as local prosecutors, declined to do that.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Eggshell Skull Rule (you take your victim as you find them) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull_rule
- the DOJ should be held responsible for their tactics. If it turns out he was weaker than a mob boss who would laugh at a 50 year sentence as a fake game, then the DOJ should not be applying the mob boss tactics. If they do - then they should be held responsible.

- that said we have a serious case of insincerity and gaming going on in our legislature. They make up penalties that don't fit the crime which gives the DOJ a wide lattitude to decide what to ask for. A crime and penalty should be more keenly matched and it is the legislature who we have hired to represent us in determining the appropriate match of crime/punishment- how have abdicated that authority to the DOJ - purposely so the DOJ can game the citizens with threats of disproportionate punishment.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't steal he didn't break in he was just a poor guest. He went someplace he was not allowed to go took things he was not allowed to take. This is what we have volumes of law books instead of just 10 Commandments. He knew what he did was wrong, if he was trying to make a statement he should have.
Information wants to be free? the people who made the information don't have the same opinion.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

No he was not authorized to use JSTOR at MIT. MITs access to JSTOR and MIT's network (and MIT's campus) are only for faculty, employees, students, and their guests. Of which Swartz was none. He was literally a guy who walked in off the streets to take advantage of the special circumstances at MIT. He could have downloaded articles using his account at Harvard but we all know why he didn't do that. However, even if he was authorized to use JSTOR at MIT at first, that ended when JSTOR and MIT took steps to stop his antics which he actively worked around for months at a time.

I subscribe to Netflix, that makes it OK to sneak into your house and use your Netflix account to try to download their entire catalog? When you discover a user abusing your systems and you take steps to stop them, it is OK for them to work around your blocks and continue to abuse your system? ...and supposedly this guy was a genius. Swartz was clearly surrounded by a Reality Distortion Field.

Re:Nope

[celle]

"It doesn't help your argument to present allegations as facts. Without proven facts the rest of your post is manure."

        I agree. In addition it was a minor local issue, one that MIT should be used to by now and the local officials didn't think anything of it. The feds should've never been involved at all.

Re:Nope

[Stan92057]

Why would such a smart kid who no matter how you sugar coat it broke the law commit suicide?? For as you put it such a small insignificant crime?

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

He was probably afraid of the very real chance his family would be bankrupted by the complex trial, and possibly years of appeals to follow, with no guarantee of not actually being found guilty.

Re:Nope

[0111 1110]

Well he really only had two choices. One was to flee to a country without an extradition treaty. The other was to kill himself. He must have had his own reasons for choosing the latter without even trying to flee from this giant prison of a country. Probably because he was already unhappy and didn't think he would be happy as a fugitive for the rest of his life. For some people prison simply is not an option. Death is preferable. I certainly would choose death over even a year in prison. Let alone 5-35 years. Death is a no-brainer in that situation.

Re:Nope

[0111 1110]

Pinning Swartz' suicide on overzealous prosecutors is as fair as pinning Jacintha Saldanha's suicide [dailymail.co.uk] on the radio hosts. It may be a contributing factor, but not the only one.

Contributing factor? I'll take that. Probably a major contributing factor. If he had had a choice to avoid prison he almost certainly wouldn't have killed himself. If you don't kill yourself when you are facing 35 years in prison, well, then you probably never will. I see it as pretty similar to killing yourself when you have untreatable cancer.

You don't attempt suicide (successfully or otherwise) if you're not mentally ill, be it temporary, short term, long term or chronic.

Bullshit. People kill themselves for many reasons. If it's a dumb reason I might agree. This was definitely not a dumb reason. Was the guy depressed and unhappy in general? Probably. Lots of people are.

Even if he were 'mentally ill' in some way, by some definition, it doesn't change the fact that Ortiz pushed him over the edge. His death can be directly attributable to her actions.

It would be one thing if he deserved to die for what he did. Like if he had raped and murdered a family or something. But all he did was put a laptop in a closet and download some files that should have been freely available anyway, which was kind of the whole point. Technically his major crime was violating a ToS, which I think a lot of us don't believe should even be a crime in any circumstance.

Re:Nope

[cenerentolo]

just name your favorite libation when you come to nyc (if you dont mind visiting decaying empires in the death rattle) and i will have a case of it ready for you and your friends

So much for democracy then

[SmallFurryCreature]

In a democracy, the power is supposed to lie with the voter. The voter has power, indeed absolute power to change the leadership every so many years and in the US even sooner because isn't that why you got so many guns... and therefor, the voter is corrupt. Nice.

The simple fact is that while a LOT of people claim outrage at this case, a LOT of people ALSO want a though stance by the justice system on OTHER peoples offenses. Hang'em all and let god sort them out is a significant voting group.

An even BIGGER group of voters is "hang em all" "oh my god, you slapped his wrist, how mean!". It is a lucrative market to serve as the media, write a story about how soft the system is on hardened criminals then a story about how hard the system is on misunderstood people and you got your readership nice and enraged and yet feeling like they are caring people after all.

The DOJ YOU got is the system your society wants. Don't believe me? Nothing has actually been changed with regards to JSTOR and its policies has it. MIT hasn't stopped working with them. Academia still submit their papers to it don't they? Everybody is having a good little cry and a nice outrage at the system and then all back on our hamster wheel part of the big machine just like before.

It reminds me of Munich. How many seconds was the collecting of wealth and fame halted after the slaughter? Did a single athlete say "no this isn't right, I won't continue". In the Tour de France at least if there is some event like a rider who died, the other riders do symbolic things like letting the affected team win or ride across the finish line as a group rather then in a race. Sometimes... if the stakes aren't to high.

How many people/organizations have declared to STOP using JSTOR or to keep themselves associated with MIT? Have many MIT students have stopped going?

People forget that oppression isn't just a person at the top going "send him down", it is an entire support system beneath it. If you want to be nice it is "good men doing nothing" but mostly it is "selfish people not doing anything unless it benefits them and even then only if it doesn't take to much effort". You might blame the Klan for segregation laws in the deep south (see how neatly I avoided mentioning the nazi's and a godwin?) but that doesn't explain how easily it was implemented and supported. Every bus driver, every shop owner, every person who went into a whites only area. Did you push YOUR granddad in the face for being part of it? No? So you think the DOJ should be punished for prosecuting a criminal but racism is okay?

Life is hard, fighting the good fight all the time is FUCKING hard. Lessig is one person who does it easily by doing the fighting through proxies and getting his proxies lumbered with million dollar punishments or until a depressed young man kills himself. How many cheered Swartz on and how many gave a depressed suicidal guy a shoulder to lean on? I sure as hell didn't. I am taking the easy way out. I know this of myself and just avoid looking at myself in the mirror. SAME AS YOU!

You can convince me differently if for instance there had been a "Spartacus" event where a lot of MIT students had copied the mass download. There wasn't. If students had left MIT. They didn't. If Academia had stopped using JSTOR. They didn't. If there had been ANY action beyond a few cheap speeches.

It is even more hilarious to read articles denouncing the DOJ on this subject matter when such sites are heavy supporters of copyright and have in the past attempted to restrict fair use of their own content.

I predict that NOTHING will change. The reason is simple, NOBODY cares. Well not enough. The next election will be about taxes and employment once again and the people will vote for the guy they think is best for them (or for Romney voters, better for that rich guy they never met and will never be) and copyright is just not a big enough issue to figure in election results yet. Hell, the US doesn't even have a green party of any note.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Genda]

Its so strange you should be having this conversation now. Apathy has this nation by the throat. It takes time to become this apathetic, spirit broken, cynical, resigned. It takes having your dreams squashed, beliefs shattered and dreams abandoned. And lie after lie after lie. On the way home I heard a public service announcement. To date 6,000,000 children have died from AIDs worldwide, all innocent victims of the epidemic. That is more children than in all the preschools and kindergartens and grade schools and High-schools in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, Atlanta and Miami combined. Apathy is lethal. This is a preventable disease. Go to apathyislethal.org.

"All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing" -- Edmund Burke

Re:So much for democracy then

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we're all very likely to confuse differing priorities for concern and action, with apathy.

You might think I was apathetic about AIDS in Africa. I'm not,exactly. With the limited amount of lifetime, useable time, exposure, and resources, I can only learn about, care about, and do something about a limited things that cause suffering. You have the same problem.

So in your estimation, AIDS in Africa is somewhere near the top of your list. That's good. Maybe for me it comes well after a long list of things that affect people I know or am more likely to know. That's not me being intentionally cold and apathetic, it's just what it is to be human.

In other news, I have to get to sleep, so I can go work tomorrow, to pay a mortgage and feed a couple of kids.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Anonymous Coward]

the problem is, people like Carmen Ortiz are unelected officials who have a lot of power to wield.

Doesnt matter who we vote for, the real power is in being in an unelected position where you can step outside the normal bounds of power.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we're all very likely to confuse differing priorities for concern and action, with apathy.

If someone thinks other issues are more important than everyone's freedoms getting violated by the TSA on a daily basis, I can only conclude that they're either evil or just naive and highly unintelligent. However, there are people who don't seem to care at all.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about the US ( being European ) , but people do care. Most people simply believe the system is too corrupt to be changed.
And that's how bureaucracy works : make it so hard to change anything, that most people give up.

All we have left is posting angry messages on slashdot. I wonder what happens when they take that away. Just a matter of time ...

Re:So much for democracy then

[Anonymous Coward]

Your freedom ends at my nose. People's freedom ends at making bombs.
Yes, there are indeed limits to freedom, and yes, there are more pressing issues in the world today than freedom.

Re:So much for democracy then

[jklovanc]

Doesnt matter who we vote for, the real power is in being in an unelected position where you can step outside the normal bounds of power.

The interesting thing is that one votes for the person appointing the United States Attorney, the President, and the people confirming the appointment, the Senate. One of the reasons for this is so that federal law is not applied differently in different parts of the country. If Federal attorneys were elected locally they would be unduly influenced by local considerations leading to a patchwork of enforcement. One does not have to vote for everything for a system to be democratic. That is why we vote for representatives who work on our behalf.

Re: So much for democracy then

[Eskarel]

Maybe I think that getting felt up by the TSA on the rare occasions I fly is at worst a minor inconvenience not some fundamental loss of freedom.
The Republican governor of my home state trying to make the electoral college votes if my home state proportional by voting district so 40% of the population get 80% of the vote is a bit more concerning and more if a threat to freedom, but disenfranchising half the population of a large number of swing states and rigging the presidential election for the foreseeable future is way less of a problem than having to wait half an hour to fly.

Re:So much for democracy then

[berashith]

The power doesnt lie with the voter. We only vote for the politicians, we dont get to vote for who is in power. The people in power are smart enough to not allow their position to rely on the whims of the population.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Mattcelt]

I hope and pray that you are being ironic, because if you are not, you are exactly what is wrong with the United States at the moment.

There is NEVER a more urgent, pressing, and immediate need than liberty. Without liberty, and the true freedoms it provides, everything else becomes meaningless.

Re:So much for democracy then

[terec]

she married a kraut

Ah, the Dutch, so tolerant and open minded.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Charliemopps]

We have 2 political parties. They both control the government. They both control the media. They both control who's allowed to be on the ballot. They both control the courts. They both control which businesses thrive and which businesses wither on the vine.

It's similar to a Hydraulic Empire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_empire
They control information in this case, and control us all by it. If we disobey them, they cut off our access to it. Or use it to imprison us. If buisnesses disobey they seize their domains or cut off their access to funding via Credit Card and crush them.
This is not an easy problem to solve. They have us by the short-hairs and most of us don't even realize it.

Re:So much for democracy then

[History's Coming To]

People's freedom ends at making bombs.

What about very small bombs designed to propel one piece of shrapnel down a tube?

Re:So much for democracy then

[celle]

"That is why we vote for representatives who work on our behalf."

        Now if they just did that.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Anon-Admin]

We have 2 political parties. They both control the government. They both control the media. They both control who's allowed to be on the ballot. They both control the courts. They both control which businesses thrive and which businesses wither on the vine.

\

But they dont control the enforcement of the law!

All you have to do is sit on a jury and vote innocent on anyone that is brought up on a stupid law or on charges that are way over the top. They can pass all the laws they want it is up to we the people to enforce them. Sad that so many want to complain about the system but then work to get out of jury duty.

Re: So much for democracy then

[CrimsonAvenger]

The Republican governor of my home state trying to make the electoral college votes if my home state proportional by voting district so 40% of the population get 80% of the vote

Which State?

And assuming your answer to the above was not Nebraska, New Mexico, West Virginia, or North Carolina, however did you manage to redistrict in such a way as to have that much population disparity between districts?

Assuming you were talking about one of those States, note that the current condition allows 50% (more or less, depends on third parties) of the population to get 100% of the vote. Which is the same ratio.

Ever notice how the subject of the "normal" (it's not universal, even now) Winner-Take-All system is debated after every election, but that the pro- and anti- side switch depending on whether their guy won the last election?

Personally, I'd favour a system where each District's Elector was obligated to vote the way his district did, and the two Electors based on the Senators were assigned by the State Legislature (or Executive, if the Legislature just can't stand the idea of going into session between the election and Christmas)....

But then, I favour going back to the system of the State governments appointing Senators, rather than popular votes for Senate seats. The whole point of the original system was that the Representatives represent the People, and the Senators represent the States, not everyone representing the People just in different blocks....

Re:So much for democracy then

[hjf]

Lil nitpick: Máxima's father is not a "war" criminal since Argentina wasn't in a war at the time. Left-wing activists claim the man is a "represor" as they call them here. "Represores" were people in Argentina's last military governemnt who actively participated in the "forced disappearance" of dissidents.

The man was Minister of Agriculture. The trend nowadays is to tag anyone who worked at the government at the time to be a "represor". By that measure, my mother must have been one, since she was a high school teacher (a state employee).

You have to understand that Argentina is now under a "regime" of former leftist-revolutionaries. Most high profile government officials (even the president herself) have been part of the group known as Montoneros (a communist/anarchist revolutionary group known for bombing the restaurant of the police headquarter's, killing only policemen children and wives; and for kidnaping a plane, forcing it down in Formosa, and take a military base at 6 AM killing all soldiers -in training- while they were waking up or showering - poor soldiers no older than 20 who traded their day off with richer kids for a few pesos).

Our minister of defense is a woman who was in the higher ranks of Montoneros, and photos of her in the jungle carrying an assault rifle have appeared and she hasn't denied. They failed in taking down the military at the time, so they're destroying it from inside now (look at the news of ships sinking IN THE PORT).

So anything you hear from Argentina, take it with much care. This isn't a government of communists. This is a government of TERRORISTS.

Re:So much for democracy then

[baffled]

Yeah, how big must the bomb be before it's illegal? And just because we'd have to draw a line doesn't mean we shouldn't draw a line. Incidents occur and one of government's responsibilities is preventing chaos and tragedy.

Of course there are limits to freedom, but dismissing it is akin to a general dismissing the stockpile of ammunition. "We have strategies to discuss! Let's not worry about the ammo right now.."

Re:So much for democracy then

[Anonymous Coward]

"In a democracy, the power is supposed to lie with the voter. The voter has power, indeed absolute power to change the leadership every so many years and in the US even sooner because isn't that why you got so many guns... and therefor, the voter is corrupt. Nice. "

What a crock! If all the candidates the "voter" is voting for are corrupted, then no, it is not the voter who is corrupted, it is ALL the people who are being voted into office. And don't pretend votes even matter anymore. The system is way too corrupted.

Re:So much for democracy then

[baffled]

You both assume democratic selection is an optimal strategy to render an employee whom wields power justly and wisely. Voting is an excellent way to gauge popular opinion.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Teancum]

I prefer medium sized bombs that throw hunks of burning paper into the sky. It is quite entertaining and I've spent several thousands of dollars on the hobby. To each their own I guess. Launching stuff really high into the sky is another related hobby I enjoy too.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the US is no Democracy you fool, it is a Representative Republic.

Re:So much for democracy then

[PhxBlue]

There is NEVER a more urgent, pressing, and immediate need than liberty. Without liberty, and the true freedoms it provides, everything else becomes meaningless.

One problem with this sentiment is that folks who believe this tend to forget that other people have the right to liberty as well. Your right to fire a weapon ends when I'm in the path of your bullet unless I'm threatening your life or limb.

The other problem is that folks who believe this tend to forget that with liberty comes responsibility. When you fire a weapon, you are responsible for the consequences that result from where the bullet lands.

Re:So much for democracy then

[garyoa1]

"The DOJ YOU got is the system your society wants"? Not so sure about that. Most folks are scratching their heads about what's going on in the political world today. Can it be that government has finally gotten to the point where it supersedes anything that the common man desires? Seems brainwashing has become a real art.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but I thought AIDS was just something that homo fags got. That's what my senator told me.

Re:So much for democracy then

[sjames]

They have a trap for nullification too. When I was in voir dire, we were asked to swear under oath that we would judge the facts and not the law.

So, tell the truth and get excused or perjure yourself.

Re:So much for democracy then

[AwesomeMcgee]

Very well said. I couldn't agree more, it's unfortunate but true. For my case, I have a wife and kid with a disease of monstrous costs thanks to our countries corporations-first approach. I have had all hopes or dreams of taking risks removed completely by the fact that my wife and kid live only due to money I make to pay to insurance and medical specialists. To be responsible to them I mustn't act in ways that risks this income-flow, how many others have similar responsibilities that ensures they turn the other cheek as well? My rights have been removed by debt, I do not have a right to free speech for saying many things would sincerely risk my wife and child's life. I do not have a right to create or own a business for without a group-rate insurance I am risking my wife and child's life. I do not have a right to own a home for medical debt collectors would take it from me. I do not have a right to protest for my company may run background-checks periodically as well as any future job would, and such activity would show up.

How many others are strapped by responsibility pushed onto them by corporations enslaving them such as the insurance companies have me? Single mothers who need to pay for daycare and mustn't risk their ability to meet responsibility to their child, they have no fallback after all (their parents haven't retired, how could they? In this day and age such is impossible for most.). People tricked into bad mortgages, and every other combination of misfortune that makes doing anything but turning the cheek, simply irresponsible.

I would love to act, but would such not be simply cruel to those who depend on me? So yes, I cannot look myself in the mirror knowing I violate my own principles every day, knowing any sense of hope or dream is to be ignored completely, knowing terrible things will happen to others due to my not acting but terrible things will happen to those I love if I do.

