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DoJ Admits Aaron Swartz's Prosecution Was Political
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from a blog post by Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, founder of corporate watchdog SumOfUs.org and partner of the late Aaron Swartz:
"The DOJ has told Congressional investigators that Aaron's prosecution was motivated by his political views on copyright. I was going to start that last paragraph with 'In a stunning turn of events,' but I realized that would be inaccurate — because it's really not that surprising. Many people speculated throughout the whole ordeal that this was a political prosecution, motivated by anything/everything from Aaron's effective campaigning against SOPA to his run-ins with the FBI over the PACER database. But Aaron actually didn't believe it was — he thought it was overreach by some local prosecutors who didn't really understand the internet and just saw him as a high-profile scalp they could claim, facilitated by a criminal justice system and computer crime laws specifically designed to give prosecutors, however incompetent or malicious, all the wrong incentives and all the power they could ever want. But this HuffPo article, and what I’m hearing from sources on the Hill, suggest that that’s not true. That Ortiz and Heymann knew exactly what they were doing: Shutting up, and hopefully locking up, an extremely effective activist whose political views, including those on copyright, threatened the Powers That Be."
There's a stark contrast in this article between someone who is defiant and righteous and effective in his fight against THE MAN. Yet at the first sign of adversity he rolls over like a stuck pig. Two completely different pictures. If you shove someone in power, prepare to be shoved back and stand up for yourself. He really should have rode this court case out, it sounded like he had very competent lawyers who would get it busted down to only the crimes he did commit.
tell me the suicide was not part of the plan...
It's not at all shocking that it was politically motivated. What's shocking is that they admitted it.
Of course they can admit it was political. There's no downside to this for them. They can't be successfully sued, and no one will ever be held personally responsible.
"Yeah, we did it for political reasons. But, we didn't use a drone. It just turned out that our unreasonable tactics were extremely effective. And the taxpayers should be happy that they didn't get the bill for a large public trial."
"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master".
Commissioner Pravin Lal, "U.N. Declaration of Rights"
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
At least they just prosecuted him instead of launching a Hellfire missile at his house.
sudo make me a sandwich
I'd say rest in peace, Aaron, but he's probably rolling over in his grave right now. I hope the people responsible feel remorse but they are incapable of feeling human emotion.
I'm looking at the political manifesto being quoted, and the only bit of data was this quote:
> A Justice Department representative told congressional staffers during a recent briefing on the computer fraud prosecution of Internet activist Aaron Swartz that Swartz’s “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto” played a role in the prosecution, sources told The Huffington Post.
*OF COURSE IT DID*. It shows that *Swartz* was being political, and that messing with copyright apart was, *for Swartz*, a political act. That means he's going to do it again, and encourage other people to do it again, and it's a completely relevant part of criminal prosecution and sentencing. If someone doesn't believe what they did was wrong, or believe that it was a political action, it makes them more likely to do it *again*.
And make no mistake, Swartz had repeated opportunities to stop, and he was screwing with research worldwide, not just at MIT. He *deerved*( prosecution.
This would be like linking to an NRA member's blog about the gun control debate as if it were an accurate reporting on events.
This is awful. The idea that copyright (and in fact ideas about copyright) should be enforced as vigorously as this is absurd.
America has started doing show trials now of people who haven't committed crimes on the basis that their ideas are radical and dangerous?
The copyright lobby has won, apparently. And doing anything contrary to their wishes will cause the government to go after you.
Welcome to the oligarchy folks, it's all down from here. I'm not sure how free of a society you can be when commercial interests lead to something like this.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Because so what if they admitted it? Is anyone going to be held responsible or punished for it? No. At most there might be a slap on the wrist (NOT for the prosecution, but for letting it get out of hand), then it will be business as usual.
Remember, all the rules are there just for the plebs, not for the elites in the ruling class.
"If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research."
As someone mentioned, it's not shocking the prosecution was politically motivated but shocking that they admitted it. I'll add that it's also not shocking that they think they didn't do anything wrong!
If I speed and get a ticket I was not ticketed because of my political views about the traffic laws!
Swartz went out of his way to break the law because he did not agree with it, that he disagreed with it does not make it political. It just make him a lawbreaker who did not respect the rights of the people who created the material.
