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DOJ, MIT, JSTOR Seek Anonymity In Swartz Case
theodp writes "Responding to an earlier request by the estate of Aaron Swartz to disclose the names of those involved in the events leading to Aaron's suicide, counsel for MIT snippily told the Court, "The Swartz Estate was not a party to the criminal case, and therefore it is unclear how it has standing, or any legally cognizable interest, to petition for the modification of the Protective Order concerning others' documents." In motions filed on slow-news-day Good Friday (MIT's on spring break), the DOJ, MIT, and JSTOR all insisted on anonymity for those involved in the Swartz case, arguing that redacting of names was a must, citing threats posed by Anonymous and LulzSec, a badly-photoshopped postcard sent to Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann and another sent to his Harvard Prof father, cake frosting, a gun hoax, and e-mail sent to MIT. From the DOJ filing: 'I also informed him [Swartz estate lawyer] that whatever additional public benefit might exist by disclosing certain names was, in this case, outweighed by the risk to those individuals of becoming targets of threats, harassment and abuse.' From the MIT filing: 'The publication of MIT's documents in unredacted form could lead to further, more targeted, and more dangerous threats and attacks...The death of Mr. Swartz has created a very volatile atmosphere.' From the JSTOR filing: 'The supercharged nature of the public debate about this case, including hacking incidents, gun hoaxes and threatening messages, gives JSTOR and its employees legitimate concern for their safety and privacy.'"
Only we are allowed to name names and ruin lives.
Good-bye
Expect some consequences.
If they're innocent they have nothing to fear, right?
Lets have every name, every detail, all of it. Beaurocrats like to hide behind their organisations, which enables every manner of abuse. Haul these insects out into the light, overturn the rocks. A man is dead, there must be accountability. They need to learn that they are personally responsible for their own decisions.
We have a right to know who decided to do that. It's our money being shot out of their legal gun.
Dox Party!
"...become targets of threats, harassment and abuse..."
God God, is somebody dragging them into police stations, questioning them for hours, threatening them with 30 years in jail?
Because those actions would be threats, harassment, and abuse indeed.
I say, put their names out there for all to see, and let Anonymous make a bonfire out of their pathetic lives.
It'll serve as a warning to others who believe it's right to unfairly destroy other peoples lives.
"Destroy peoples' lives; and have your life destroyed in turn." It would be a powerful message in poetic justice.
Leaves the whole world blind.
FUCK.
Them.
If there are so many people who are so hate-filled towards them, you'd think those assholes would take that as a hint.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Yeah, that'd be nice.
Unfortunately, far too many people think they have an absolute right to whatever they feel "justice" might be. If that means torching someone's house because they handed over an access log, then someone will likely do it. Maybe some investigator's family will have their whole social calendar thrown up on 4chan for public discussion, or a JSTOR programmer suddenly finds he owes $5,000,000 on a resort home in Dubai. This is the sad world we live in today, where people believe that it's not only feasible, but indeed desirable to seek vigilante justice.
It's ironic that today, just and fair trials are so common that they don't make the news, but the injustices and scandals reported in the media are what shape people's opinions of the government.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
The moment you give government anonymity, it turns around and gives you tyranny, because it is no longer accountable.
Fucking cowards
No? Then, not guilty. Anyone that offs themselves is solely responsibly for that act.
So if I lock you in my basement and threaten to torture you for the next ten years, and you find a way to kill yourself, nobody should ask me any questions. Your death was your own fault in that instance, right? I grant it's an exaggerated analogy, but it refutes your fallacy concisely. Somebody contributed to threatening an American citizen with decade(s) of prison time over essentially mild internet mischief, and I for one would like to know who is to be held accountable for that.
It's ironic that today, just and fair trials are so common that they don't make the news, but the injustices and scandals reported in the media are what shape people's opinions of the government.
Given how powerful the government is against the individual, shouldn't it be the concern of everyone when the government commits injustices? Or, should it only be a big deal when the boot is on your own throat?