Life is suffering, and in this country it's everything we can do just to ensure it's not our own suffering while folks act corruptedly in this same vein and one can't help but identify with those people while simultaneously being disgusted by them, and glad when they don't commit their actions upon us while constantly afraid they might. Constant fear, this is the steady state of an American. For the right wing it's fear of the government, for the left it's fear of corporations, but for all of us it keeps us repressed by our own minds, by our own world we have created where we speak of limitless possibilities but live in fear of any of them.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Mattcelt]

Agreed. With power comes responsibility, to adapt a phrase.

I concur with the view that the rights of an individual extend fully to the rights of another, but not beyond, if those rights are mutually exclusive.

What I'm positing is that there is no more egregious harm in the universe one can do to another than to deprive them of their liberty without just cause.

Re:So much for democracy then

[cayenne8]

On the way home I heard a public service announcement. To date 6,000,000 children have died from AIDs worldwide, all innocent victims of the epidemic. That is more children than in all the preschools and kindergartens and grade schools and High-schools in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, Atlanta and Miami combined. Apathy is lethal.

While that is indeed sad, it isn't one of my concerns really. When we can address and solve the pressing issues in our own country (US for me), then, I'll start to worry about other places and countries in the world.

You take care of your own family first, so to speak.

That's not apathy...that's just common sense.

Re:So much for democracy then

[bbelt16ag]

well, i learn something everyday.

Re:So much for democracy then

[bbelt16ag]

and considering they could use the military to wipe out a portion of the pop. that revolted with said guns and force the rest into submission with the threat of force then those guns mean not a damn thing then to keep a criminal out of your house or to kill a rabid animal. you are better off with an education and unbiased knowledge then a gun. They do better in revolutions than any weapon.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Anonymous Coward]

Worth noting, that the Department of Justice was created out of nothingness. "Police force" is actually a pretty modern idea in the history of humanity. Crime used to be regarded primarily as a private matter for investigations. Even with the ratification of the Constitution there were several guards against tyranny (half of the bill of rights concerns that kind of stuff, #4 through #8) that seem to argue against the formation of a national police force beyond US Marshalls.

Re:So much for democracy then

[sgt_doom]

Exactly! If the power even remotely lied with the electorate, there wouldn't be 40,000 plus super-paid lobbyists in D.C. and nearby....

Re:So much for democracy then

[Genda]

And when laws are passed that short circuit due process, fair representation, access to legal remedy? Rendition, how do you fight injustice, once you've been taken off the street and stuck on a plane to be tortured in the Middle East? In theory what you say is true, however the masses have been profoundly manipulated by a government / corporate monolith looking to concentrate power through the structured disempowerment of "The People." How do you address that threat when the growing majority of people are responding to these problems grounded in superstition, magical thinking and divisive dogma? By the way, I'm not saying I have answers, I'm just trying to accurately describe the problem set.

It occurs to me, that people need to create communities composed of people who are awake (they could be virtual, not needing to live in a single locality, though there might be laws representing neighborhoods, towns and cities that would amplify the power of the community intent), and working in concert to illuminate their neighbors, promote taking back concentrated power, decentralizing government and fire-walling banks, corporations and religious institutions such that national and ultimately global interests are focused on human and humane needs (which by the way must be prioritized according to the will of the community.) We also need to educate people in the importance of responsibility and responsible belief. Responsible belief, would give every person the freedom to believe as they choose, but not inflict their beliefs on others. The common infrastructure needs to be devoid of belief and simply deal with the vital facts ensuring life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Re:So much for democracy then

[adri]

.. sounds like a question for a lawyer. Is that particular oath legally binding?

Re:So much for democracy then

[Genda]

This is great.. so the world is filled with horrors and tragedies and injustices, and as you say a person can only do so much, attend so much. So one of the purposes of our "Government" is to address those issues which we cannot effectively as individuals... or is it? Is this better handled by social institutions, and how do social institutions invent, implement and enforce workable solution particularly in places of social unrest where local governments are responsible for the persistence of conditions leading to catastrophe? We now have the infrastructure for humanity to begin prioritizing the urgency of the problems facing humanity and providing the best and brightest of us to promote possible solutions.

I'm not sure what it will take to make this happen, but I would love to have this be the topic of discussion for the entire race, because this self obsessed, sleep walking state that most people live in is killing us all.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but I thought AIDS was just something that homo fags got. That's what my senator told me.

Really? Who is your senator? When and where did he or she say this?

Re:So much for democracy then

[Genda]

I get it, man does not live by bread alone, but man needs bread. The list is Life then Liberty. Being free to starve to death is not freedom. So true Liberty inherently demands that man be free of want for basic needs. Or perhaps that every man has free access to the essentials of life. I would assert our current society is broken precisely because a growing number of people have no access. When there are fewer jobs than workers, those remaining unemployed through no fault of their own, have been excluded from participating in the basic transactions of life and liberty. Some of you will argue that they are responsible for not being fit to compete, and I would repeat, if there are fewer jobs than workers then there will always be the ones who won't work no matter how hard the workers hone their skills, the entire thing becomes a lottery.

So I would assert that issues the preclude LIFE have a higher priority than LIBERTY and those critical issues that impact both simultaneously are the most important of all. Or are you saying that living free is more important than living? Because with life there is always the possibility of liberty, the converse is not true.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Anonymous Coward]

You decided to commit yourself to a family which does require sacrifice of one type or another. You were not forced into this relationship. Some people have multiple children regardless of whether they can actually afford them. Believe it or not there are people in the US who live their lives with the full understanding that they are responsible fir their own choices. Every society and economy can only afford so many people who take from the whole while offering nothing in return. Government benefits such as unemployment, medicaid (govt health care), rent subsidies are supposed to be temporary measures to give the person the chance to improve their situation. Entitlements are not a way of life. What freedom of speech would put your family in danger? Been over in Afghanistan drawing cartoons of a well known religious figure? Medical debt collectors cannot take your home. As a matter of fact you can declare personal bankruptcy and your primary residence is protected. Bankruptcy takes care of all your unsecured debt and you basically start over. Bankruptcy does not stigmatize you for your entire life. You can usually have a rather good credit score within 5 years of declaring bankruptcy and being a responsible consumer. People were not tricked into bad mortgages. People freely accepted mortgages for houses way out of their price range. People continue to spend irresponsibly and building up debt. You don't by a $500K house when you make $50K per year. I really hope your post is a joke because blaming the world for all your problems will never get you any where.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Mattcelt]

While I see your point, I respectfully disagree. At the risk of being trite, I offer a couple of famous quotes as counter-examples:

"Give me liberty or give me death." -popularly attributed to Patrick Henry

"With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die free men rather than to live slaves." -Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms, Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson

These words, combined with the silent statements of countless people who have given their lives to preserve others' liberty, I think this speaks well that liberty is, at times, more important than life. And it is easily inferred that life, without liberty, is not worth living.

And while it may be perfectly acceptable for some to live life with only the hope of future liberty, as this is of itself an exercise of liberty, it is not acceptable for those who concede their liberties to acquiesce to the concession of the liberties of those who do not.

Re:So much for democracy then

[s.petry]

Well stated, too bad I have no mod points today :(

Re:So much for democracy then

[DMUTPeregrine]

I agree. I feel that murder is wrong not from some inherent wrongness, but because it denies the victim of the right to life, the right to free thought (they're dead), the right to free speech (they're dead), etc, etc. It is this ultimate denial of rights (well, except the right to remain silent) that makes murder wrong.

Re:So much for democracy then

[s.petry]

This is a razors edge, and I'm not sure you are looking at the correct side for the post you responded to. Are there times when the preservation of liberty requires the giving of life? Absolutely. Are there times when saving a life requires giving up Liberty? Absolutely.

The point I believe being made, it's not mind so feel free to correct me, requires looking at society and not the individual. In order to establish and maintain liberty in a society at times there must be some sacrifice.

It's also important to note that the founders never stated that "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" were mutually exclusive. Those three things, in all of their complex definitions are entitled to everyone.

Re:So much for democracy then

[Genda]

No you hit it on the head, I am absolutely clear that the preservation of liberty may demand the sacrifice of life, and that free men have that choice, and that it is an inseparable part of the liberty to be able to choose. However, being denied free access to the necessities of life is itself the greatest threat to liberty (and free access is the crux, the phrase that rubs some raw, because in an environment that demands quid pro quo, free access might mean simply giving the resources to those in need or it could mean just be making certain everyone has the opportunity to participate in the economy of needs.)

When you are denied the right to life, your only freedom is to choose to die, and that is no freedom at all. Without choice, there is by definition, no freedom.

Re:So much for democracy then

[coastwalker]

The problem you have identified is that human beings en mass are disgustingly ignorant and unable to come up with anything useful. This is a shocking discovery when you look at our blind belief of democracy. Sadly it seems that democracy is usually disastrous. I haven't figured out a better system but it is undoubtedly true that democracy is awful. We may have learned lots of things about how the physical universe works but I don't think we have a clue about how to organize society.

Re: So much for democracy then

[Eskarel]

I was referring to Wisconsin, and the congressional district populations which is what they're actually calling for are closer in population than I had thought. There's still gerrymandering going on, and I tend to knee jerk distrust any politician who suggests changing voting districts because they're all crooked.

I have no beef with the idea that conservatives or liberals should have their voices heard and that a more proportional voting system would be a better choice, but every time politicians are given the opportunity to divide up a group of voters they use it to rig the results, on both sides of the line, and they shouldn't be allowed to do it in this instance or any other.

Re:So much for democracy then

[PhxBlue]

What I'm positing is that there is no more egregious harm in the universe one can do to another than to deprive them of their liberty without just cause.

I think we're of like minds on this. I do, however, see a fair amount of just cause when we're talking about a device that can kill another human being with just eight pounds of finger pressure.

Breaking the definition of justice.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are out to "make a example", or to "crush a person like a bug" for doing something you don't like. You are a asshole, and works on something completelly unrelated with justice. If at the same time you fail to stop banksters from break the economy and still not enter jail. Then you are just a idiot that is wasting everyone time, and your criminal neglicence will be paid for this whole generation and the next. You are a bloody idiot.

Ortiz created that problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Zippo01, there's no confusion here, a person charged with WIRE FRAUD who committed WIRE FRAUD should be prosecuted for WIRE FRAUD face the evidence in court and and serve a penalty for WIRE FRAUD.

Whereas, a person guilty of COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, should NOT be charged with WIRE FRAUD, prosecuted for WIRE FRAUD, and lots more extreme laws with the intention of denying them the court hearing by mudslinging.

Is it really so hard?

" The court system is already backed up, could you imagine if every charge when to trial."

MIT & JSTOR didn't want it prosecuted, it was ORTIZ that wanted it prosecuted. SHE created the burden on the court system! The original prosecutor thought it wasn't worth a judicial penalty FFS. Not only did she create the burden on the court, she then misuses the plea bargain to try to prevent the court ever hearing the case. Too risky to let it go to trial due to her mudslinging. All very very unprofessional of her.

Very unprofessional.

Re:Ortiz created that problem

[UltraZelda64]

Zippo01, there's no confusion here, a person charged with WIRE FRAUD who committed WIRE FRAUD should be prosecuted for WIRE FRAUD face the evidence in court and and serve a penalty for WIRE FRAUD.

Well done, AC, well done. You nailed it.

Re:Ortiz created that problem

[zippo01]

If the wire fraud was such an outlandish charge with no cause, then it could have easily been dismissed, by the/a judge or appeal. This would have been done in a hearing long before a trial would have occurred. You say its unprofessional, others would say different. What I am saying is its all subjective.

Re:Ortiz created that problem

[jklovanc]

You really need to read what wire fraud is;

18 USC 1343 - Fraud by wire, radio, or television
Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

When Swartz attempted to access the MIT network after being kicked off he used a fictitious name which is considered a "false or fraudulent pretense". His purpose was to obtain copyright material which is also considered "writings". So according to this law, pretending to be someone else on the internet to obtain documents you are not authorized to have is "Fraud by wire, radio or television" and the maximum penalty is 20 years in prison. Copyright infringement was only one of the crimes Swartz committed. He also committed wire fraud.

The issue with not prosecuting is that it sets a precedence. If a good defense lawyer can point to a few cases that were not prosecuted they can get their client off as a case of "selective prosecution". The prosecutor is in a bind because if they do not prosecute the current case they may not be able to prosecute a similar but much more serious case in the future.

Re:Ortiz created that problem

[trout007]

I honestly WANT every charge to go to trial. Of course judges, DA's, and lawyers don't want that because it would mean they lose their power. But the key here should be a jury of peers deciding the following.
1. Is the law just? If so
2. Is the person guilty? If so
3. What should be the punishment.

That's it.

Re:Ortiz created that problem

[Anonymous Coward]

a person charged with WIRE FRAUD who committed WIRE FRAUD

Swartz was charged with wire fraud because he met the provisions of the law: he gained access to property by false pretenses. Case law is clear that JSTOR contents are "property", and spoofing his IP and Mac address meets the "false pretenses" criterion. The law is overly broad, but that's the law as Congress wanted it. And while some people might be caught in this law accidentally, Swartz knowingly and deliberately broke it.

MIT & JSTOR didn't want it prosecuted

What MIT and JSTOR want doesn't matter. It is the job of the prosecutor to represent the interests of the public, and the public has an interest (as documented by the law itself) to punish people who access computers without authorization. Without punishment, Swartz would likely have continued his behavior.

Re:Ortiz created that problem

[Anonymous Coward]

allegedly guilty of coypright infringement. innocent until proven guilty and all that.

Re:Ortiz created that problem

[Anonymous Coward]

If the wire fraud was such an outlandish charge with no cause, then it could have easily been dismissed, by the/a judge or appeal. This would have been done in a hearing long before a trial would have occurred.

The judge doesn't have power to dismiss charges, which is equivalent to finding "not guilty." The terms of wire fraud are:

Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

Now, you can legitimately argue that, by plugging into MIT's network, he was effectively and falsely representing himself as an MIT student to the JSTOR server, by means of wire, with the intent to obtain (intellectual) property. Whether a jury will see that "false representations" in the law is intended for human-to-human communication, and that "money or property" is intended for things of real economic value (as opposed to the completely separate set of law dealing with copyright), is a pretty tough call. Whether a jury would have found him guilty of wire fraud is a roll of the dice and who-has-the-better-lawyer.

Re:Ortiz created that problem

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to understand that judges are not the paragons of justice that you think they are. They are very human with the same failings as the rest of us. Most toe the government line. If you broke the law, however stupid that law is, they will happily throw you into jail and throw away the key. Take Wire Fraud or Mail Fraud. If you have ever made a phone call, sent an e-mail or sent a letter that was not completely 100% honest then you can be imprisoned. They actually jailed someone for sending a letter to a job applicant saying "we are considering you for the job" when they had already decided to give the job to someone else. On TV judges slam the gavel and yell "outrageous". IRL they used this to nail the guy.

Re:Ortiz created that problem

[Anonymous Coward]

> If a good defense lawyer can point to a few cases that were not prosecuted they can get their client off as a case of "selective prosecution".

You misspelled "may". There are no black and white certainties in the court. The judge or jury can just refuse to accept that it is selective prosecution, and that is that. Happens all the time. Millions of people defrauded the IRS by claiming to have children so they could claim a tax deduction. When the IRS asked for the SSNs of those children one year, they all disappeared: 7 million kids 'vanished' overnight. Now if you get charged with defrauding the IRS, pull that out of your hat and see how far you get.

Re:Ortiz created that problem

[0111 1110]

Nowhere does it mention anything about using a fictitious name. I couldn't help but notice that it also mentions intent. The intent to defraud or obtain money or property. That was clearly not the case. The charge is absurd. However the charge against Miss Ortiz for malicious prosecution would not be absurd. She knew very well that Swartz was not guilty of even half of what she charged him with. She had political ambitions and Swartz was nothing more than a bug to squash. She is a sociopath and a bad person. Frankly she belongs in prison.

Re:Ortiz created that problem

[jklovanc]

You might want to at least check the original indictment:

Swartz registered on the network using identifiers chosen to hide his identity as
the computer’s owner and user.
a. The computer was registered under the fictitious guest name “Gary Host.”

I couldn't help but notice that it also mentions intent. The intent to defraud or obtain money or property.

The property is the documents that he downloaded.
I bet if you took the time to look up each charge you wuill find that the charge fits the crime.

Re:Ortiz created that problem

[cenerentolo]

have you signed the white house petition yet???? https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck

Sounds like a game

[naranek]

It sounds like it's just a game for them. You pit prosecution and defense against each other and both try to win the match. It's just that in this game the goal should be that justice is served, and not that your side wins. It also seems that the other side figured out a tactic that guarantees easy wins. I think that this outcome is kind of natural - we all want to be as good as possible in what we do. At the same time it's also horribly wrong.

What about...

[Anonymous Coward]

...making Carmen Ortiz an "example" of this kind of abusive behavior from the prosecution?

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck

US-citizens, your future is in your hands.
We, as in "foreigners", can only look at all this mess and shake our heads, which we do alarmingly and increasingly often...

Re:What about...

[Anonymous Coward]

US-citizens, your future is in your hands. We, as in "foreigners", can only look at all this mess and shake our heads, which we do alarmingly and increasingly often...

That's because "you as foreigners" don't know much about the US. Swartz faced a maximum of a few years in prison, the same as he would have in most of Europe for the same crime.

Re:What about...

[buybuydandavis]

...making Carmen Ortiz an "example" of this kind of abusive behavior from the prosecution?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Laws don't apply to our *rulers*, and in particular, not for our rulers in the criminal "justice" system.

Re:What about...

[Anonymous Coward]

US-citizens, your future is in your hands. We, as in "foreigners", can only look at all this mess and shake our heads, which we do alarmingly and increasingly often...

That's because "you as foreigners" don't know much about the US. Swartz faced a maximum of a few years in prison, the same as he would have in most of Europe for the same crime.

what crime?
TOS doesn't carry much legal weight in Europe, and I've never heard of criminal proceedings over copyright infringement, unless the defendant was actively selling and had profited from sales of the copyrighted material in question.

Re:What about...