You could make the case that he was targeted because his high profile, and based on the crimes he committed that was probably the case. However to say it was all politically generated is wrong and a disservice to those who are actually arrested for political reasons.
tfa has an update at the bottom:
"UPDATE #2: A DOJ official says (in the outlet âoeBroadcasting & Cable,â an odd choice if you ask meâ¦) that my characterization of the prosecution as âoepoliticalâ is inaccurate. No argument as to why or how, so color me unconvinced."
whoever the "doj official" is, is likely out of a job soon..
I just love it. You socialist morons who in such great numbers attack conservatives and support ultra liberal radicals like Obama your virtual king, what do you have to say?
Who runs the DOJ? Holder, stooge of Obama and the left, tyrants all of them.
Or am I missing something and it this all in reality the fault of the EVIL BUUUUUUSH!!!!!
You fucking drones.
Capthca: ENFORCER
Bwhaahahahahhahahahahahah
If you are innocent but a little dangerous the system overreacts and goes into bug squish mode. I didn't have the resources to defend myself without being driven to poverty, I am not too big or important to fail, the perfect target. My crime is being invited by a friends kid to give a first aid and rope safety class to some tree worshiping hippies after a fatality, that got me into the sights of a federal prosecutor as a enviro-terrorist. I found out thanks to a college friend in the prosecutors office. I am a natural born in the continental US citizen, fortunately with an inherited second passport, I had the resources to go expat rather than gamble what the feds would do with their new DHS/patriot act powers.
Is my life good now, sure, but I still feel that I can not ever visit the US until there is massive change.
Just like Susan B. Anthony, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., etc., etc., etc. "deserved" prosecution.
Did you ever stop to consider, even for a moment, that the reason Aaron Swartz was going to continue this pattern of behavior might just possibly be that he was right?
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Remember when it came out, that the FBI actively worked with the banks, to forcibly (and illegally anyway) shut the movement down? They added agents provocateurs, false flag operations, and sowed the seed of conflict, to get them to fall apart.
The *exact* same thing happened to Wikileaks.
There's a highly active and highly powerful force in the USA, that shuts down everyone and everything that goes against he enforced groupthink or doesn't let them distract him.
It's why there are no real other parties, why the media only focuses on two views that are virtually the same and are portrayed as the most extreme differences there could be, and it's especially the reason why there aren't constant riots and attempts to overthrow the dictatorial government, even though it's ripe since a looong time.
The CIA, the FBI, Homeland Insecurity, the TSA, the NSA, and especially those most powerful government agencies no-one has ever heard of but which somehow are involved in everything. They're all part of it.
And the people live in extreme schizophrenic denial, flee to the delusions of religion, the reality distortion of the "American dream", and the lies of the "free market".
His manifesto shows conspiratorial intent... He declared he wanted to make all information "free" and then he went in and STOLE the information to distribute it.
The DOJ was doing its job and Taren is the one politicizing it.
But if we way to go there, lets... Why did OBAMAs DOJ feel the need to persecute and torture Swartz like they did?
A Justice Department representative told congressional staffers during a recent briefing on the computer fraud prosecution of Internet activist Aaron Swartz that Swartz’s “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto” played a role in the prosecution, sources told The Huffington Post.
Doesn't sound quite the same as "admitting it's political". In fact, let's see what the HuffPo said:
The "Manifesto," Justice Department representatives told congressional staffers, demonstrated Swartz's malicious intent in downloading documents on a massive scale.
... yeah. Sorry, Submitter, but we mock that kind of Gotcha Journalism when Fox News or Breitbart twists someone's words to make a splashy headline, or when James O'Keefe does one of his out-of-context videos to smear Planned Parenthood.
Well if ever you need to remind people why anonymity is so important, perhaps the Aaron Swartz case illustrates it.
No doubt they'd get a girl to seduce him, then prosecute him for rape if all else failed.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5284311
The story was reported yesterday on Hacker News, and the headline on /. is just as sensational as it was in the other forum.
There is no admission, and there is no source. The anonymous staffer who will not be named is some underling with no pull or sway, and nobody has resigned. He didn't even say what the headline claims he said.