[Anonymous Coward]

Eric Holder - Responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Mexicans, Guilty (as in a court of law) of failing to comply with requests from Congress on the issue. Not charged or investigated.
Janet Reno - Responsible for the deaths of 78 citizens in Waco. Never charged with anything and I don't remember her even having to answer questions.
David Gregory - Felony possession of a clip over 10 round capacity in DC, knowing full well it was a felony before he did it on national TV. Not prosecuted because it is a "first amendment right", but you do the same you go to jail.

It is a two tiered system. If you can help the White House you can commit hundreds of murders and not even have to answer questions. If you can give the president a good interview you can commit firearms felonies and not be charged.

Re:What about...

[lightknight]

I believe 25 years is more than a few years.

Re:What about...

[cpghost]

Laws don't apply to our *rulers*, and in particular, not for our rulers in the criminal "justice" system.

You know, they call the criminal justice system "criminal" for a good reason...

Re:What about...

[celle]

"Swartz faced a maximum of a few years in prison, the same as he would have in most of Europe for the same crime."

        That's not all and you know it.

Re:What about...

[alexo]

If the aftermath of this does not completely ruin Ortiz's career, then Swartz has died in vain.

Re:What about...

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad part is that even though I would love to sign that petition, I am too fearful of what my own government would do with the information. I truthfully have absolutely no doubt that, as Charliemopps said above, those petition websites are merely a front for collecting the contact information of "political dissidents".
Glean from that what you will, from your outside-looking-in perspective.

Re:What about...

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, I get the urge for a petition. But couldn't someone who maybe speaks English as a first language have written it? The whole first 'paragraph' is just a sentence fragment with random punctuation thrown in; there isn't even a verb!

Reform plea bargaining.

[jcr]

If the prosecutor offers a lower penalty for a guilty plea, then the government is admitting that the lower penalty is sufficient if the accused is guilty, and that should be what the defendant is in jeopardy of if he goes to trial. The effect of the threat of drastic sentences for minor offenses means that most of the time, the accused is denied his right to trial by jury.

-jcr

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Anonymous Coward]

America still has a right to trial by jury? Surely not...

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[oztiks]

JCR I don't agree with many of your comments which I've read on /. over the years but this one gains you my respect.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jklovanc]

When there is no doubt that a defendant has broken a law there is no incentive to that defendant to plead guilty. In the best case there could be a procedural error and the defendant will walk free. In the worst case the defendant will get what was offered in the plea deal. Do you really want every minor infraction that would put someone away for less than a year to have to go to court? Do you realize how clogged the courts already are and what a mess they would be if that happened? The reason the prosecutors threaten more jail time is to give the defendant incentive to admit to what was actually done. By the way, as part of a plea deal counts can be dropped by the prosecutor so the judge is limited in what sentence can be imposed.

The one thing missed is that if the defendant is really innocent it does not matter what sentence he is threatened with as it will never be imposed. In the Swartz case he was filmed entering the closet to replace hard drives. There was no doubt about his wrongdoing. All that needed to me done was decide the sentence. Swartz insisted on no consequences for something he knew was against the law.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[DarkOx]

Then maybe the problem is there are two many minor infractions. If we are not willing to give someone their day in court over a matter than we probably should not be regulating it in the first place

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[cheekyjohnson]

Do you really want every minor infraction that would put someone away for less than a year to have to go to court?

If it means that innocent people stop being punished by the 'justice' system? Absolutely.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet, Swartz favored creating many more "minor infractions". Or what do you think the consequences of all the national laws Obama and the progressives have been advocating would be?

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[buybuydandavis]

Thank you. Saved me the trouble.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jklovanc]

That implies that Swartz was innocent which he obviously was not. He broke into a server closet and installed his own hardware into MIT's network without authorization to obtain documents he was not authorized to have. He broke a number of laws. The only valid discussion is which ones.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jklovanc]

Do we stop regulating speeding, theft under $500, trespassing, etc? The issue is not how minor the offense is but how often they are committed and that the offenses clog the courts with needless procedures on the off chance that something will go wrong and the defendant will get off. It is no longer a quest for justice but a crap shoot.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[TFAFalcon]

The only thing a prosecutor should be allowed to offer is a recommendation to the judge for a lower sentence. The crime charged should never change.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[cheekyjohnson]

That implies that Swartz was innocent

No, it doesn't. I never mentioned anything about Swartz. All it implies is that certain innocent people might be taking plea bargains, and the system completely allows for this.

which he obviously was not.

As far as I know, he was never convicted.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really want every minor infraction that would put someone away for less than a year to have to go to court?

That's the idea, YES!!!
Separation of powers is not just to prevent 1 man from gaining all powers and becoming dictator, it's also to balance the powers.
The idea is that the government can only do bad things to you if all of the following conditions apply:
1) a law was made that defines what you did as bad and punishable. (gov arm 1)
2) a police officer judges for himself that you broke said law, and than decides if he should arrest you for it or not. (He judges the law in question) (gov arm 2)
3) a court determines if step 1 and step 2 were correct (gov arm 3)
4) the people then decide in court, represented by the jury, how it all applies to this specific case

The system is 'complex' this way to ensure the people can't get easily punished or touched by government. If anyone in steps 1 to 4 decides not to go further, the government can't touch the civilian.

Unfortunately, cops can't think for themselves, they don't have to define what laws were actually broken that led to the arrest. Lawmakers increasingly make everything illegal with broad laws to make sure everybody can be arrested and the judiciary has shown that they have no idea how to balance one misstep with a persons life. Furthermore they are all colluding to make locking someone up as easy and simple as possible.
This is no longer justice, it has become persecution with big money interests deciding who the target groups are.

A suggested quick fix:
The police officer has to determine what law was broken and the suspect can only be prosecuted for the law(s) he was arrested.

This would fix a few things: Cops need to learn some laws (traffic cops learn traffic law, ...), laws need to become fewer and simpler so the cops can actually apply them (which means citizens may actually understand them as well), plea bargaining can no longer be used to intimidate a suspect into a lesser confession.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jklovanc]

I guess the videos of him entering the closet and changing hard drives ins not enough evidence for you. This is another reason why this is not a representative case as we will never know what would have happened if Swarts had lived.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[DarkOx]

Speeding, theft, trespassing, are all things that should take a properly function court no more than an hour to hear and settle unless there are really interesting legal questions to deal with. There evidence is there or its not for the vast majority of those cases. Many states and localities actually REQUIRE minors to go to court for those infractions; they can't skip the trial.

Court costs are often part of the punishment for those crime if you are convicted and I think that is perfectly fair. I am not opposed to letting most of these minor matters be handled as bench trials, unless the defendant requests a jury, and thereby incurs the risks court costs will be much higher if they are found to be guilty.

Finally our system of justice was originally designed around the idea that its better we let 10 guilty men walk than punish 1 innocent. If lots guilty people are walking because the system can't follow its own procedures; than chances are things are not working so well for the innocent either. That is clear indicator the system is not working and needs to be fixed immediately because obviously it poses an unjust risk of false conviction to the innocent. So in short I am not uncomfortable with that proposition either.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[oztiks]

Yes but do we forgo a constitutional right based on the academic argument "we cannot afford enough gravels and desks for all these minor infractions" and push one step closer to Judge Dread like society to save on overhead?

Remember this particular case bore a 60 to 1 ratio on possible sentence to plea bargain which is disproportionate and is trying to dull the need for a Judge, or should we start looking at outsourcing the judicial process for minor infractions over to China as well?

What the GP is saying will help regulate the ability of Prosecutor's to offer such plea bargains and that means they are held accountable to the laws set down within our justice system without frivolously manoeuvring them for political gain. I.E An offence that bores 30 years shouldn't be allowed to have a 6 month plea bargain attached to it therefore enticing Prosecutor's to a) make their case better b) go after just convictions with just outcomes.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jopsen]

I suppose it's about rewarding the responsibility the defendant shows by admitting his crime.
While, that makes sense, it should only be an option in minor cases.

Ie. when settling fines or charges less than 6 months...


The other problems is the accumulation of sentences, in many other countries the defendant may be found guilty on multiple accounts, these may carry minimum punishment, but the total sentence isn't necessarily an accumulation of these sentences, instead a judge is asked to make a fair decision.

That's why it's only in America you hear about people awarded 500 years of prison...

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jklovanc]

Court time are extremely variable. How long do you think it would take to explain to non technical people all the technical aspects of a case like Swartz's? Definately more than an hour.

Costs are not the issue it is court capacity. There are only so many courts and judges. Sure one could build and hire more but then everyone's taxes would rise significantly. It all sounds good till someone has to pay for it. By the way, court costs are awarded in civil not criminal cases. Fines are levied in criminal cases where applicable.

The "better we let 10 guilty men walk than punish 1 innocent" has morphed over the years from "better we let 10 guilty men walk than kill 1 innocent". Where is the line drawn? Ten guilty for one innocent is reasonable. Is 100 guilty for one innocent also reasonable? Is 1000 guilty for one innocent reasonable? If the reason people are going free is that the wait time for a court date is 5 years then there is a problem.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jklovanc]

A day in court may be a constitutional right but it is not a moral right when everyone knows the defendant has committed the crimes. No one has a right to waste tax payer money and time just because they can.

An offence that bores 30 years shouldn't be allowed to have a 6 month plea bargain attached to it

Here is where the problem with this whole discussion comes up. Most laws are written as " a maximum of X years" while some are written as "between W and X years". The "X years" is the maximum allowed for the most egregious forms of the crime. For example, the least form of breaking and entering in Florida has a maximum sentence of 5 years. So if I walked into someone else's house without permission and ate a piece of pie I could go to jail for 5 years. Does that usually happen? No. Always pointing at the maximums gives a skewed idea of the outcomes. Another tactic they used was calculating the sentences consecutively when they are usually server concurrently.

The issue is not the regulating prosecutors but writing better defined laws with more degrees of severity. That way an exact charge with an exact sentence can be pressed. These charges that are 0 to 30 years do have a wide margin for discretion. But wait, that would mean we would have ten times more laws and the only people to gain would be the lawyers.

What do you think he should have been charged with?

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the line drawn?

I don't know, but I believe we should try to minimize the number of innocent people harmed by the legal system as much as possible. When we find something that is harmful to innocent people, I believe we should try to fix it if possible.

Plea bargains? It's entirely possible to get rid of them. You're an advocate for tyranny, it seems.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[JaredOfEuropa]

As long as you realise that the defendant at this point is still merely a suspect. Suppose you're wrongly accused of something vague like wire fraud which is punished by anything ranging from a stern talking-to up to a 20 year jail term. What would you do, given the choice between 6 months for pleading "guilty", or the prosecutor demanding 20 years in a protracted court case which will likely bankrupt you? It's tempting to give in if you are actually guilty of a very minor case of wire fraud (you're still facing those 20 years after all), but even an innocent would be tempted to give in and do half a year rather than risk doing 20.

GP is right that threatening excessive sentences for minor offenses is undue duress. Where I come from, plea bargaining is extremely rare, and only used if a criminal can help bring other high profile criminals to justice by providing info or testifying. It's not used as a way to reduce the load on the court system or give prosecutors an easy win. Judges do take a suspect's cooperation in mind when they pass sentence, though.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[heathen_01]

Court time are extremely variable. How long do you think it would take to explain to non technical people all the technical aspects of a case like Swartz's? Definately more than an hour.

Assuming you are talking about the Jury, this should not be a problem if it really was a Jury of one's peers.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming you are talking about the Jury, this should not be a problem if it really was a Jury of one's peers.

No, but a room full of nerds will probably never EVER reach an agreement

http://xkcd.com/309/

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[oztiks]

So the point of your argument is precedent? I may of walked in to this argument without reflecting the GP's original sentiment as well as he did, so I'll cite it

If the prosecutor offers a lower penalty for a guilty plea, then the government is admitting that the lower penalty is sufficient if the accused is guilty, and that should be what the defendant is in jeopardy of if he goes to trial.

Precedent upheld in say trespassing is tried and true and I would go as far as saying that you'd probably receive good behaviour or maybe just a fine for your example of illicit activities and that's because of the years of legal precedent set fourth in those particular situations.

The problem here is very much an opposing scale of precedent and why the GP's argument works. Since precedent on this particular circumstance is very thin, should a prosecutor be allowed to use the law as a tactic to force a confession and help define such precedent? or should a judge be allowed this privilege? Before you answer that question consider that this is a federal matter so it does differ heavily from your typical minor offences.

Maybe it's not a problem for established and commonly applied law but it does show a weakness in fresh congressional law which is untried and untested. It also goes as far as saying that federal influence in legal matters of circumstances like this have no place unless in matters of national security and laws at a state level were fine in managing what was best described as a form of civil disobedience.

So to answer your question, nothing, no punishment.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[tlambert]

Speeding and trespassing are interesting issues. Certainly, the government itself is prohibited from either of these acts:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Speeding, if an accident is involved, has to do with being secure in your person; trespass has to do with being secure in your house, regardless of the incident. But "shall not be violated is a regulation on the action of the government, rather than on one individual against another.

In the case of individuals, it falls to the law of the State, rather than Federal law, to deal with the issue at question, which for most states means code influenced, but not dictated, by English common law.

And yeah, this makes me a strict constitutional constructivist.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Hatta]

Do you really want every minor infraction that would put someone away for less than a year to have to go to court?
Yes, yes, YES!

Do you realize how clogged the courts already are and what a mess they would be if that happened?

Do you realize how clogged the prisons are already and what a mess we are actually in?

The reason the prosecutors threaten more jail time is to give the defendant incentive to admit to what was actually done.

If you know 35 years is unjust, but it's OK to threaten someone with it in order to get them to give up their right to a trial, why stop there? Why not threaten defendents with death to coerce a guilty plea? Would you be ok with that?

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Hatta]

If it's not worth investing in a trial, it's not worth putting someone in jail for. Period.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Lithdren]

No, nobody has a right to unilaterally decide that someone has or has not broken the law. That is why we have a right to trial by jury. It is both a constitutional right and a MORAL RIGHT to have that day in court, no matter how 'odvious' you may feel it is that they are guilty.

If utilizing that right is too much for the court, then maybe that should tell people something about how we utilize the court.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Anonymous Coward]

Evidence enough for the state charges of breaking and entering a building that he was arrested for by the state. Which the state prosecutor expected to be dropped with only an admonishment.

That is not evidence for the federal charges of wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer, which would have been tough to prove considering Swartz had legitimate access and JSTOR didn't want him prosecuted and was pushing for the prosecutor for a no jail/no fine slap on the wrist.

If it weren't for MIT surprisingly being a jerk about something that happens on their campus every day, there would have been no federal case.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/15/humanity-deficit/bj8oThPDwzgxBSHQt3tyKI/story.html?s_campaign=sm_tw

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[celle]

"It is no longer a quest for justice but a crap shoot."

      Look around, it already is!

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[celle]

"Do you really want every minor infraction that would put someone away for less than a year to have to go to court?"

      Yes, maybe congress will get the message and stop passing so many over-reaching and idiotic laws and maybe repeal a few of the more stupid ones. Nah, but I can dream.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Anonymous Coward]

The point of plea bargaining is to avoid a trial, which is the defendants right to have, because it is very expensive and time consuming. If you're guaranteed not to be worse off for going to trial then incentive to plea is greatly reduced. There is always a chance that a jury will come back with an aquittal or get deadlocked. Under your proposal the indigent would never plea and a fair portion of those who could afford some defense wouldn't either. In any event, our system has checks and balances - it is a disinterested third party that actually determines the sentence and the sentence is always within a range created by elected representatives.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[IndustrialComplex]

The term 'Jury of peers' is just a holdover from the time when society had multiple classes of people. If you were a noble, your peers were nobles. If you were a commoner, your peers were commoners.

In the US, the basic concept is that because we don't have royalty/nobility and everyone is equal under the law, then we are all 'peers'. This has been debated a bit when it comes to the racial/ethnic makeup of the jury, but for the most part, the jury 'should' match the typical person in the US (of the general area of the court)

So, back to your point. The expectation of a jury's technical background should be no more or less than the typical american.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Sarius64]

I sat on a jury where a lady didn't want to convict someone for masturbating in front of kids because we didn't know what he was thinking. She wasn't the nerd in the group.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jklovanc]

The day in court is when the accuses stands up for what he did and accepts the sentence handed down by the court. All charges do not need to be litigated. If you are going to court an pleading not guilty when you did the crime then you are lying. The innocent until proven guilty works just as well if the accused walks into court and tells the truth and pleads guilty.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jklovanc]

Do you want to pay a couple hundred dollars a year more in taxes so every charge can be litigated? I doubt it.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jklovanc]

Why not threaten defendents with death to coerce a guilty plea? Would you be ok with that?

No it would not be and that is irrelevant, as all slippery slope arguments are, as it is not happening. If it does then I am with you. Until then I am not.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jklovanc]

It also goes as far as saying that federal influence in legal matters of circumstances like this have no place unless in matters of national security and laws at a state level were fine in managing what was best described as a form of civil disobedience.

Federal jurisdiction also handles areas of interstate trade. Wire fraud is an interstate trade issue.

So to answer your question, nothing, no punishment.

So anyone should be able to break into a server closet at a university and use their network in any way desired? I disagree.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Shotgun]

The one thing missed is that if the defendant is really innocent it does not matter what sentence he is threatened with as it will never be imposed.

As someone that has had to pay for a lawyer to defend his innocent son, I must respectfully say that you haven't a clue what you're talking about. You are channelling what the system SHOULD be like. What actually happens if you refuse to play the game is that you are put in jail until your court date. You can post bail if you have money, but then if you had money your lawyer would have talked to the DA and the charges would be dropped. Either way, you're out of bail bond or lawyer fees. If you've got money, no biggy. If you actually work for a living, it can be a true hardship to take out loans to make ends meet. If there were "speedy" trials, it would be one thing; but, 6 months is now considered "speedy". Try getting your factory job back after you sat in jail for 6mos, even if the charges get thrown out.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. Anyone who says otherwise is anti-freedom.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Unknown Lamer]

It's worse than you might think.

All of those minor infractions are already just bench trials, unless you lose and appeal. At least around these parts, however, you end up with around a year of continuances because the prosecution is never ready to go to trial, forcing you to appear six or more times (for up to the full court session... you can't leave until they get around to telling you they aren't ready for you, and they will purposefully make you wait there until the very end) before having your 15 minute trial. Of course, if you just plead guilty to foo, we'll recommend you only be fined bar and you won't have to suffer the shame of needing to skip out on work for a day at court every other month for a year...

You also have to pay for the jury trial, and all of your public defender time at something like $40/h if you lose. And if you lose and can't pay you are in contempt of the court...

A huge problem (at least here) is that traffic cases often escalate into new crimes... if you e.g. are ticketed for a headlight being out and fix it... to avoid paying the fine, you have to go to court! And if you miss the court date, your license is automatically suspended and you are charged with failure to appear (a warrant is then issued). And then you get pulled over again, this time arrested for driving while having a revoked license and evading an outstanding warrant, and failure to appear before the court, and you sassed that officer a bit so let's throw in resisting-delaying-or-obstructing an officer... I watched this absurd cycle dozens of times in my year waiting to be cleared for Thoughtcrime.

The emperor's legal code allows him to prosecute anyone, any time.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[butchersong]

I think you can be certain that taking the death penalty off the table is part of many plea bargins. I'm sure threats of it happen every day say, to people that might be considered accessory's to a crime in order to illicit a plea to a lessor crime.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Hatta]

Yes. Freedom is the most valuable commodity we have. My personal wealth, what little of it there is, is worth nothing if it can all be destroyed by an overzealous prosecutor on a power trip.

Besides, I'd be willing to bet we'd save money over all. Putting every charge to trial would lead prosecutors to levy fewer charges. And more people who went to trial would be found innocent. This would decrease the burden on our prison system, and allow those people to contribute positively to the economy.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[0111 1110]

The one thing missed is that if the defendant is really innocent it does not matter what sentence he is threatened with as it will never be imposed.

Huh?! Not sure if you are serious or not, but this is certainly not the case. Somehow I'm guessing you've never been anywhere near the American injustice system. Fair it is not and attorneys are often the first ones to admit that. Even prosecutors admit it.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jklovanc]

Laying fewer charges does not mean there will be fewer felons. In fact there may be even more crime as people will know there is a good likelihood that they will not be prosecuted. The state may save money but we, as individuals, will not as we will pay higher insurance, if we can even get it, or have to pay for things destroyed or stolen by criminals.

This would decrease the burden on our prison system, and allow those people to contribute positively to the economy.

I don't consider stealing everything not guarded by private security as contributing to the economy. That will happen as there will be little deterrent due to the few charges being laid.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jklovanc]

No system is perfect. Do you have a better solution or are you content with pointing fingers and saying "bad"?

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[colinnwn]

If the events you describe are correct, that is only misdemeanor tresspass for entering the closet. MIT provides anyone on campus access to their networ, and JSTOR. As well as Aaron having authorized access to JSTOR through his Harvard position.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jklovanc]

MIT allows anyone access their network when the provide their real name and when they come in through their fire-walled ports. Swartz circumvented that by plugging into an unauthorized port and giving a fictitious name. That is where the wire fraud comes in.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[0111 1110]

You are the one who suggested that if a person is innocent then they have nothing to worry about. It is such a ridiculous thing to say I was trying to decide if my sarcasm detector was faulty. So, yes, I do agree that no system is perfect and that our system is very, very far from perfect. Therefore innocent people definitely have a lot to worry about when they are accused. I know this very well as I was one of them.

In my view the Swartz case has more to do with ambitious, unethical, sociopathic, overcharging prosecutors than it does with some fundamental flaw in our so called justice system. Our justice system is definitely unjust, but the problem in this case is human and it stinks. In my view Ortis is far more guilty of a serious crime than Swartz. The problem isn't plea bargains per se. It is what unethical prosecutors are willing to do in order to negotiate more favorable (for them) plea bargains that is the problem. Prosecutors with no sense of right or wrong themselves are the problem.

Not that the prosecutors are the only ones to blame. It is also the public, the potential juror pool, who so desperately want to believe in the fairness of the justice system that they want to convict anyone accused just because they have been accused. My lack of faith in my 'peers' was one of the reasons I took a plea bargain despite both my innocence and the lack of evidence against me. People pay lip service to innocent until proven guilty only until they make it to a jury. Then they worry more about the possibility of allowing a potentially guilty person go free. After all if he hadn't done anything wrong why would the police say he did? Surely the police would never lie. That sort of thing. I see ample evidence of such people here on slashdot.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jcr]

The "war on drugs" would come to a screeching halt if every person accused of breaking unconstitutional prohibitions demanded a trial. Most of them would have to be sprung just because the system would violate their right to a speedy, public trial.

-jcr

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Anonymous Coward]

The innocent until proven guilty works just as well if the accused walks into court and tells the truth and pleads guilty.

Except that mere confessions don't actually prove that someone is guilty. Example: innocent person pleading guilty. It happens, and it happens mostly because of plea bargains.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[Hatta]

We over criminalize everything in the US already. There are far fewer people that actually deserve to be in prison than we have incarcerated.

I don't consider stealing everything not guarded by private security as contributing to the economy. That will happen as there will be little deterrent due to the few charges being laid.

And what's the difference from today? If you add up all the property crime committed in 2008, it comes to just 1 percent of what was stolen in the financial crisis that year. Our justice system already lets the worst criminals go and is proud of that fact.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[cenerentolo]

the tnt series with the ever stupendous mary mcdonnell "major crimes" uses this threat tactic to get guilty pleas. it is the other side of this argument. one wonders if this will be mentioned in discussions in the future. SIGN THE PETITION!!!! https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[jklovanc]

Sorry but two wrongs ton't make a right.

Re:Reform plea bargaining.

[DarkOx]

Swartz's case can hardly be compared with speeding, or simple theft. So I don't think it applies to my statement that a properly functioning court should be able to decide those matters in an hour. Trespassing is probably one of the many charges that could be proffered against Swartz and there again it should be pretty simple to establish if he was or was not on various parts of the campus and if he did or did not have permission to be there. That part of the trial amounts to a few simple findings of fact and probably could be done with in an hour or less.

Right for every charge to go to trial

[Anonymous Coward]

If the court system is being backed up because everyone decides they want to go to trial because it is their right (just like they have the right to free speech and to bear arms) then the problem is not with the people (defendants) but the system - on two fronts:

1) Is it necessary for so many charges to be laid that are felonies that put people in a position where they need to go to trial

and

2) if (1) is necessary then the ability of the court system to deal with the trials needs to be expanded.

People should not feel as if they are doing something wrong if they choose to exercise their constitutional right to a trial by jury.

Tired of Swartz

[Anonymous Coward]

The dude wasn't even man enough to stay alive to fight for what he believed. Why the fuck is their an article about this loser every day?

Re:Tired of Swartz

[gargll]

If I could be half the loser that Swartz was, I'd be a proud man. If we were all half the loser that Swartz was, we'd be bathing in utopia.

Re:Tired of Swartz

[Anonymous Coward]

You should kill yourself for something you believe in. We'd all be better off.

Re:Tired of Swartz

[sgt_doom]

Most eloquently spoken, good citizen!

The Ballad of Aaron Swartz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Qb0tCgNzbjk

Not the real problem

[aaaaaaargh!]

The article points to the prosecutors, but these are not the real problem. The real problem are the laws. Democratic principles of rule of law do not only concern rights of due process but also the laws themselves. Laws that allow sentences ranging from a fine up to 35 years in prison for the same crime at the discretion of the prosecutors and judge are inherently injust. That should be obvious to anyone.

As for plea bargaining itself, I personally have always considered that injust, too, because it mostly works advantagous to people with lots of money and smart lawyers. That's probably more debatable. Anyway its the system of laws themselves that would need a thorough reform - which will never happen.

Swartz was a coward

[EzInKy]

Cowards would rather die for their beliefs instead of standing up for them.

Re:Swartz was a coward

[lightknight]

Allow us to charge you with some heavy-handed crimes, and see how well you handle it.

Such is the cost of being a 'social' being; when the group turns against you, even if you are purely innocent, you still pay.

Plea bargains and accumulation of sentences

[jopsen]

it should be illegal via sentencing the prosecutor to the maximum sentence of the charged crime for charging someone with a crime only to inflate charges.

Yes, that'll keep prosecutors from charging anybody with anything serious... how is that good?
Lessig said it "proportionality", I think that should apply both ways.

That said plea bargains are absurd.
Either you did the crime and you do the time, or you didn't.

Maybe countries don't have plea bargains, and usually only for minor offences.

Another bug, in you system is the idea that if you're guilty of two crimes, you the sentences will be accumulated.
In many other countries, the judge must make an overall sentence based on what is fair.
Accumulated sentences is just about throwing away the key.

Re:Plea bargains and accumulation of sentences

[TheLink]

I've seen some cases where in my opinion it's actually one incident - but they split it into multiple crimes.

While it doesn't get as absurd as you speeding for 5 minutes and getting 300 speeding tickets for each second you were over the limit (and thus your license revoked), it's still unfair.

Re:Plea bargains and accumulation of sentences

[berashith]

I was threatened years ago by the ATF. They had nothing on me, and we both knew it, but once the feds are knocking on your door, you are in big trouble. My crime was knowing someone who was playing with small black powder pipe bombs. They tried to threaten me with ten charges at ten years a piece, for each explosion that I could be linked to. This included an accessory charge that the actual person doing the mayhem wasnt going to get, because you cant be an accessory to yourself. This is when I knew they were just playing to scare me ( it worked however , tough to play chicken with that much of your life). These 10 sentences would have been served concurrently, so my max time would have been ten years. The volume of charges would have just looked bad on my resume.

Re:Plea bargains and accumulation of sentences

[Anonymous Coward]

So what happened? Plea bargain?

Re:Plea bargains and accumulation of sentences

[Anonymous Coward]

ATF is notorious for abuse of power, and for 'making up the rules as they go'. You are lucky you're not in jail regardless (presumably).

Re:Plea bargains and accumulation of sentences

[berashith]

I held tight. They wanted me to know more, and thought I knew more, but I didnt. I gave no names, and only spoke without miranda rights ( which REALLY pissed them off, as they knew I called a lawyer). They tried to play the game of "you arent a suspect and have nothing to hide". Eventually they figured out that I wasnt the guy helping the guy, I was just a guy in the dorm. I was scared as hell in front of the grand jury though.

A fun little bit that would be stupid in a hollywood script... I fell asleep in my house watching tv, and apparently someone else who felt like playing with things that go boom decided to throw a device of some sort in some bushes to get rid of it. Happened to be about 2 blocks from my house, and I had no witness or alibi. They really leaned on me, but then I was sick of it and lost my cool and yelled at them. I had already told them how I would have disposed of things, and how I think some of the things they were interested were disposed of,and none of those ideas were as stupid as walk two blocks from my door and throw it in the bushes. They backed down ... months later I met the guy who had done it at a party and his little bomb was nothing like the ones that my friend had made. stupid

They also called someone I knew who had found a dog. His answering machine said " if you are calling about the lost black dog..." . ATF was conviced this was code speak. They wanted proof of the dog, so they stopped by to see it, and then they were cool enough to take it to the vet as it needed help and we were college kids with no cash. Still a bunch of dicks for pushing on that issue though.

Re:Plea bargains and accumulation of sentences

[jopsen]

My crime was knowing someone who was playing with small black powder pipe bombs

10 years?
I suppose "small pipes" are really big in America :)

Boycott JSTOR! Lets start WikiSTOR / SwartzSTOR!

[Anonymous Coward]

Boycott JSTOR! Lets start WikiSTOR / SwartzSTOR!In honor of Swartz, and a lasting tribute to research!

Sometimes...

[sesshomaru]

State prosecutors who investigated the late Aaron Swartz had planned to let him off with a stern warning, but federal prosecutor Carmen Ortiz took over and chose to make an example of the Internet activist, according to a report in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.

Hey, she did make an example out of Swartz, just not the kind of example she was hoping for.

He became an example of the result of the tyranny of the modern American State. (Honestly? He's not even the best example, but he's very prominent. Which is exactly why Ortiz and Heymann chose him. )

Incidentally, Shirly Sherrod lasted how long when that deceptively edited video of her was released, compared to how long Ortiz has lasted after an egregious miscarriage of Justice that she was responsible for was shown?

Seems the Obama administration has its priorities...

Re:Sometimes...

[Alranor]

Your Sig: "MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."

You can't betray your basic principles. What MIT have done is revealed that they have been lying about what their basic principles are.

Re:Sometimes...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Incidentally, Shirly Sherrod lasted how long when that deceptively edited video of her was released, compared to how long Ortiz has lasted after an egregious miscarriage of Justice that she was responsible for was shown?

On one hand you have a video purportedly showing someone admitting to a crime (racial discrimination in applying government resources) and on the other hand you have someone acting completely within the bounds of the law, even if that law is morally bankrupt, it is still the law.

I don't see any use in making that comparison beyond scoring low-information political points.

Re:Sometimes...

[cpghost]

Hey, she did make an example out of Swartz, just not the kind of example she was hoping for.

Or perhaps it was exactly what Carmen Ortiz and Heyman were hoping for. Who knows?

Re:Sometimes...

[cpghost]

Or perhaps, MIT switched their basic principles along the way? Maybe pushed to do so by their corporate sponsors, just like Congress regularly does for the very same reasons?

Strange argument

[Chrisq]

People do not commit suicide because of a single thing. It's not the rape alone that makes rape victims suicidal, it's the associated shame, social isolation, finger pointing and blame (it's never the victim's fault) as well, and those come from society - not the rapist, no matter how despicable the crime is.

So what are you saying here - if someone is raped, were previously fine, but then kill themselves because of shame that it is not the rapists fault? If not when is anything totally anyone's fault - if I beat you and left you in constant pain and paralysed then it would be your perception of pain and societies's provision and reaction to disabled that did it!

Pinning Swartz' suicide on overzealous prosecutors is as fair as pinning Jacintha Saldanha's suicide on the radio hosts.

In both cases they started a course of events that lead to someone committing suicide. Their degree of blame depends on to what degree they could have foreseen the risk, and to what degree they could have seen any unjust negative consequences for the victim (e.g. if I want to make you feel bad and you end up killing yourself I am more to blame than if I accidentally bring up a touchy subject that leads to it.). There is no doubt tough that to some extent they are to blame.

Re:Strange argument

[MartinSchou]

People do not commit suicide because of a single thing. It's not the rape alone that makes rape victims suicidal, it's the associated shame, social isolation, finger pointing and blame (it's never the victim's fault) as well, and those come from society - not the rapist, no matter how despicable the crime is.

So what are you saying here - if someone is raped, were previously fine, but then kill themselves because of shame that it is not the rapists fault?

As you quoted, I said "It's not the rape alone". I didn't say "It's not the rape[period]". And as you also quoted I said "it's [society] as well".

Why should a rape victim be ashamed? If you get robbed and stabbed, are you ashamed? Did you somehow ask to be assaulted? No - you didn't, and society at large doesn't blame you for it. But society does blame rape victims, and that adds to the pain that they suffer.

In both cases they started a course of events that lead to someone committing suicide.

I never said they didn't, and I never said they don't carry responsibility. I said you can't pin it on them. It's a subtle difference, I know.

I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but it helps when they actually read and understand what I plainly wrote.

Re:Strange argument

[Bucc5062]

"I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but it helps when they actually read and understand what I plainly wrote."

Well I read both and while you both make good points, I think the aussie did "read" what you wrote and said roughly the same thing. Pinning it on someone or claiming they are responsibly are two ways to say the same thing. The aggressive party carries some responsibility for their actions and if those actions led to a tragic end, then yes, it needs to be pinned on them.

In the case of the nurse, the act was more impromptu, the approach perhaps meant as "lighthearted" but nevertheless still a cruel act. Those radio personalities were, in some part, responsible for the actions of the nurse for it was they who made the final push. Thus their act *was* pinned on them though at worst being fired and hopefully never doing something so stupid again would be the end result.

In the case of Swartz, the prosecution also owns responsibility for the end result and grossly abused power. Swartz's death should be pinned on them as an abusive act. As many others have commented on this thread, the charges were grossly unbalanced to the crime, every other party had backed off, and a responsible professional would have worked to find a positive solution. Perhaps Swartz would have killed himself over something else; in this case he was presented with no other options but fear of two unknowns. One was enter the prison system for 30+ years (and all the hell that can be), be fined so much that he would never be more then a common laborer (after getting out of prison and assuming he could even get hired somewhere). The other unknown was death, and while terminal, it presented the better future.

When people are given power (radio voice or government prosecutor) then they are also given a greater responsibility to employ that power. Either party did not know the vitim would commit suicide, but at the least they needed and need to realize they abused their power, their responsibility. At the least the prosecutor should be fired and a public review held on plea bargain guidelines, that would now be the responsible thing for those in higher power to perform. Yes, the actions need to be "pinned" to those responsible.

Re:Strange argument

[MartinSchou]

Those radio personalities were, in some part, responsible for the actions of the nurse for it was they who made the final push.

I don't think they made the final push. One of the nurses three suicide letters criticized senior hospital staff - while I haven't read any of the letters (I don't think they've been made public), I read that as her being violently reamed by administration for what is really a tiny issue.

That being said, according to MailOnline she did blame them for it.

Personally, I don't think the radio hosts were responsible for the final push - what they did was to set off an avalanche of undue criticism, particularly undue, as she didn't do anything other than patch the hosts through to another nurse.

And really, if you read the news after the prank call on December 4th but before the suicide on December 7th, you'd have read about it. Google gives 400+ hits on that search.

ABC News. The Mirror. The Telegraph. The Star. USA Today. Fox News. The list goes on. That's not just a silly joke playing out on some radio show with a limited audience - that's world wide. For fuck's sake, it was covered as basically breaking news that the world HAD to know and be outraged about.

Personally, I can't say if it something that'd make me try suicide again, but I highly doubt I would lay all the blame at the pranksters' feet. Being the victim of a joke isn't always funny even afterwards - but then being subjected to that amount of quite frankly ludicrous public scrutiny of an honest mistake, I wouldn't put it past me to break at that.

So no - even if the nurse laid the blame squarely at the hosts' feet, I will go on record as saying that that is a very unfair and unreasonable claim to make.

Re:Strange argument

[Bucc5062]

See, I think we are just dancing around the same view, but from a different angle. Take your use of the word avalanche. I think a very apt description. If an avalanche occurs on a mountain purely by natural means and some skiers, or town got caught up in it we'd say that was an act of nature. Perhaps some finger pointing about lack of protective means could be made, but as for the start of the fall, nothing but fate.