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
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Or is it just a different slant on things we already knew about? The first link in the posting was to a tumblr blog formatted to look like a magazine article. But if you read it, its author breathlessly recounts rumors. The second link cited is a Huffington Post article about how prosecutors viewed his "manifesto," which has already been discussed on slashdot.
TarenSK is entitled to his opinions. But they're not very interesting. Who would have expected publicly defying the law would motivate prosecutors to come down hard on a suspect?
Seriously, is Slashdot news for nerds anymore? Or just Talking Points Memo for the Pirate Party?
Really? That rag is still around? It's the Fox News of our world, except it actually has less credibility. Slashdot... for scientific minds, citing HuffPo, or Wapo? Admittedly (very biased) rags. So sad
If it has not happened already, watch judges start citing contempt prospective jurors for mentioning Aaron Swartz.
The defining characteristic of nation-states is that their governments must hold at least ONE political prisoner. Human nature is such that it is impossible otherwise.
"Politician admits obvious truth everyone knew already" ...really IS "news". /sigh /downfalloftherepublic
-Styopa
This is why there's a Second Amendment, people.
"Who needs an assault rifle," you ask? Obviously anyone with opinions of his/her own.
It won't change in 1 month, next year or maybe even in 5 years.
But somewhere along the line, other people'll adopt your very ideas you put out.
Living this on a daily basis now regarding organic non-toxic and vegetarian foods among dozens of other areas.
It doesn't even take that much energy. You don't have to marry your ideas, just back them up with facts.
And don't we have anti-bullying laws now?
I mean seriously, these guys are getting away with what has now literally (and I'm using the term accurately) been defined as MURDER.
Remember that case where another "private citizen" bullied some young girl over the internet, that young girl committed suicide, and then the bully was put on trial for her murder?
So why is the prosecutor, who performed EXACTLY the same act, still walking free, and is probably still bullying others into killing themselves?
Nice dual-justice system there, America.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Of course, the prosecution was motivated by his views on copyright, just like the prosecution of a pot grower is motivated by their views on growing pot. What people still don't seem to get is that the DOJ position represents the majority view of the elected representatives, both on copyright and on computer fraud.
I would not really call it a "political" detention, but rather a "coporate" detention. Views on copyright do not really reflect on political issues but rather on corporate profit issues.
Sure copyrights and patent are part of the legal process of civil society decided by our politics. But in the end their purpose as defined in the laws that enact them is purely to drive a profit.
Aaron Shwartz, death by corporate agenda.
The religion of the american dream is lies of capitalistic greed
Sentence: death
I was prosecuted in the same vindictive, politically motivated
way as Swartz was.
I was sentenced and I went to prison and did my time and now I am free,
or at least as free as you can be in the increasingly fascist United States.
The process of plea bargaining ALWAYS involves the prosecution making
threats which could result in an absurdly long amount of prison time. This is
done in order to coerce the defendant into "copping a plea". Any decent defense
attorney knows this, and for that matter anyone with a brain who hasn't even
been to law school knows this too.
Swartz was smart but obviously troubled. Just because you are in trouble doesn't mean
you fucking give up and commit suicide. So a major part of the culpability for Swartz dying
rests with Swartz himself. Of course the majority of the kind of gutless cunts who hang out
on Slashdot lack the courage to admit this is true and so they want to blame it all on the government,
which is certainly a force for evil but cannot be honestly said to be 100% responsible for the unfortunate
outcome in this particular situation.
This is probably the most truly insightful post on this page, but of course you Slashfags won't
mod it up because you like to entertain persecution fantasies.
--
YOU just don't have a come-back for it, hence you're yelling "FAIL".
I don't believe any of it.
I don't believe he was foolish to believe it wasn't political. Nobody is an activist to that level without being 'awake'.
I don't believe he commited suicide. His case didin't even go to trial yet. A judge may have saw right through it and put an end to it right then and there, and I don't believe he was stupid enough to do that.
If your an activist in any way, you need to make sure you tell your friends and family, that you would never go crazy and shoot a bunch of people, or molest kids, or kill yourself, or anything else you can think of. That way if something does happen, there will be no doubt of who is responsible, or at least of who is not.
After all, Hollywood spent a lot of money on Barack and they don't want to see their investment wasted.
It is surprising that they admit it after he killed himself. They could just have denied it. Nobody who cares would have been fooled but it was "plausibly" deniable.
...so you deal with him as an idealogue. I happen to agree with Schwaz's ideology when it comes to open and free access to information, especially information that was accumulated via tax-funded research. My tax dollars are also funding those prosecutors, though -- I want to make sure that if they are going after an ideologue (even one that I happen to agree with) they aren't hampered in the process, because there are other ideologues out there that I would like to see swing if they (like Schwarz did) trip up and violate a law. The defense's job is to get their client off the hook, and is given great leeway in doing so. But the prosecution's job is to keep him on the hook, and should have the same amount of leeway to build their case.
It used to be the case that politicians would have been more aggressive in hiding this. It would have been a bit too much like the Soviet Union for comfort. Thhese days, nobody is surprised, and nobody cares. Welcome to the USSA.
It's not a crime, he did it "with a computer" so he's a hero. A hero, I say!
LIONIZE ALL COMPUTER CRIMINALS!
DOWN WITH THE U.S. ZIONIST OCCUPIED GOVERNMENT ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
Twitter: @dainsanefh
I always let Lal live until the end of the game, simply out of respect for one of the most brilliant pieces of fictional quotation ever devised by man.
by voting for a Stalinist candidate in November 6th, 2012. Enjoy your North Korean style democracy.
New Economic Perspectives
But hey, lets just take an out of context quote written in one of the worse online 'papers'(Huffpoo) and simply believe it becasue it agrees with a unproven cognitive bias.
It's a political view blog. Not journalism. Its' a non paid for blog.
stupid stupid stupid.
This shit pollutes the actual story.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Lets see:
He broke into an area.
Installed an unauthorized computer.
Installed a script without permission,
committed computer fraud.
All of which he admitted and plead not guilty.
Setting aside the downloaded content issue, everything he did to get it was illegal.
Then thye offered him a deal where he spent NO TIME in prison, but MIT wouldn't sign off.
But people focus on 'he was just downloading articles.
even though he admitted he did those thing, all of which are illegal, he refused to take a plea deal of 6 months in jail. During which time he would get suicide watch and counseling. Had he taken the deal about the crimes he admitted do doing, he would be alive.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Marty Weinberg, who took the case over from Good, said he nearly negotiated a plea bargain in which Swartz would not serve any time. “JSTOR signed off on it,” he said, “but MIT would not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/15/humanity-deficit/bj8oThPDwzgxBSHQt3tyKI/story.html?s_campaign=sm_tw
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Mickey Mouse murdered Aaron Swartz.
is to facilitate slavery.
Twitter: @dainsanefh
How many times does the government that supposedly represents us need to openly declare war on us, the citizens, before we respond?
I hope everyone is signing the White House petitions to fire these 2 prosecutors for overreach in this case.
Petition for Carmen Ortiz: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck
Petition for Steve Heymann: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-attorney-steve-heymann/RJKSY2nb
I know, I don't have a lot of faith in this petition system but, I'm hopeful that enough people will keep making noise on this one that some action will actually be taken. With this latest development that politics at least played a role in Aaron's persecution they should be jailed for bullying but we all know prosecutors don't go to jail so at least they should be fired and disgraced. Imagine if people don't make enough noise, nothing is done, and in 5 or 10 years these jerks are sitting on the bench as Federal Judges!
Less *is* more.
Funny, I have not seen any forced famines in the bible belt or conservatards and libertardians rounded up and sent to FEMA camps. I have not seen political rivals of Obama accidentally falling and landing head first on a bullet. You are full of shit and have no clue what Stalinism really is.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
You act surprised that Obama's goons would target and exterminate an individual for daring to advocate against restricting access to academic papers. Well, the owners of Slashdot are a VERY willing part of Team Obama, and happily blocked the citizens of Iran from accessing the open-source web-sites run by the same owners.
The recent Oscars showed the same technical people worked on the sickening US State department funded propaganda features "Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty". The director of "Argo", Affleck, actually stated in his acceptance speech for "Best Film" that the purpose of "Argo" was to massively increase the possibility of US military holocaust against Iran.