Now if instead we have some kids out doing something stupid, like wanting to set off big firecrackers and not get caught so they hike out to a remote location, light em up in a known avalanche area, and start a chain reaction that takes out some skiers, a town; they would be responsible, a crime could be pinned for they pulled the pin that started the fall. It does not matter that it might have happened "sometime", they started it. So in the case of the radio hosts, foolish prank was the bang the started the avalanche leading to a person killing themselves. She still might have done it, because of her own inner turmoils, but that does not matter. Fools lit the fuse and we need to hold them responsible in some way so others in the future don't do foolish things.

So too this prosecutor. Swartz may have been on the edge, at some point something else *may* have pushed him over the edge or in time he may have gained control of his inner demons and lived a full life. Instead, the prosecutor pulled the pin by presenting a no win scenario, by abusing power in such a way that Swartz felt he was going to be in the middle of that avalanche and felt he could not survive. The prosecutor shares some of the blame and while not (perhaps) a criminal act, that type of abuse of power cannot be condoned within our society.

It is a real shame he took his life for we'll never know what he felt, what his thoughts were (though having faced that dark hole once in my life I can imagine). People on this thread argue about whether he committed a crime or not, but that is not the root of the story. The root of the story is that he was in a System we want to Trust and that System let us down.

Re:Strange argument

[celle]

"I said you can't pin it on them."

          Yes, you can. Ortiz went out of her way to create the situation and had total control over what was going on. If it was anyone else, they'd be up on charges of manslaughter or conspiracy to commit. As for being mentally ill, lots of people commit suicide, we call some of them posthumous heroes(soldiers, firefighters, cops) and not mentally ill who snapped and committed suicide and just happened to save someone else. Who knows maybe they didn't have any options at home either. Aaron weighed his options and knew what he was doing as his last comments had made that quite clear. It wasn't just one thing that made him decide as no matter what happened in prison the other penalties of not having access to a computer for life, something that seemed to be the center of his existence then being old(65+) by the time he got out, with no future anyway as an ex-con and by that time, out of sync with the world. Or if by some miracle he got off with minor charges he'd still be in deep debt, with no job prospects and no future banned from his only interest and only real income and still out of sync depending on period of incarceration. You tell me which is better. Even if he got off completely(no chance) he'd still be in deep debt, credibility ruined and all that implies, and on watch lists.
          Fact is he was harassed for pointing out massive misuse of public funds to keep public information private, and he was right. As for ortiz and clan, they jumped on it even though it was a minor local issue, literally and knowingly(his condition was on file) drove him to his death in their drive to build their careers. The test is simple, would he be alive today without their unwarranted interference? Yes.
          And for all you that say he's a criminal It's innocent until proven and declared guilty in this country. The media doesn't count, so he was no criminal. He was no hero, but he didn't deserve what happened either. But a martyr, maybe.

Re:Strange argument

[MartinSchou]

Well, I used avalanche as a metaphor - not a simile. The snow flakes on the mountain side does not have the ability to decide if they wish to participate in an avalanche - physics decides that for it.

The press, on the other hand, DOES have the ability to decide, and yes, that does include the hosts.

But consider this - what if no other media had picked up the story and run with it? Would she still have committed suicide? Unfortunately we won't know.

But here's a thought. For all the blame throwing that has happened in that particular case, I find it interesting that I haven't stumbled across a single article with introspection into news organizations' own roles in her suicide. Case in point - it was a rather lame joke, and the Mail Online/Daily Mail turned it into a 3,000 word article the next day, saying in nice big fat letters: "How could they fall for this hoax?"

Nah - that kind of massively overblown reaction and witch hunt couldn't possibly add to the stress she was already under.

That same paper has an article: Being stressed is as damaging for your heart as smoking five cigarettes a day

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2250106/Stress-bad-heart-smoking-cigarettes-day.html 18 December 2012.

Be honest with me here - would this discussion be interesting in those newspapers? The more I read about the nurse, I'm thinking I should sit down and do some journalistic work into the media's role in the situation.

I'm on sick leave and have lots of time on my hands, and I suspect that I would quite love to ream "da man" and society at large.

Good idea or dead at conception?

Re:Strange argument

[Bucc5062]

I think it a good idea. There is an aspect to both stories that reflect poorly on the responsibility of media to *report*, not opine and it never hurts to remind them of the difference between reporting and commentary.

I was not going so granular in my variation of a theme. The snow had already fallen, the forces set. My view is reflecting the differences between an external force (misuse of power/fools) and primarily internal force which lay the ground work for breaking. Good points. If you did this I would enjoy reading the results.

And what are you?

[ultranova]

Cowards would rather die for their beliefs instead of standing up for them.

And Internet Tough Guys sling mud on them afterwards, thinging this makes them something besides vultures. Except that real-life vultures serve a necessary function, so the comparison is unfair to the buzzards. Sorry, janitor birds.

What he really did deserved jail time.

[jklovanc]

Lets get off the "he was innocent" kick. Swartz broke into a server closet, installed his own hardware behind MIT's firewall so he could download files he was told he was not authorized. I guess I can come into your home and use your bandwidth to do anything I want. He broke the law. It is as simple as that and he wanted to go to court. He put himself in the way of justice and then he ran. If he was not prepared to go to jail he shouldn't have knowingly broken the law. Many civil rights activists willingly went to jail to stand up for what they believed. Swartz on the other hand took the easy way out. Painting an entire system due the the actions of on obviously disturbed individual is ludicrous.

Instead of pointing the finger at the prosecutor how about the incompetent defense lawyer who insisted on zero jail time. Couple that with reporting that Swatrz was suicidal then doing nothing else. Perhaps protecting his client might have been in order.

The Swarts case was not an example of how the system is broken because the process was cut short. A six month jail term was reasonable for the crimes committed. That he was threatened with a lot more is irrelevant until he is sentenced to that term. For all we know the judge may have given him a suspended sentence, 50 years or something in between. We will never know because Swartz ended the process prematurely.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[Legion303]

Lets get off the "he was innocent" kick. Swartz broke into a server closet, installed his own hardware behind MIT's firewall so he could download files he was told he was not authorized.

How many of those things was he actually indicted for?

A six month jail term was reasonable for the crimes committed.

Which crimes do you think he was charged with?

I already know the answers to these questions. You apparently do not.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[serviscope_minor]

Swartz broke into a server closet,

You're making it sound like he broke in, which is untrue. The closet was unlocked. Since you're talking semantics, this is important. That would reduce it from breaking and entering and criminal damage to trespass which carries a much smaller penalty.

so he could download files he was told he was

Irrelevant. JSTOR dropped charges.

The Swarts case was not an example of how the system is broken because the process was cut short. A six month jail term was reasonable for the crimes committed.

Isimply cannot believe the level of obtuseness displayed by your post. If you believe that threatening a man with 50 years in gaol so that he capitulates to a 6 month sentance without trial is not broken then I simply do not know how to even beginning to explain the basic concepts of justice and fairness to you.

And if you thing that 50 years is reasonable for trespass, then there is no hope.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're making it sound like he broke in, which is untrue. The closet was unlocked.

Whether something is locked is irrelevant to whether you commit a felony when you enter.

Isimply cannot believe the level of obtuseness displayed by your post. If you believe that threatening a man with 50 years in gaol so that he capitulates to a 6 month sentance

The "50 years" number was just a publicity stunt; it was legally impossible for him to get more than a couple of years, and he and his lawyers knew that. That maximum penalty is in line with maximum penalties in Europe and elsewhere.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[jklovanc]

Irrelevant. JSTOR dropped charges.

Irrelevant because JSTOR is not the one pressing the charges the Federal Attorney is.

One has to be stupid to take "you could get 50 years for that" seriously. His defense lawyer would also have to be incompetent to let him. Many offenses have high maximum penalties but few defendants get the maximums. Publicizing those maximums is just playing to the sympathies of the public and has nothing to do with what would actually happen.

And if you thing that 50 years is reasonable for trespass, then there is no hope.

Had Swartz only entered the room, looked around and left then 50 years would have been way too much. That is not what happened. Swartz dd many other things while in the closet and would never have gotten 50 years as that was the maximum sentences.

Isimply cannot believe the level of obtuseness displayed by your post. If you believe that threatening a man with 50 years in gaol so that he capitulates to a 6 month sentance without trial is not broken then I simply do not know how to even beginning to explain the basic concepts of justice and fairness to you.

Excellent cop out. You can not explain it because you have no basis for your explanation. I think it is completely reasonable to tell a defendant" Look, you can plead out to charges we all know you are guilty of or we can go to court on the off chance that we make a mistake. If we go to court we will charge you with what ever we can under the law and you may be up for a lot more time. Your choice, plea to what you did or role the dice." The reason it is not broken is that no system in the world could survive if every single charge went to court.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[jklovanc]

From one of the indictments:

11. Between September 24, 2010, and January 6, 2011, Swartz contrived to:
a. break into a restricted computer wiring closet at MIT;
b. access MIT’s network without authorization from a switch within that
closet;
c. connect to JSTOR’s archive of digitized journal articles through MIT’s
computer network;
d. use this access to download a major portion of JSTOR’s archive onto his
computers and computer hard drives;
e. avoid MIT’s and JSTOR’s efforts to prevent this massive copying,
measures which were directed at users generally and at Swartz’s illicit conduct
specifically; and
f. elude detection and identification;
all with the purpose of distributing a significant proportion of JSTOR’s archive through one or
more file-sharing sites.

Where are your references?

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Swartz was charged witih wire fraud, computer fraud, unauthorized access, and computer damage. His actions met the legal definitions of all those provisions of the CFAA.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason it is not broken is that no system in the world could survive if every single charge went to court.

Saying "everyone else is doing it!" or "justice is hard work!" does not mean the system is not broken. It is, and the fact that you can't see the problem with plea bargaining indicates that you're anti-freedom. You might as well be a TSA supporter.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Lets get off the "he was innocent" kick. Swartz broke into a server closet, installed his own hardware behind MIT's firewall so he could download files he was told he was not authorized. I guess I can come into your home and use your bandwidth to do anything I want. He broke the law.

Nobody is disputing he broke the law.

"only whites can sit here" was a law.
"you must wear a yellow/pink/red.... star" was a law.

getting to your home and use something of yours for any purpose is breach of territory which will get you into trouble in the entire animal kingdom. So, not the best of arguments IMHO.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[serviscope_minor]

Excellent cop out. You can not explain it because you have no basis for your explanation. I think it is completely reasonable to tell a defendant" Look, you can plead out to charges we all know you are guilty of or we can go to court on the off chance that we make a mistake. If we go to court we will charge you with what ever we can under the law and you may be up for a lot more time. Your choice, plea to what you did or role the dice." The reason it is not broken is that no system in the world could survive if every single charge went to court.

I like your look at plea bargaining through rose coloured glasses. In practice, it's used to railroad people into submitting to charges without trial because the risk of being found guilty of a vast number of vastly overblown charges is simply too great. It is a fundementally broken system for this reason.

It's also unjust for other reasons.

If the person is guilty of crimes deserving of s particular sentence, then why should they get off so easily?

And the whole "we all know you are guilty" thing. What about you know, the presumption of innocence?

Plea bargaining is just a corrupt, unjust hammer used because the prosecutors and police simply want to get someone fro a crime and they don't even seem to care if it is the actual perpetrator.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[cpghost]

The Swarts case was not an example of how the system is broken because the process was cut short. A six month jail term was reasonable for the crimes committed. That he was threatened with a lot more is irrelevant until he is sentenced to that term.

It was not irrelevant, because it caused tremendous mental and emotional stress, leading in this special case to panic and even suicide. Not everyone has nerves of steel or no emotions at all to face the possibility of a 30+ years long sentence (for mere copying of a bunch of files, wtf?!), even if it was only a theoretical maximum. Unless they're hardened criminals with experience in the legal proceedings of the US judicial system, which Aaron was not...

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget his incompetent forensic analyst who claimed on his blog that Swartz "did nothing to cover his tracks."

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[Anonymous Coward]

A)breaking and entering charges were on the state level and were dropped(and was going to be continued without a finding of guilt as they couldn't prove that he intended to commit a felony afterwards)
B)he had authorization to use MIT's network
C)he had authorization to use JSTOR through MIT's network: any random passerby had authorization to use JSTOR through MIT's network
D)not a crime, they only had an issue with the rate at which he downloaded
E)he wasn't charged with a crime for this
F)he wasn't charged with a crime for this

Actual charges:
A)wire fraud
B)computer fraud
C)unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer
D)recklessly damaging a protected computer

As DoS attacks can fall under D), that might have ended in a conviction, if it weren't for the fact that JSTOR denied that they suffered any harm.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that the system is intended to be about getting at the truth, not wracking up a nice good win/loss record or making examples of people.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[Clockwurk]

Fuck you for comparing copyright infringement and breaking/entering with segregation or the holocaust.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[jklovanc]

He was not convicted yet. He was truly facing 6 months in jail and could not handle that. How do we know he would not have committed suicide if he was sentenced to one day in jail. As for not knowing the system, that is why he had a lawyer. If the defense lawyer could not explain the real possibilities then it is not the prosecutor's fault. The fact that Swatrz acted on a "could" and didn't wait for the sentence says a lot about his particular mental state.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[jklovanc]

The resumption of innocence is upheld when the defendant walks in and pleads guilty. It is a protection from being punished for a crime before a verdict is entered. For example one can still vote if charged but not convicted.

Plea bargaining is just a corrupt, unjust hammer used because the prosecutors and police simply want to get someone fro a crime and they don't even seem to care if it is the actual perpetrator.

Excellent broad generalization about a system that is used all over the world for centuries and has worked quite well. I agree there may be some instances where you are correct but there are many more instances where just sentences have been bargained for.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[cpghost]

Look, he couldn't know what he was truly facing. This is post-factum knowledge... and it was before Carmen Ortiz grabbed the case from state prosecutors. If he really had the suspicion that he was facing the rest of his life in jail for something as petty as what he did -- and sadly this suspicion was not entirely unfounded --, committing suicide before being sentenced, was from his perspective the only thing he could do, lest he be jailed and put under permanent suicide-watch where it would have been too late. Of do you think committing suicide in jail is easy?

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not only this, it is also abhorrent to the principles of natural justice for a prosecutor, who will undoubtedly have some bias against an accused person through their exposure to evidence against that person but only limited exposure to evidence in favour of that person, to both determine what charges should be brought and what sentence should be given for those charges.

To be honest, my main problem isn't with plea bargaining as a concept (I'm an Australian legal practitioner and will generally discuss these kinds of matters with police and attempt to amend charges, etc), what I am against is a lack of judicial oversight for the process.

If a "plea-bargain" case comes before a Judge or a Magistrate, they have a duty to their office, to the accused and to society to take care to ensure that a person isn't railroaded into pleading guilty where there is insufficient evidence to establish charges before the Court and to ensure that a person doesn't plead guilty if they don't honestly believe that they have done something wrong/are guilty. In addition to that, the Judge or Magistrate has a duty to ensure that any sentence passed by the Court is "correct" (ie is proportionate, consistent with prior sentences for similar matters, a suitable deterrent to society at large, and adequately punishes the accused for the crime).

Where a Judge or Magistrate simply sentences in accordance with a plea bargain, the Judge or Magistrate ignores these duties and abrogates the power of the Judiciary (the Court) and vests it to in Executive (prosecutors office), which also poses an issue for the doctrine of separation of powers.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[jklovanc]

Look, he couldn't know what he was truly facing.

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse".

Of do you think committing suicide in jail is easy?

The national suicide rate is about 12 in 100,000. The suicide rate in prisons was 47 in 100,000 in 2002. So yes suicide is possible in prisons.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[Legion303]

Those aren't charges, those are allegations, as the indictment states. You'll want to start with "Count 1" at paragraph 34. Everything he was charged with relates to accessing JSTOR's computers without authorization, something JSTOR itself did not want to prosecute.

Where are your references?

That same PDF and basic reading skills, I guess.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[jklovanc]

Read the counts and you will see they mention MIT computers as well as JSTOR computers. You seem to forget that Swartz played cat and mouse with MIT sys admins for days. All of MIT was blocked from JSROR for a period of time due to Swatrz's actions.

The other issue is that these are criminal charges and not civil charges. The reason for someone withdrawing a complaint is difficult is so that there are no back room deals to pay off the plaintiff. One of the main reasons for criminal sentences is to deter others from doing the same crimes. If they can get swept under the rug by a back room deal then the justice system falls apart. It is not OK to break the law if one of the injured parties says it is OK.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[NoOneInParticular]

Correction: *every* system in the Western world but one survives fine without plea bargain. Plea bargaining occurs outside the US, but is the exception, not the rule. It's an American thing, even to the bad economy of putting people in jail to save money on courts. The US has 7 times the number of people in jail than European countries.

Re:What he really did deserved jail time.

[jklovanc]

References? You seem to be drawing a correlation between plea bargaining and the number of people in jail without providing any numbers on the extent of plea bargaining in Europe vs the US.

ironic

[stenvar]

Of course, it is "sickening" that federal prosecutors overcharge, that they have so much power, and that so many cases end up in federal court to begin with. But it's Congress that is responsible for this development; you can't blame the prosecutors (for many years, they were required to charge everything they reasonably could).

It's ironic that Swartz is becoming a poster boy for this, given how linked to progressive causes he was. A large reason for the huge transfer of power to the federal government is due to progressive causes. You want less of this kind of heavy-handed federal government action? Stop handing more power to the federal government and take it back to the states. Of course, you the have to live with the fact that people in Tennessee may not share your views on gay marriage, abortion, weed, evolution, guns, or welfare. But then, you don't have to live there (and fortunately neither do I).

Re:ironic

[Attila Dimedici]

This, exactly this. The reason we have this abuse of power is because we have asked Congress to make too many things federal offenses. Prosecutors, and other government officials, who answer to locally elected officials are more easily held accountable for abuse of power than government officials who theoretically answer to Congress (and in practice the only elected official they answer to is the President).

Re:ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

... and progressives are up to it again. "More gun control", in practice, means vastly expanded federal powers to track, charge, and punish Americans. Same with federally mandated health care, federal environmental regulations, etc.

Re:ironic

[atgaaa]

It is even worse, from the article :

"Since the mid-1980s, a proliferation of vague and overlapping federal criminal statutes has given federal prosecutors the ability to indict, and convict, virtually anyone unfortunate enough to come within their sights. And sentencing guidelines confer yet additional power on prosecutors, who have the discretion to pick and choose from statutes covering the same behavior."

This is not justice. The legislature, the judiciary, and the executive are to blame for allowing this practice. When the government is able to "indict, and convict, virtually anyone unfortunate enough to come within their sights" we no longer have liberty.

Re:ironic

[stenvar]

This is not justice. The legislature, the judiciary, and the executive are to blame for allowing this practice. When the government is able to "indict, and convict, virtually anyone unfortunate enough to come within their sights" we no longer have liberty.

No, the voters have themselves to blame for it: they want the federal government to do more and more. At first sight, federal civil rights legislation, legalization of abortion, drug laws, health care, gun control, environmental regulations, banking regulation, etc. seem like good ideas, but they all come with the flipside that they require enforcement, and with enforcement come vast new powers for federal prosecutors. Both parties are to blame for this to some degree, but it's more serious with the Democrats because they don't even realize it (or don't care).

Re:ironic

[celle]

"power to the federal government and take it back to the states"

        We had it that way before, it didn't work out so well then an a couple of times since. You states guys blew it more than once which is the reason we're like this now.

Re:ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

You states guys blew it more than once which is the reason we're like this now.

"We're like this now" is because morons like you reduce important political issues to platitudes.

Re:ironic

[bogjobber]

Holy non sequitur, batman! So you think it was those damned progressives that caused copyright to become a federal issue? I'm pretty sure that's been in the constitution from the beginning. Grind your axe somewhere else, guy, it is not germane to this conversation.

Seeing as how mandatory minimum sentencing and the gradual criminalization of our society (and thus the increased power of federal prosecutors) over the last 40 years has been pushed most zealously by supposedly anti-government right-wingers, I'm confused how "progressivism" can be blamed for the aggressiveness of the DOJ in any way, shape or form.

I guess you could consider it non-partisan if you look at it slant-eyed. The left-wing (governmentally speaking) is nearly as pro-corporate as the right, but your rant has more or less nothing to do with the subject at hand. Aaron Swartz wasn't trying to take people's guns away. He was fighting for sane IP laws.

Re:ironic

[CodeBuster]

This line of argument never seems to register with progressives. They either don't understand the damaging consequences of centralizing power or are so blinded by their social engineering ambitions that they completely discount the very real possibility that expanded government powers will be used against them and their liberties, especially when the government changes and the shoe ends up on the other foot with their ass exposed for booting.

Re:ironic

[stenvar]

So you think it was those damned progressives that caused copyright to become a federal issue?

I was making a different point, but that's true as well: the strengthening of copyright has been a key political issue of the entertainment industry, and that industry strongly favors progressive causes.

Aaron Swartz wasn't trying to take people's guns away. He was fighting for sane IP laws.

He was merely using IP law as a pretext for acting up. Even if he had succeeded and gotten off free, it wouldn't have changed anything about IP law.

Re:ironic

[bogjobber]

I was making a different point, but that's true as well: the strengthening of copyright has been a key political issue of the entertainment industry, and that industry strongly favors progressive causes.

That's correct but also misleading. People who are in the entertainment industry donate to individual Democratic candidates more than Republicans, but as far as industry lobbying goes it's pretty even. They've got their hands up both puppets' backs. My Senator Orrin Hatch has been the point man for Hollywood in the Senate for decades now, and he's as right-wing as it gets.

He was merely using IP law as a pretext for acting up. Even if he had succeeded and gotten off free, it wouldn't have changed anything about IP law.

As for this....I don't even now what to say. It's depressing that people actually think this. I hope you're just a bit ignorant and not actually that cynical.

Please read up on Aaron Swartz. The guy was an exemplary citizen. Remember the fuss that was raised to stop SOPA and the Protect IP Act? His organization, Demand Progress, were critical in organizing opposition to those acts, and have done a great deal for advancing other "progressive" causes. He actually had done real work to change IP law in our country, rather than you or I who just bitch about it on the internet.

Swartz was a great guy, and the way he was treated by the justice system was absolutely abhorrent.

Re:ironic

[stenvar]

As for this....I don't even now what to say. It's depressing that people actually think this. I hope you're just a bit ignorant and not actually that cynical.

Well, so explain to me: what was his stunt with JSTOR actually supposed to accomplish? If successful, how would it have resulted in changes to US copyright law?

His organization, Demand Progress, were critical in organizing opposition to those acts, and have done a great deal for advancing other "progressive" causes.

I think it was a bad idea for Swartz to mix up advocacy for open access and copyright reform with progressivism. It is inconsistent with progressivism and it is off-putting to people interested in these reforms who are not progressives.

He actually had done real work to change IP law in our country, rather than you or I who just bitch about it on the internet.

You have absolutely no idea what I do.

Power is not the issue, mentality is

[golodh]

There isn't all that much wrong with the powers accorded the DOJ.

The key issue (that I see) can lead to abuse is the widespread phenomenon of 'plea bargaining'.

It is this mechanism that provides an incentive for the DOJ to heap unreasonable amounts of far-fetched charges on a single suspect. The sole objective is to render it unattractive for the suspect to let the case come to court and thereby pressure the suspect into copping to specific charges.

There are two reasons to do this. The first is based solely on cost reasons (as with most decisions in the US), as in: it's costly to prosecute and it's cheap to file charges. If you can get suspects to plead guilty and accept the penalties, you've handled a case cost-effectively.

The second reason is that people have sought for means to make things sufficient hot for extreme cases (like e.g. mafia bosses) who are likely to shrug off most charges that can be proven against them beyond reasonable doubt. For such cases people saw fit to impose totally disproportionate penalties for relatively innocuous offenses.

Unfortunately this practice has been adopted for general use, specifically for serving as a deterrent against law-breaking by increasing the perceived risk of law-breaking. As in :

perceived risk = probability of capture x potential penalty

In the Middle Ages they used torture, mutilation, branding and suchlike to up the potential penalty to "deterrent values". Nowadays we use disproportional (and crippling) fines and equally disproportionate (and equally crippling) prison sentences for the same purpose.

People who complain ought to realise that this setup is very 'American' in nature and that it continues to exist only because a majority doesn't think it worth changing this aspect of the system.

Of course the whole thing can be changed: simply lower maximum penalties to proportionate values and invest (much) more money in increasing the probability of getting caught in order to keep the perceived risk of lawbreaking constant. It's completely feasible, but expensive.

Only people here don't want to hear that: they (collectively) prefer to destroy the odd individual in order to maintain the balance of terror on part of the law by the cheapest means available.

It's a choice (if a callous one), and it has nothing whatsoever to do with awarding the DOJ "too much power", let alone with the DOJ being ''corrupted by power". The DOJ simply does what it's told to do ... by the outcomes of a democratic process. If you don't like it, then have it changed.

Re:Power is not the issue, mentality is

[Anonymous Coward]

Sentencing guide lines may have amplified the problem. Putting a person in prison is expensive. Keeping them there is a financial nightmare. Back in the bad old days a judge just might decide to give every tenth car thief a radical sentence almost like it was a roll of the dice. Others might receive probation or a ton of community service or pay a large fine. The dread of coming to judgement had a lot to do with that lottery like mode of harsh sentencing. Although we do have half of the prison population that do not forecast consequences of their actions and therefore are not effected by any threats of harsh laws the other half of the convicts do not want to serve long sentences. For these personalities a harsh sentence for next to nothing really does work to control crime. Simply put a fair and just criminal justice system just might destroy society completely.
                    Take a look at no pay parents who simply will not pay child support. When some states started reaching out and suspending drivers' licenses across state borders many deadbeat dads suddenly found it easier to pay their child support.

Re:Power is not the issue, mentality is

[TapeCutter]

The key issue (that I see) can lead to abuse is the widespread phenomenon of 'plea bargaining'.

Bingo, been saying that for years. I'm also assuming they are judged by the quantity of convictions, not the quality of the charges. Other western nations seem to be able to get guilty pleas without turning the whole thing into a Turkish bazaar, so it's certainly possible that it could be improved by democratic oversight. The fact that someone in the US is 7X as likely as someone in the EU to be locked up is a pretty strong signal that there is a systemic problem within the US justice system.

Re:Power is not the issue, mentality is

[Anonymous Coward]

perceived risk = probability of capture x potential penalty

The biggest flaw in this reasoning is that evidence suggests that perceived risk ~= probability of capture

Democracy

[reinadaley]

my friend's step-aunt makes $89 every hour on the internet. She has been without a job for nine months but last month her paycheck was $21102 just working on the internet for a few hours. Here's the site to read more FAB33.COM

Um, no

[Grashnak]

What happened? He downloaded some papers from the public library in an automated fashion and shared them for his colleagues.

Sure, if by "some" you mean "4+ million", by "public library" you mean "a private datastore" and by "in an automated fashion" you mean "by sneaking into a computer room and illicitly connecting to the network".

I'm disgusted by the DOJ charges too, but people like you who try and gloss over the facts of what he was doing are just making the rest of us look bad. The DOJ response was ridiculous even given what he actually did. No need to pretend he was just innocently downloading a couple of papers from Gizmodo...

Re:Um, no

[mabhatter654]

But he did not "crack" any security other than hiding the laptop in a closet. He didn't fake credentials, he didn't use any more access to the journal than MIT granted him.

A good comparison would be if he was refilling hundreds of water bottles from a public water fountain. Yes, he was misusing the resource... But the resource was not secured to begin with... Nobody at MIT was performing basic WATCHING to simply ask him to stop. In fact they had a policy of "ignoring" minor indiscretions.

If I lent my neighbor my water hose to water his garden.. But never checked for tree days he was filling his pool instead, the problem is between me and the water service people to cover that bill. It's not LEGALLY my neighbor's fault I didn't check at the end of the day my hose was turned off... Even if he "selectively forgot" to tell me it's still my job to remember to turn my hose off... Or pay the bill.

Re:Um, no

[__aaeihw9960]

This argument absolutely reeks of entitlement. Just because you are physically able to do something doesn't mean that you have the right to. The resource was not secured to begin with, that is correct, and it's MIT's fault.

BUT, to use a comparison, it's like walking into your neighbor's house and taking his stuff simply because he forgot to lock his doors, then saying, "If he wanted to keep his stuff, he should have locked it up." That may be, but you shouldn't take the shit in the first place.

Believe it or not, you're not entitled to do whatever you want until someone stops you. That's not how it's supposed to work, and that's not how healthy people are supposed to operate in a social system. We are supposed to cooperate, do what's right, and be decent people. Arguments like yours, and I assume people like you, are the reason that everyone has to lock their doors at night, lock their cars in their own driveways, and watch their kids when they play in the park. You are not entitled to break the law, no matter how easy it is to do.

Oh, and if your neighbor used your hose to fill his pool, you have every right to sue for repayment under current laws.

Re:Um, no

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a difference here and the grandparent post completely blurred it.

Aaron Schwartz understood the idea that "If he wanted to keep his stuff, he should have locked it up." does not work . But he choose to take stuff because he wanted to prove a point and set information free as he saw it. He probably also did not see it as taking neighbours stuff, but as breaking a ToS contract with JStor while on MIT property. JStor saw it similarly when Aaron returned the data he copied.

Let us not attribute entitlement or other motives to Aaron when he can't defend himself.

Re:Um, no

[Anonymous Coward]

um, in no way is it: "it's like walking into your neighbor's house and taking his stuff simply because he forgot to lock his doors"

this is the wrong inherent in treating intellectual property like "property". The so-called property was only duplicated, not taken.

Re:Um, no

[Anonymous Coward]

How about going into your neighbor's house with an expensive 3D scanner, scanning a bunch of his art/objects/toys, and then printing them yourself.

Because, you know, NOTHING is STOLEN if the owner isn't deprived of his/her property.

Re:Um, no

[Anonymous Coward]

I genuinely cannot believe that this god-damned argument is still alive today. Making a copy of something THAT SELLS COPIES OF ITSELF TO MAKE MONEY is stealing. No, you can't physically take it, but you didn't make it, you didn't pay for it, and you don't own it. SO you stole it.

Telling yourself that copying something isn't stealing is just something fourteen year-olds do to justify pirating movies.

Re:Um, no

[Anonymous Coward]

It is if you make an exact copy of his artwork. He made it, it's his. Not yours. That's stealing his idea. . . . . You can say whatever you want to justify pirating movies, but we all know that the "I didn't steal it, I just copied it" argument is retarded.

Re:Um, no

[Anonymous Coward]

Your analogy is pretty ridiculous too. It would be more like invading the home and taking pictures. Still not cool, or legal, but much less damaging to the victim.

Re:Um, no

[Anonymous Coward]

BUT, to use a comparison, it's like walking into your neighbor's house and taking his stuff simply because he forgot to lock his doors, then saying, "If he wanted to keep his stuff, he should have locked it up." That may be, but you shouldn't take the shit in the first place.

WOW your neighbor must have some house:

• When someone tries to STEAL the house just makes a copy and delivers to THIEF for FREE
• When house doesn't have the desired stuff it will STEAL a copy from other houses and deliver to THIEF... for FREE
• THIEF can call house and house will call back and tell it, "X milliseconds to begin to STEAL right now" or "I apologize because I am helping too many THIEF please call back later to STEAL"
• Neighbor brags that he built a new house that can STEAL for THIEF 10x faster... for FREE
• Neighbor brags there is only 0.0001 percent of time when house is closed to THIEF
• Neighbor _actively_ negotiates a contract with BOOKSTORE so there is no upper limit on the amount of BOOKS the house can copy and deliver to THIEF

So yeah, it's like walking into your neighbor's house if his house weren't a house but rather one of the most open campus internet access policies in the entire world.

Can we please can the "real" world metaphors for technology when the entire benefit of said technology is that it works outside the constraints of that metaphor? I'd venture a guess that there's already a generation for which these comparisons must be reversed in order to have any semblance of coherence whatsoever. "Bobby, you know how you can type a famous person's name in Wikipedia and it immediately shares everyone's research to help you learn about that person? Well, when you refuse to share any of your toys with Alice, it's like the OPPOSITE of that."

Re:Um, no

[Anonymous Coward]

BUT, to use a comparison, it's like walking into your neighbor's house and taking his stuff simply because he forgot to lock his doors, then saying, "If he wanted to keep his stuff, he should have locked it up." That may be, but you shouldn't take the shit in the first place.

Except... I didn't steal my neighbor's stuff, I just made copies. Of stuff that, incidentally, my neighbor was giving away for free.

Re:Um, no

[colinnwn]

Just because proper behavior would be to not do something, does not mean it should be illegal. And the ability to recover losses in a civil court does not mean that same activity should be punishable by criminal charges.

Re:Um, no

[Anonymous Coward]

You are nuts. You clearly have no grasp of the law or rational society.

But you can intimidate voters!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can carry a club and intimidate voters outside of a polling place and get away with it under this Department of "Justice" (if you're black).

All charges dropped.

Go ahead and mod me down, but you know very well I'm telling the truth. Eric Holder is a racist through and through. Evil is as evil does.

I do get tired in these threads of people who:

[CuteSteveJobs]

1. Quote Martin Luther King as saying disidents should be proud to go to jail.

Not everyone is heralded like Mandella with a large base of supporters and international attention. Most are swallowed up by the penal system never to be heard from again. Only their family remembers. Look what happened to John Kiriakou who blew the whistle on illegal torture. He's gone away for 30 months. http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/01/28/convicted-cia-whistleblower-john-kiriakou-confronts-government-talking-points-on-nbcs-today-show/


Whistleblower John Kiriakou said "I am proud that I stood up to our government. I am not a criminal. I am a whistleblower. Torture is illegal and it’s officially abandoned in our country and I’m proud to have had a role in that." Sounds a bit like Patrick Henry's "Liberty or Death". A hero right? And yet...

Don't expect the media to save you. NBC's Savannah Guthrie began her interview of him: "Some people say you betrayed your former colleagues in order to raise your media profile in order to sell books and get a consulting business going." Are *you* going to be holding a candlelight vigil for a cad of a man who betrayed his country to sell books?

Don't expect the judge to save you: The US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema said on Friday that Kiriakou had damaged the CIA. She called the sentence, the result of a plea arrangement with prosecutors, "way too light". Before issuing the sentence, the judge asked Kiriakou if he had anything to say. When he declined, she said: ''Perhaps you have already spoken too much.''
This book tells how once you're jailed the public think you deserve it and quickly forget about you. http://books.google.com/books?id=Tu5RB6YHf10C&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&ots=51Ya4U8XFt&dq=lynch+in+the+name+of+justice (Go to page 43 of this Google Books preview).


2. Swartz broke the law and should do the time.

These posts are usually accompanied by an anal exploration of the relevant statute by watched too many courtroom dramas and thinks they are real life, but was there ever an Episode of Law & Order when McCoy said "Let's fuck this college kid over! I want a promotion! "

People who post these overlook the whole point that these are unfair laws. Volokh showed how unfair they are when he wrote a TOS that could be used to send anyone to jail named "Ralph".
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20120803gw.html
http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-Arrested/dp/1556526377
http://www.volokh.com/posts/1227896387.shtml

Democrats need the Latino vote

[Anonymous Coward]

Therefore Obama will not remove Ortiz from office.

BUT, It didn't start OUT that way

[SmallFurryCreature]

Government, especially the western style democracies didn't happen by magic. They were won by people who believed they could change the system and did. Once there were monarchs who rule, now they just collect a massive wage for not doing much at all. So our ancestors did not create a perfect society but they did improve society.

But now for everyone who cares, there are far more who want to keep the status quo. See the bitter hatred targetted at Julian Assange, Stallman, the whole wallstreet protests. The elite don't need to attack their enemies, the plebs will happily do it for them. Rock the boat and you will be thrown overboard by the slaves.

Oh we disguise our attacks behind claiming we want our heroes to be perfect. Oddly enough NOT something we demand of celebrities in other fields. Just that if you dare to suggest a small way in which the world could be made a better place, you better be holier then the pope and then you will be slammed for being to holy.

People REALLY do not like change, they can tolerate a LOT of badness if just it means they don't have to think, act or take a side.

And it is that way that tyrants rise to power. There is no need for a secret world government and such nonsense conspiracies. All it needs is for everyone to look away.