Aaron Swartz was impossibly naive. He believed that the most depraved and violent nation on Earth, the USA, only uses its massive power to crush foreign Humans, not 'citizens'. Of course, he was taken out at the dawn of Obama's death drones seeing widespread deployment across the skies of the USA.
The top of America's ruling elite are war-mongering psychopaths who control the greatest military force in Human history, and are growing that force daily in readiness for WW3. Beneath them are all types and forms of corrupt parasite (including those that persecuted Swartz to death). The State defines itself, and its agents as "above the Law". The State defines you as 'slave', to be disposed of immediately if you find an effective way to challenge the state.
Only today, that disgusting uniformed brute in Philly that was caught on camera slugging a random woman in the head was found 'Not Guilty' in court, on the basis that "no amount of physical evidence over-rules the testimony of an officer in uniform". In other words, whatever the State says in justification of its actions becomes the definition of 'acceptable' justification in the usual Kafkaesque way.
Keep in mind that you're talking about a kid here ...
Um, he was twenty six years old when he committed suicide. What is up with people moderating up trash on Slashdot these days?
Aaron was content to attribute to ignorance what was may have truly been malicious. Maybe sometimes it is malice.
> "That Ortiz and Heymann knew exactly what they were doing: Shutting up, and hopefully locking up, an extremely effective activist whose political views, including those on copyright, threatened the Powers That Be."
Darth Vader: Your powers are weak, old man.
Obi-Wan: You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Obama has firmly established the legal framework for tyranny. Universal surveillance (SCOTUS just approved this), arbitrary and indefinite detention and arbitrary assassination without charge or trial. If he has his way, the people will be disarmed as well.
The fact that he has not YET exercised this power on a large scale is completely irrelevant. Maybe it will be Obama, maybe it will be some other president you don't like. The government believes they have the power and they intend to use those powers.
Why does the discussion always center around suicide and Aaron's courage or lack of it? It is now obvious that the Department of Injustice was actually out to get him. It is also now clear that they targeted him for his views and not his actions. Given these facts, how can we -- netizens, citizens of the USA, citizens of the world, humans... take your pick -- allow entities like JSTOR and PACER to continue to exist? And why are we not looking for the people who orchestrated this fiasco (as opposed to the lowly public servants who coldly executed their wishes in obvious contravention of their oaths of office and their duties to the Constitution and people of the US and the world)?
Where are the executives of JSTOR who clandestinely pulled strings to bring on this relentless and unmerited legal assault? Why was the mysterious JSTOR "contact" who complained repeatedly to MIT officials and asked them to take action not identified? Directly or indirectly, JSTOR is responsible for this tragic death. When are they going to apologize or try to make things right? When is the information Aaron sought going to be available to us all? When are we going to ban JSTOR and PACER's theft from the public? When are JSTOR and PACER going to return their ill gotten gains to the people whose documents they stole?
For those who will make the argument: Copying is not theft. Keeping people from accessing things they rightfully own or should have access to is. A car is stolen when the owner cannot use it anymore, not when the same model is produced again by the factory. The owners of these documents are all the members of the public. Denying access to anyone for any reason is theft.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
And the "Powers That Be" don't seem to change with a change in the political party that controls the legislative and/or executive branches of government. Now that SCOTUS has lost much of its principle of judicial oversight, checks and balances no longer really exist.
Intent to break the law is not breaking the law
.
You {don't / can't / ought not} prosecute "intention to break additional laws". The only activities than ought to be prosecuted ought to be actual breaking of laws. Mens rea is just a part of it. Intention without action is not breaking the law.
Aaron Swartz used "civil disobedience" to protest against copyright law. Unfortunately for him, "civil disobedience" is only used by those who believe they are above the law - by the powerful against the powerless. It rapidly became apparent that he was not one of the powerful, or rather, had been part of the privileged and powerful, but was no longer. And this is probably why he committed suicide.
Though people want to prove they did what they did for political reasons, the DoJ statements are not proof they had political motivations. For their charges to stick in court, hey for their charges to even survive summary judgement, they must show that he intended to distribute the JSTOR articles. The manifesto was going to be their proof. This is not proof that they did what they did for political reasons, it's just proof that they intended to use what he said against him.