Trust me, I know. I am doing it myself. Just the daily drain of life has indeed made me give up. The little hamster wheel is all I want after all. Sad. BUT that is MY fault. Not the fault of anyone else. I gave up doesn't mean you should. But I can understand why people like Swartz buckle under the pressure and the people who claim his as their champion should ask whether they overloaded the guy or not. Let Lessig face a long jail time, maybe then his legal cases will actually be good and not wishful thinking.

Oh wait, accusing Lessig of not being perfect am I. Told you I had given up.

Re:BUT, It didn't start OUT that way

[Anonymous Coward]

The elite don't need to attack their enemies, the plebs will happily do it for them. Rock the boat and you will be thrown overboard by the slaves.

This needs to be stated far more often.

Re:BUT, It didn't start OUT that way

[erroneus]

A plan to "boil the frog" is still a conspiracy.

We have conspiracies all the time and all over the place. Businesses conspire to lower wages of workers with much cooperation from government who support laws written by such businesses after receiving contributions, donations and the like. This is an open truth. You might say this is "a general and natural erosion" but our government was initially set up to prevent the very things we are experiencing today. If it's not various parties conspiring, then how do you define conspiracy?

You have to get over the ridiculous idea that conspiracy and "theory" and "crazy" and "nut" and "mentally unstable" all go together. The reality is that there are parties overtly attempting to subvert many aspects of the constitutionally guaranteed equality of people which was designed and intended to avoid a tiered society. And now we are living in one. Some people actually believe they are better than everyone else and deserve to have things at the expense of others and dont mind taking them.

Re:BUT, It didn't start OUT that way

[Anonymous Coward]

And we increasingly elect idiots who think they know what's best for us. Witness the "assault weapon" ban conversations. it's nauseating.

Re:BUT, It didn't start OUT that way

[Darby]

Just that if you dare to suggest a small way in which the world could be made a better place, you better be holier then the pope and then you will be slammed for being to holy.

The pope is an ex Nazi who got his job through his aiding and abetting of child rapists, both helping them avoid prosecution and moving them around to give them fresh pools of victims. He also lies bald facedly about condoms for the purpose of increasing poverty and AIDS infection rates.

You would be hard pressed to find a less "holy" person in the world than that monster.
That was a *really* bad example.

Re:BUT, It didn't start OUT that way

[sjames]

What a lot of people don't get is that the real conspiracies aren't of the smoke filled room type. They are distributed and happen one casual meeting at a time. They tend not to be these amazingly complex hierarchical secret society things of novels and movies, but a bunch of disparate groups of two to 5 people shaking hands over lunch.

Re:BUT, It didn't start OUT that way

[s.petry]

And we increasingly elect idiots who think they know what's best for us. Witness the "assault weapon" ban conversations. it's nauseating.

Partial truth, but not quite. What the people vote for is the candidates that they are given to choose from. Of course I'm thinking mostly of the big elections, Congress/Senate/President. But it's not limited to those. In more local elections, it's similar. They don't know who they vote for, they vote for who's sign they have seen the most. Often, those signs are paid for by 3rd parties wanting a particular candidate to win.

People don't want to pick the biggest turd in the pond, but they are given no choice. If you are not a turd, good luck getting media attention or funding for campaigns.

Re:BUT, It didn't start OUT that way

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it is a plan, it's just the natural course of events if no on stops it. No one is thinking, "we should boil a frog!" They are just thinking, "Wouldn't it be nice if the water that fog is in was a little warmer.". Then the next guy comes along and says to himself, "Why not turn the heat up just a little, it wont hurt anything."

Re:BUT, It didn't start OUT that way

[erroneus]

Yes, as I said, conspiracy.

Most players know exactly the damage they cause and care not and feel not responsible for the outcome.

They're playing Jenga with the constitution and the future of the nation and of the world. One little stick won't cause the whole thing to fall over now will it?

Re:BUT, It didn't start OUT that way

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you taken your meds lately?

Enough Aaron Swartz worship, already

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't give two shits when he asked for help a few months ago, stop pretending like you give a shit now you hypocritical asshats.

Reform?

[jklovanc]

It seems that almost everyone who calls for "reform" either does not have an alternative or comes up with a simple solution that fails under any scrutiny. It is very easy to point out flaws and much harder to come up with a complete solution. This is a challenge for all the "Reformers" out there: What is your alternative?

Memories.

[MadMaverick9]

This reminds me of The U.S. vs. John Lennon.

John an Anti-War Activist ... Aaron an Internet Activist.

Sadly both John Lennon and Aaron Swartz ended up dead ...

And the US Govt (and other govts around the world) do not seem to have learned anything from what happened fourty years ago.

The most surprising part

[ThatsNotPudding]

I'm just surprised CBS let cnet write this article.

Evil rulers enabled by ignorant masses? wtf!

[hoboroadie]

If someone thinks other issues are more important than everyone's freedoms getting violated by the TSA on a daily basis, I can only conclude that they're either evil or just naive and highly unintelligent.

Loss of topsoil is only one of the issues considerably more important than your puny human "rights". It's damn hard not to confuse your differing priorities for concern and action with ignorance.

Re:Evil rulers enabled by ignorant masses? wtf!

[Anonymous Coward]

Top soil erosion and liberty erosion go hand-in-hand because both are caused by ignorance or not caring enough.

Re:Evil rulers enabled by ignorant masses? wtf!

[baffled]

At least with Liberty, one with enough intelligence to maintain a plot of arable land has the freedom to do so.

Re:Evil rulers enabled by ignorant masses? wtf!

[hoboroadie]

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in that order. Democracy depends on intelligent, informed citizens.
We are so fucked.

Re:Evil rulers enabled by ignorant masses? wtf!

[bbelt16ag]

the reality is that we can work on many many issues in our country and world at a time. We need not focus on topsoil or TSA we can do BOTH. So get off your lazy ass and do something even if its freaking wrong.

Re:Evil rulers enabled by ignorant masses? wtf!

[Genda]

Here, here, the world doesn't work like a bad kung fu flick lining up one challenge at a time. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness... in that order. There are threats to life, those get priority 1, Liberty next, and as we address those threats we may address the things we want, but always first the things we need.

As for doing something wrong, you have to sometime take a sounding shot just to range the target and figuring out your gun. Just make certain the firing range is clear... so Fire, Ready, Aim is a perfectly appropriate first action.

I AM A LAWYER

[Anonymous Coward]

All research are done with public funding or private tax - deductible funding is by default belongs to the public domain.

Unless you work on Wall Street...

[divisionbyzero]

The DOJ criminal division hasn't done a thing to prosecute any of the heads of Wall Street firms that have destroyed the lives of millions by engaging in fraud but is willing to destroy the life of a promising young men for a victimless crime.

See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/untouchables/

Thankfully, Lanny Breuer resigned after this documentary came out but it seems like the DOJ is rotten to the core. Eric Holder needs to go next. Obama should get someone in there to clean out the stables.

Re:Unless you work on Wall Street...

[Anonymous Coward]

Eric Holder should have been LONG gone by now because of the horrific 'fast and furious' gunrunning fiasco, which was staged for political purposes (to give Obama the stage he wanted to advance the agenda he's now using the Newtown murders for). An American agent was killed by criminals using a gun that was essentially supplied to them by DOJ and this administration. Many Mexicans were also killed using those weapons. Sure, the drugthugs would doubtless have sourced firearms regardless, and some/many of the same people might have been killed anyway, but the US DOJ and Holder (and the administration supposedly responsible for both) put their political aims over the law... and so far only a few little fish have paid any price for it.

Where in the world is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Carmen Ortiz?

Australia

[terec]

Your country is no different. Neither is mine. In fact, these laws and punishments are pretty universals.

http://www.zdnet.com/au/cybercrime-bill-passes-senate-set-to-become-law-7000002971/

hmm

[buddyglass]

The law may be bad and the sentencing guidelines overly punitive, but given they're on the books, I'm not seeing what the DOJ did wrong here. Prosecutor seeks the max sentence he thinks he can get. Defense seeks the minimum sentence it thinks it can get. They meet in the middle. That's the way it generally works, no?

Re:hmm

[PhxBlue]

The law may be bad and the sentencing guidelines overly punitive, but given they're on the books, I'm not seeing what the DOJ did wrong here.

You're confusing what's legal with what's right.

There's a very good reason.

[Anonymous Coward]

Only criminals go to court, they get what they deserve.

Re:There's a very good reason.

[PPH]

That is a major fallacy in our system. Anyone can go to court. Only the criminals are found guilty.

Allowing a prosecutor (the DoJ in this case) to make cases that they find politically or financially expedient and then expecting society to believe that everyone charged must be guilty is a perversion of our system of justice. It bypasses one of the constitutionally established branches of government from carrying out its function. And it creates opportunity for massive political abuses conducted by the party in power, unchecked by the judiciary (as our Constitution intends).

The idea that "only criminals go to court" sounds frighteningly like the old Soviet system of kangaroo courts.

Equally important petition

[pkbarbiedoll]

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/require-free-access-over-internet-scientific-journal-articles-arising-taxpayer-funded-research/wDX82FLQ

The remarks ring 100% true, based on my experience

[Anonymous Coward]

And there is only one thing that will stop the show from
continuing.

That thing is force.

Since few people are willing to do what it takes to exert the necessary
force, the overwhelming probability is that the show will go on.

The fact remains that the US has MORE prison inmates, period, than
any other country in the world. That alone indicates the system is flawed.

Law and Order

[Anonymous Coward]

Prosecutors today grew up watching the dubious shenanigans, prosecutorial over-reach, mis-application of law, and prosecution by agenda of Dick Wolf's NBC program, Law and Order.

Guys, it's just fiction, and a TV program created to perpetuate Hollywood Limousine liberal propaganda.

Hopey Changey

[Anonymous Coward]

So the Savior of the Left is having Army drills in U.S. Cities, His D.O.J. is on a tear and even the left wing media is describing His D.O.J as a "sick culture".

We are one a well worn path that has been blazed by the best of Despots.

Do you have your AR yet?

Re:Hopey Changey

[colinrichardday]

Can you shoot down a drone with an AR-15?

Re:Hopey Changey

[Anonymous Coward]

Your position is that if you cannot resist successfully, then simply give in and comply?

That hasn't worked out very well for any number of ethnicities in the past.

Re:Hopey Changey

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps we should try another tactic then to point metal shooting devices in the air? your just going to get blown to bits and labeled a terroist if you do that. We need to attack the infrastructure and the money that powers the behomoth of our country if we hope to change it.

Re:Hopey Changey

[colinrichardday]

The person to whom I responded asked if I had my AR yet. I never said that there were no alternatives.

it's called negotiation.

[Anonymous Coward]

pure and simple. Start high/ low (depending on your position) and meet in the middle. Imagine buying a car. Yes, I know it's someone's life, but negotiation is negotiation.

Re:it's called negotiation.

[PPH]

And its wrong when your goal is (should be) to determine the truth.

Negotiating over charges just brings wealth and access to legal representation into the equation. o the rich can get away with more than the poor can. I don't think that's the sstem of justice our founding fathers had in mind.

Relevant comic

[Anonymous Coward]

Relevant comic: http://www.pereanu.com/comic/us-justice-system/

Got what we asked for

[Anonymous Coward]

We've been electing officials for years who have taken as stance as being tough on crime. So we're only getting what we've been asking for.

We The People, have gotten exactly what we asked for.

Laws are not limited to the courtroom

[sjbe]

All you have to do is sit on a jury and vote innocent on anyone that is brought up on a stupid law or on charges that are way over the top.

There are lots of aspects of law that have nothing to do with jury trials.

Nailed it!

[hoboroadie]

go to trial because it is their right (just like they have the right to free speech and to bear arms).

Your privilege to a trial is subject to the same restrictions as your other Constitutionally guaranteed privileges.
I was similarly once offered the choice of pleading guilty to a misdemeanor which never factually occurred, or spending (conviction guaranteed, per my legal counsel) five years in state prison for a felony which also did not occur. If I still had those old Criminology textbooks then I could cite the universal and pervasive nature of this type of occurrence.

Moral right to a hearing

[sjbe]

A day in court may be a constitutional right but it is not a moral right when everyone knows the defendant has committed the crimes.

The entire point of having a trial is that individuals are innocent until proven guilty. There is no such thing as "everyone knows" because by definition you cannot know all the facts until they are presented. Having your day in court is absolutely a moral right whether the person is ultimately guilty or not.

Re:Moral right to a hearing

[jklovanc]

The "innocent until proven guilty" works just as well if the accused walks into court and pleads guilty. Notice that it is not "innocent until proven guilty by someone else".

The reason why journalists are useless

[denis-The-menace]

The reason why journalists are useless is because of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axU9ngbTxKw

Since this case, ALL news reporters don't give a fsk.
All because it's not illegal to report false news in the US.
(it is in Canada, BTW. That's why Fox News North got canned!)

The problem now is that they are operating on the the corollary:
" It is *legal* to make up news in the US. "

Joe six-pack is too busy looking at dashian tatas on TV.
The elite love it because it gives them a license to print propaganda under the pretext of "news".

If normal people tried to do the same, they'd call it slander.

absolute problems require absolute solutions

[CaptainNerdCave]

Like I said before, there is a very stark difference between being harassed by a co-worker, radio personality, school bully, neighbor, etc., and being harassed by the government. The government effectively has infinite resources, and all of the other threats don't. You can escape the other problems, but the government may choose to keep you prisoner in one way or another.

There is a difference between blaming people who are representative of themselves, and people who are representative of something much bigger than they are.

No, it isn't

[Kupfernigk]

Laws are drafted by human beings and there will always be bad laws. This is not fixable; at least, never in human history has it been shown to be fixable. But the effect of bad laws can be undone by judges, juries and prosecutors who work in the interests of justice - not of the letter of the law.

People are giving Ortiz the "Just obeying orders" get out of jail free card. Wasn't accepted at Nuernberg. Wasn't accepted at the Eichmann trial.

"Department of justice"

[Kupfernigk]

It's the Department of Justice, supposedly, not the Department of Staying Just Inside the Boundaries of the Law.

The "just obeying orders" card was played at Nürnberg and by Eichmann. Didn't work. For the system to work, prosecutors must first and foremost pursue justice, or they will fall into disrepute. Right now I wouldn't trust Ms. Ortiz in charge of a pebble on a highway intersection. That does nothing to encourage people to obey the laws.

Should not be

[Kupfernigk]

That is an almost incredibly American-centric view and shows what is wrong with the thinking of many people. Why would a prosecutor seek the maximum sentence? Because he's getting a kickback from the private prison industry? Because his annual bonus is based on total years incarceration for all his convictions?

The job of the prosecutor is to prepare and present the prosecution case. The prosecutor should have NO input into sentencing at all. It should entirely be down to the judge, who should be guided by criminological opinion and research. That after all is the function of a judge: having heard the evidence and the decision of the jury, to pronounce sentence.

Re:Should not be

[buddyglass]

I'm not an attorney, but as I understand it prosecutors generally don't have input on sentencing. What they do have input on is which sort of conviction to try for, which obviously has implications for the severity of sentence the convicted eventually receives. I can charge you with X or I can charge you with Y. If I think it's harder for me to prove X then I may go with Y, with the understanding that the range of sentences for Y are less severe.

Re:Should not be

[0111 1110]

The part you may be missing is that prosecutors intentionally go for charges as serious and scary as possible which they know they are unlikely to win in a jury trial for the sole purpose of intimidating the accused into a plea bargain. The problem is when innocent people plead guilty to a crime they haven't committed in order to avoid the possibility of being found guilty of everything they are accused of by a simple minded, 'where there is smoke there is fire' jury or an all to common "if a cop says it it must be true" judge.

Prosecutors have nothing to lose and everything to gain (assuming they are soiciopaths without a conscience of course) by throwing everything imaginable at you. They can always drop the more ridiculous charges later if they are afraid of looking silly to the trial judge or whatever. They can choose to let the jury decide whether j-walking is actually a form of attempted murder or whether it was really possible that you emotionally injured the 30 policed officers by hitting their nightsticks with your head and getting your blood all over their uniforms. No one thinks much of the juror pool. Especially after voir dire. So anything is possible.

Re:Should not be

[buddyglass]

Again, this is part of the give-and-take system through which we arrive at a final set of charges.

When everything is illegal...

[qemqemqem]

The persecution replaces rule of law.

Seriously?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Even most journalists, who are supposedly there to tell truth to power

Bah ha ha ha! That's as funny as people who shout "Take the power back!" Back?! Ha ha ha ha!

Ortiz nominated Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

In May 2009, Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry recommended Ortiz to President Obama for the vacant United States Attorney position in the District of Massachusetts.

Laugh

[koan]

What do you expect from an entity called the "Department of Justice" and for the record there are no "journalist" in the MSM.

Not unique to this case.

[doubledown00]

"there is something wrong with overcharging, and then raising the ante, merely to wring a guilty plea to a dubious statute."

-----

This is not limited to Federal prosecutors. State District Attorneys do this too.

a journalists's job isn't to speak truth to power

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd be nice if it was, but their actual job is to sell get as many viewers/readers as possible so that the advertising revenue keeps rolling in.

Two wrongs

[phorm]

Indeed. It's a case of two wrongs.
Should Swartz have gotten some punishment for what he did? Yes.
Should he have gotten (or been threatened) a potential life sentence or more from an overzealous prosecutor. No.
If he had been facing a substantial (but not unreasonable/life-ruining) fine, or a few months in jail, then we probably wouldn't be talking about this right now (and he'd still be alive).

JSTOR is a massive money machine

[Anonymous Coward]

Students pay a fortune to go to university. Every student is a captive consumer of products and services provided by the university. JSTOR effectively taps a significant monthly subscription from every student, generating an income beyond belief.

The non-profit status of JSTOR is designed to fool cretins into thinking JSTOR doesn't make money. JSTOR makes insane amounts of money. This money gets fed into massive salaries, kick-back payment schemes, and extreme expense accounts. A university that uses JSTOR has many VERY happy administrators.

Aaron threatened the income of a very large number of extremely corrupt individuals. Today, access to academic papers could be provided AT ZERO COST if an organisation like Google was tasked with handling the archives.

JSTOR's continued existence is more than corrupt financial self-interest. The is, without a doubt, a significant amount of elitist pressure to prevent the 'unwashed masses' from having easy access to such learning material. There are those that still see universities as fortresses, with the ultimate power to decide who gets in.

Decent people KNOW that anyone with access to the Internet, anywhere on this planet, should be able to read any academic paper they want, at no cost. People who willingly wish to use their own time to advance their own knowledge by learning the knowledge of others advance the WHOLE Human Race.

Depraved monsters, on the other hand, think only in terms of power and profit. They would not care if most of the Human Race continued to live in the dark, so long as their clique appear to have a superior position in society.

Aaron was squashed to death by a combination of both kinds of Human monster. The filth feeding on the obscene income generated by JSTOR, and the elitiest scum that judge their own success by the degree of others' failure to advance.

And what about "no one is above the law"?

[whitroth]

But the DoJ is as political as anything else.

Otherwise... well, Tom DeLay, former Speaker of the House, was convicted in Texas of money laundering for campaigns...*THROUGH THE RNC*. Laundering money requires at least two guilty parties... so why hasn't the DoJ RICO'd the RNC, instead of going after small, easy fish?

                  mark

people are people

[Vince6791]

Humans still have not evolved enough to stop these childish "oppression over other" games. It's seems to me that people just love to oppress and impose their own ideology(laws, religion, controlling your lifestyle, etc...) over another, ego problem. Well, what was the reason behind the overzealous prosecution of Aaron? Was it because the prosecutors are sociopath's(huge ego's) and just love to oppress or was it to make a name for themselves and climb up the corporate ladder(ego problem again). But than we have Aaron trying to impose his own ideology on MIT and JSTOR dictating what they can and can't do with the documents and such. It's same thing with people who download mp3's and movies illegally because they don't agree with the owners pricing scheme or terms of use of the product even though nobody is forcing them to buy it. People will do whatever it takes to feed their own ego.

Re:people are people

[Anonymous Coward]

Me discovering and wanting to stop a rape in progress doesn't stem from the same motivation as that of the rapist.

The rapist is taking for himself; self-service.

My motivation stems from a curious little component called 'compassion'.

Aaron Swartz vs. the Phantom Giant

[sgt_doom]

Aaron Swartz versus the Phantom Giant

When Aaron took on SOPA, he took on AT&T and as he was later to find out, Chris Dodd, whose family has been on retainer to the Rockefeller family for generations, dating back to their ancestor, Samuel Calvin Tate Dodd, the attorney to John D. Rockefeller, who created a holding company each time Rockefeller’s Standard Oil supposedly sold off a business unit (during the court-ordered breakup), moving the stock ownership to the holding company, then in turn establishing ownership of said holding company at one of Rockefeller’s foundations and/or trusts.

Chris Dodd’s father, Thomas Dodd, had no less than at least three Acts of Congress passed in futile attempts to curb the famous Dodd corruption (most notably F.A.R.A., or the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and amendments to it).

Are the Dodds still working for the Rockefeller family? Well, that depends on the mystery ownership of AT&T. Going back to the early 1900s, John Moody, the original founder of the infamous Moody’s rating service, said that AT&T was part of the Rockefeller Trust, originally financed by Morgan, but either sold, traded or shifted over to Rockefeller.

We do know that AT&T loves Senator Jay Rockefeller, and that Jay Rockefeller loves AT&T, as witnessed by the manner in which he led the way in the Senate to grant them retroactive immunity regarding the warrantless wiretapping during the Bush Administration (which continues on, BTW).

From the site link below. . . .

http://attpublicpolicy.com/tag/jay-rockefeller/

Posted by: AT&T Blog Team on January 25, 2011 at 4:08 pm

“Chairman Rockefeller has long made public safety and national security a top priority for this country. We applaud his commitment to the public safety community and his tireless efforts to ensure that first responders have the resources they need to support a nationwide wireless broadband network. This legislation will result in a truly interoperable public safety network and will free up new spectrum and establish funding mechanisms to support the operation and maintenance of this critical network.”

Many people don’t realize that the old AT&T has been reconstituted back to its original, albeit even more powerful and richer self, thanks in part to Bill Clinton’s signing of that Telecommunications Act of 1996 --- all except Verizon, but in tracking the circuitous ownership of Verizon it appears to lead back to the same ownership as AT&T!

Why would AT&T target Aaron Swartz, through their federal prosecutor proxies?

We used to marvel, back in the late 1970s, how AT&T set out to destroy the telecom upstart, MCI, which would have shortly gone out of business, had not AT&T pulled their access to long distance lines, thereby allowing MCI legal recourse, eventually netting MCI enough monies (from the legal settlement with AT&T) to continue on with their precarious business existence for a few more years.

AT&T --- and the Rockefeller family --- has only one strategy: the scorched earth policy! Now, former IMF stooge and presently an economics prof at MIT, Simon Johnson, would have us believe that the Rockefellers, led by the crafty David Rockefeller, gave away their billions to “charity” --- they morphed from murderous robber barons to “philanthropists”?

So the Rockefeller family, worth an estimated $30 billion in 1960 (when one billion was an unimaginable sum), are now only worth $2 billion?

Puuuhlease --- repositioning the Rockefeller fortune to various foundations, trusts and unregistered trusts to hide their wealth and ownership was, and still is, the standard tax dodge; nothing particularly surprising there. (The norm today is to create an LLC, or Limite

Re:Aaron Swartz vs. the Phantom Giant

[sgt_doom]

Strange, the sources didn't xfer correctly:

Sources:

Moody, John. The Truth about the Trusts. 1904

Moody, John. The Masters of Capital. 1919
(Please pay close attention to pp. 152-153, 167-169)

Myers, Gustavus. History of the Great American Fortunes, Vols. I, II & III. 1910

Nace, Ted. Gangs of America. 2003

Wu, Tim. The Master Switch. 2010

Nationalized Legal Representation

[myth24601]

We should nationalize the legal profession. If you get charged with a crime, the government pays your lawyers the same amount it pays prosecutors.

A cave dweller, I see ....

[sgt_doom]

. . .otherwise you would know there has been much, much unbridled corruption among prosecutors over the past twenty years, almost exponentially increasing about every four to five years.
"you can't blame the prosecutors ..."

Which is why your comment is so absolutely ludircrous, if not a planted one, perhaps????

Never heard about Gov. Don Siegelman? Sue Schmitz? All those whistleblowers who weren't supposed to be fired, hounded out of their jobs, or far worse, sent to prison? Never heard of Shakir Hamoodi, or John Kiriakou? The lady doctor at EPA who was just reinstated, after the fed court found in her favor, no thanks to the Bush-Obama administration's attacks on her?

You can indeed blame the AG, Lanny Breuer, and all the corruption at that most corrupt of places, bad citizen, you most indeed can . . . .

Re:A cave dweller, I see ....

[stenvar]

Seriously, are you so dumb that one has to spell this out for you in excruciating detail?

But it's Congress that is responsible for this development; you can't blame the prosecutors for the expansion of federal power

Of course, when prosecutors are corrupt, when they torture little kittens, when they cut the nose off the cheese, or when they pee on the toilet seat, you can blame them for those things. But you can't blame them for giving prosecutors too much power because it is Congress that gives prosecutors this power in the first place.

"if the defendant is really innocent ...

[Anonymous Coward]

it does not matter what sentence he is threatened with as it will never be imposed."

What color is the sky where you live? Innocent people go to jail all the time.

Truly well spoken, CuteSteveJobs

[sgt_doom]

And IMHO, please allow me to add . . .

The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth

I despise Fox, better known as FoxFiction, for the very same reason I despise PBS and the Frontline show which appears on it; they both are nothing more than propaganda vehicles. I’ve ranted enough over the years about Rupert Murdoch and his criminal propaganda operations, but for the concise lowdown on his “legalization” of news fictionalization, please read Kristina Borjesson’s outstanding book, Into the Buzzsaw (a fantastic achievement by Ms. Borjesson).

The other day, Frontline broadcasted a show on their take on why none of the guilty parties have gone to jail for all the financial fraud --- and law breaking and violation --- involved in the financial meltdown that we hear and read about on an almost daily basis. It was so thoroughly contrived and such nonsense that any self-aware human had to be nauseated by it!

Some years back, an editor at the Seattle Times explained to me how they falsified the news (this was during a heated and argumentative discussion, when I accosted them about some highly misleading stories in their rag): the newsy interviews the disinformation specialist --- usually a corporate lobbyist --- who spews forth their lies, therefore the reporter/journalist/editor bears no legal culpability whatsoever --- since the interviewee was spouting the lies and fiction.

Of course, the newsy never bothers to ever verify, or fact check, anymore!

Frontline did this most effectively, although they still were culpable in repeating the Wall Street and US Chamber of Commerce talking point nonsense.

The mortgage foreclosures, a relatively small percentage at the beginning, had really nothing to do with the economic meltdown, it was almost superfluous (although it would figure among the global insurance swindles, it was really only one of a host of factors).

It was the never-ending ultra-leveraging of the debt, over and over and over again.

Securitization, or the transforming of debt into securities, the selling of financial instruments based upon the ongoing and future promise of payment of said debt, then selling more financial instruments based upon those financial instruments, then selling even more financial instruments based upon those, etc., etc., etc.

That’s ultra-leveraging, but again, only part of it --- they also re-securitized the original securitization, and re-re-securitized again, then re-re-re-re-securitized again, etc.

Layer upon layer upon endless layer of debt/financial instruments: why there are so many multi-billionaires and so many people struggling today.

Add to that still other components: something they call rehypothecation, or using other collateral as your own (really a form of fraudulent borrowing, ostensibly illegal in the USA, but legal in the UK (but it never stopped them here in America, now did it?) by the banksters, speculators and derivatives dealers.

Now add to that all the insider speculation, wash trades (the trading back and forth by speculators to drive up, or down, commodity and stock values), and LIBOR rate manipulation (please remember, that LIBOR manipulation affected an estimated potential of $800 trillion worth of contracts --- that’s TRILLION, or 1,000 billion times 800 --- super-sized numbers which derived from all that ultra-leveraging --- so they manipulated their manipulations . . ).

So when Frontline is too damned lazy to consult some law books and relies on the DOJ’s Lanny Breuer to spout nonsense (a guy who made his big bucks defending the people he’s supposed to now be investigating when he worked at Covington & Burling with Attorney General Holder) and they repeat the Wall Street mantra about the so-called underlying causes of their meltdown (“nobody could have foreseen it” / “unexpected consequences” school of f

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume then that you read every TOS you agree to in it's 50 page entirety? The legal system is not based upon needing permission to do anything. If doing things without explicit permission was disallowed, innovation would be implicitly forbidden. Criminalizing people who do not fit the normal mold of expected activity has a strong chilling effect on progress. The whole point of a capitalist society is that you are given a set of rules and you operate in an otherwise unbounded way in order to maximize benefit.

Also, remember that copyrights are designed to promote innovation. The copyright must last long enough to adequately reward the copyright holder such that they are encouraged to continue to innovate. Much like patents, copyrights are supposed to expire after this "adequate" amount of time so that the entire public can benefit from the knowledge. This process appears to have been hijacked by those with financial interest. This is an obvious and antisocial activity that has negative effects on the productivity of all sectors of society. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright#Copyright_term . People went around complaining about how much education costs while lawmakers went and extended the copyright term to 95 years! The most recent textbooks which can be distributed freely are from 1918. This is essentially an "education tax" that we are all needlessly compelled to pay which is then collected by private entities with conflicting political interests.

Irrelevant.

[Weezul]

In fact, I'll one-up you : Obama cannot fire Heymann because his appointment isn't political. He's just an ordinary federal employee. Ortiz petition scored 40k partially because Kos clarified that Obama can fire her.

We aren't really trying to get him fired though, not really. We want to ruin his political ambitions, which incidentally were why he pursued Aaron and James until they both committed suicide.

Re:Irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama cannot fire Heymann

Bullshit...executive order baby!

Re:Irrelevant.

[Charliemopps]

The only thing that can ruin someones political ambitions is... well nothing. Your petition sure as fuck wont. Ted Kennedy, while married, got drunk, drove his car off a bridge, killing his girlfriend/mistress, then waited till the next day to report the incident to police, who then refused to investigate it. You can cheat on your wife, drunk drive your car off a bridge, kill someone and still hold office... If people support your political party they will believe anything you say.

Re:Irrelevant.

[bbsalem]

Well that sounds pat, and probably wrong in the new world we live in. You and I have a bully pulpit called the Internet in which we can keep alive the message about abuse at the DOJ until the bad guys can't get anything other than a law clerk job. Reputations now have an infinite shelf life and a web search can dredge all the dirt.

As a former jourmalist...

[Anonymous Coward]

what you said, plus:
- the attitude that news should be free, or the perennial "I can just get it from Reuters/ AP."
- an audience moving towards broadcast journalism instead of printed news. You can fit more info per square inch than 60 minutes ( harr harr, get it?)
- we get shit when mistakes happen. Despite printing retractions or corrections in the next issue. Then people bitch about going back to AP/ Reuters again.
- oh, and long hours with shitty pay.

That pretty much sums up why I left the newspapers. The quality of the audience has declined with the quality of the news, and vice-versa.

Death by Drones

[Anonymous Coward]

The same Eric Holder whose idea of justice is sentencing people to death in a Star Chamber? Not likely. When told he was not following due process over the drone killings, his response was that he could follow due process without involving the courts. And this is the Obama government's top lawyer! http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/07/opinion/la-ed-holder-20120307

Exactly, and people can face just as much ruin.

[Anonymous Coward]

Take someone in poverty. Something falls out of their pocket, but from the cop's angle it looks like they dropped it. In my state (Washington), that's a $1,000.00 FINE.

Yes, a thousand. I'm neither in poverty or someone who has ever faced a fine for littering, but I worry about the latter and I worry about people who are both.

This is because my child-like naivety about law enforcement being "the good guys" was done away with some time ago. A small traffic matter, the details of which are irrelevant and I certainly was at fault - and saying so, but how the cop took to it and how the judge behaved when I went to contest were surreal.

The cop had no interest in what happened. Nor did the judge. Photos I had, etc. It did not matter. No interest. You have about as much information as they did. I messed up, does it matter that the law cited by the cop could in no way match what happened? Don't be silly, of course it doesn't matter.

Fortunately my employer at the time, someone who had ridden along with me and knew I was so conscientious (a nice way of saying OCD) that I would use my turn signal to back out of parking spots, my seat belt when simply moving my car in a driveway or would refuse to drive when I had forgotten my wallet, knew to ignore the infraction.

Should the event or one like it ever occur again, I'll be quick to retain a lawyer regardless of expense instead of wandering in believing in the ultimate good of the system, but I digress. I worry about people who do not have understanding employers. People who are on the line, something small happens and they face these same incompetent fools. People who cannot retain a lawyer.

A falling piece of paper can mean not making rent, ending up on a street, not being able to shower regularly, being dismissed from employment for smelling bad, etc. A speeding camera that goes off a little too early (a recent local news story regarding some school zones) may mean the same or simply being dismissed from employment as a danger/liability.

In economies such as this one, the end result can be death. Either via Swartz's method or hypothermia.

It's not cheap to house prisoners.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've often heard estimates of around $50,000/year per prisoner.

Why not Barack Obama?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cause he isn't Nixon. He's by no means perfect, but that is irrelevant. Cite one example of him doing something illegal in order to harm his political opponents.

Re:Why not Barack Obama?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about providing arms, money, and technical training to acknowledged and even "declared" enemies of the USA? Writing an executive order to give himself a 3rd term in office? You just haven't been looking deep enough if you think Obama is as clean and pure as you seem to think he is. People who oppose Chicago politicians in a substantive manner usually end up dead.... unless they have enough political capital to keep themselves alive. Obama is the product of the Chicago political machine and there is no indication he has been able to rise above the worse abuses of that loose organization.

Over-reaction has become normal in this country.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like 6-year-olds being expelled from school because they used their fingers to form a gun on a playground.

If we were sane, you would be correct saying the DOJ had no business being involved in this.

Are we sane?

I'd rather do away with the electoral college.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just go with the popular vote. It would be so easy to do.

F* the Deathstar

[Anonymous Coward]

And I really have to say F* the people behind the "Build the Deathstar" petition. Yeah. Ha ha. Funny, but there are people who are trying to use the petitions to effect real change. Not stupid prat boy jokes.

Candlelight vigil tonight for DrXym!

[CuteSteveJobs]

You are missing the point: trivial things are now illegal. If you have ever been less than entirely honest in an e-mail or letter then YOU TOO are a felon and any federal employee who doesn't like you - or decides to use you as career fodder - can jail you for wire fraud or mail fraud. Same if you have ever made a 'mistake' on your tax return. Wondered why the IRS audited the CIA waterboarded whistleblower back 7 years? Because it's an easy way to jail someone. Getting Al Capone for tax evasion seems clever, but giving prosecutors like Oritz a joker means you must trust them not to abuse it for career-building instead of justice. Pick the prisoner, and choose the crime.

Authoritarians.

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad part with this guy's post is that a significant portion of the world would agree with him because they have no internal sense of authority.

Such people are called, "Authoritarian Followers". They cannot determine any sense of direction or meaning in life on their own, have no internal understanding of right and wrong, and so *require* an outside force to tell them what to do and what to think.

The actual behavioral code of the authority is irrelevant. It wouldn't matter if the authority said, "You need to stuff grapes up your ass every morning". So long as the majority of the population agreed that this was the way things are done, the authoritarian follower would dutifully shove grapes up his ass every morning, because it would make him feel safe.

Beta-dogs need their Alpha to tell them what to do, or their lives would dissolve into a mess of fear and confusion.

Hurry up and evolve. You have that nice frontal lobe. Use it once in a while.

SIGN THE PETITION YOU LAZY F*&%S!!!!

[cenerentolo]

it is only at 50k votes..... take this cunt whore of satan off the taxpayers employment rolls.

Re:SIGN THE PETITION YOU LAZY F*&%S!!!!

[cenerentolo]

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck

specious and fallacious verbiage

[Anonymous Coward]

Playing the blame game is the most convenient, and lowbrow, way to shift blame on to another, but never, ever excuses those miscreants and cretinous swine responsible; nothing excuses Ortiz, the others, those involved with the prosecution and arrests of Don Siegelman, Sue Scmitz, etc., and Obama's War on Whistleblowers (the continuation and expansion from the Bush administration). As long as the DOJ and DOT are simply subsidiaries of Wall Street, such corruption continues unabated. sgt_doom

Dept. of Justice?

[billd10]

Someone needs to investigate the DOJ, which is often used to exert the will of corrupt leaders (like our current president) and has little to do with justice for the American people.