The DOJ has told Congressional investigators that Aaron’s prosecution was motivated by his political views on copyright.
A Justice Department representative told congressional staffers during a recent briefing on the computer fraud prosecution of Internet activist Aaron Swartz that Swartz’s “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto” played a role in the prosecution, sources told The Huffington Post.
Since when is "[a] Department representative" the same as the DOJ? Since when does a manifesto playing a role make it political? Perhaps the role the manifesto played was "Wow, someone is following this manifesto and if we don't do something about it we may have a big problem on our hands. We don't want Swartz to go to every hacker conference and say 'I got away with it and so can you'". To me, that is the manifesto playing a role with good reason.
Another point is that this "information" went through many hands. I doubt any of it was written down and verbal communication is known to be inaccurate. According to the article the DOJ representative told congressional staffers and that information got to "sources" who may not have even been in the meeting then to the Huffington post and finally to the article author. Hasn't anyone ever played the telephone game? In this case there is at least 5 information transfers and interpretations. Any information that has been passed that many times is suspect at best.
According to the DOJâ(TM)s testimony, if you express political views that the government doesnâ(TM)t like, at any point in your life, that political speech act can and will be used to justify making âoean exampleâ out of you once the government thinks it can pin you with a crime.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I think all prosecutions are political, in several dimensions.
They're political because criminal law is political -- it is the outcome of a political process, legislative lawmaking.
They're political because prosecutors are political; in many (most?) places in the US the county attorney is a directly elected position, and the person who wins that job has an inherently political mindset and at minimum a public constituency, and in practice, a much larger private constituency -- police, judges, politicians, etc. Even in situations where the position isn't directly elected, it's arguably more political because the positions are appointed by politicians and are often at an elevated political level (eg, assistant US attorney).
And then there's the power political component -- prosecutorial power, is, like many forms a power more or less depending on how you exercise it. So there's an element of wanting to use prosecutorial power in a way that enhances it rather than detracts from it, and that generally means winning, so you pick easier targets.
I really wish somebody would just link to an original story. This may be Slashdot, where everyone is supposed to know about everything going on with copyright, but I can't be the only one who doesn't know off-hand what the story is with Aaron Swartz. I'm even at least 50% sure I am aware of this story, but the name alone doesn't bring the whole thing back. In the future, please, just a little reminder at least.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
No he didn't, you moron.
"arbitrary and indefinite detention"
wrong.
"arbitrary assassination without charge or trial."
also wrong.
"If he has his way, the people will be disarmed as well."
he as never said or indicated anything of the sort.
You are an unthinking alarmist piece of shit.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I think most people here are missing an interesting angle. Granted, the headline and summary are misleading, and the quoted article does seem to make way too much out of what was actually said by the prosecution, so not surprising that the discussion so far has focused mainly on those issues. But to my mind the most interesting thing in the original HuffPo article is the last paragraph. Check it out:
Some congressional staffers left the briefing with the impression that prosecutors believed they needed to convict Swartz of a felony that would put him in jail for a short sentence in order to justify bringing the charges in the first place, according to two aides with knowledge of the briefing.
I don't know, this seems like a rather damning admission by the prosecution if true, because it shows they knew damn well they were on shaky ground, and that they were playing to public perception rather than truly seeking justice. It is also IMO much more likely to be true than the "prosecuted for his political beliefs" angle, which seems debatable at best.
:
"If you wish to keep slaves, you must have all kinds of guards. The cheapest way to have guards is to have the slaves pay taxes to finance their own guards. To fool the slaves, you tell them that they are not slaves and that they have Freedom. You tell them they need Law and Order to protect them against bad slaves. Then you tell them to elect a Government. Give them Freedom to vote and they will vote for their own guards and pay their salary. They will then believe they are Free persons. Then give them money to earn, count and spend and they will be too busy to notice the slavery they are in."
-Alexander Warbucks
Casteism
"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it." -- Albert Einstein
Casteism
Nice try.
"arbitrary and indefinite detention"
every one in Guantanamo bay.
"arbitrary assassination without charge or trial."
Anwar al-Awlaki (US Citizen)
Osama bin Laden (Funded by CIA)
"If he has his way, the people will be disarmed as well."
Gun control baby!