I'm not arguing for vigilante justice, rather I'm arguing for full disclosure of who is involved in acts of injustice. Such disclosure is the only effective way of discouraging such abuses in the future. Perhaps if the government was seen as being transparent in such cases and effectively policing itself there were be much less risk of vigilante justice occurring in the first place.
Their last update (outside a useless editorial) was last October, and this is the very type of issue they should be pursuing.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
So if I lock you in my basement and threaten to torture you for the next ten years, and you find a way to kill yourself, nobody should ask me any questions. Your death was your own fault in that instance, right?
In that case then no because multiple laws were broken by you.
In the swartz case, by contrast, multiple laws were broken by swartz and prosecutors did nothing wrong so the cause of swartz death is his and his alone.
You would be guilty of a whole slew of crimes, such as false imprisonment and kidnapping. Throw in torture, and you'll be in jail so long you'll never see the light of day. The justice system we have is built precisely to prevent such situations from ever happening, and punishing severely when they do. There is no conceivable situation in my mind that you could legally persuade me to terminate my life. That is my choice, and mine alone.
You hounded him to death now it's time to pay for the crime
Sure, why don't we just abandon our laws and due process and solve every problem by lynch mobs.
Just and fair trials are actually exceptionally rare, in part because actual trials are quite rare. The system is entirely based on pressuring defendants into plea-bargains, regardless of their innocence.
In 1990, around 85% of federal prosecutions resulted in a plea-bargain, while 15% went to trial. Today, about 97% of federal prosecutions result in a plea-bargain, and only 3% go to trial. It's not because 97% of people charged are guilty, but because prosecutors make it abundantly clear that you had better take their plea-bargain if you know what's good for you.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
John 3:19
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
I am not religious, but i do remember something from the bible: Who pulls a knife, from a knife dies.
No pun intended.
I say, put their names out there for all to see, and let Anonymous make a bonfire out of their pathetic lives.
The very fact that this kind of idiotic thinking is out there justifies the request for anonymity.
I'm usually against lynch mobs in theory although something tells me that in practice we already have them. There legalized lynch mobs. If we legalize the lynch mob it would probably cut down own taxes provided we also cut funding to the DOJ and other law enforcement entities. I'm all for that. We shouldn't be paying the actors of the lynch mob.
"Full disclosure" is incredibly dangerous, especially in a case as emotionally-charged as this one. The major names in the case are already known and pretty well-publicized. There's plenty of blame for injustices here, but there's already plenty of targets to receive that blame legitimately. We do not need a list of every person trivially involved with the case, readily organized into a hit list for Anonymous' wrath.
Perhaps if the government was seen as being transparent...
Perhaps, indeed... but note it's the perception that matters, not the facts. As I mentioned above, I blame the media. We never see front-page headlines of "overwhelming evidence convicts murderer who confesses in closing arguments", because that's just boring. Instead we see "underdog hero accused of hot-topic crime by big bad government".
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
You think our laws and due process are anything more than sanctioned lynch mobs? How cute.
When it comes down to it the government consists of nothing big cowards. They're like bullies, they prey on the weak but are quick to run and hide when faced with a threat against them. The government abuses their military might to prey on those who do nothing wrong, in defense of corporate interests and their ability to benefit without any merit, but when things get tough they are quick to run and hide. They don't want the citizens to have any anonymity but they want to anonymously go after the weak.
Sure, why don't we just abandon our laws and due process and solve every problem by lynch mobs.
There are some, who believe this has already happened, except it's autocratic instead of democratic mob doing the lynchings.
Anyway, your "let's solve everything by lynch mobs" is kinda bad argument. "If being obese is so bad, then let's starve everyone to death!"
And to be clear about it, I don't approve any kind of lynch mobs. People should be held accountable, tried and acquitted or punished, by due process. If this does not work in some country, mere lynch mob isn't going to solve anything.
When our laws only serve the rich and are used to beat down everyone else, a lynch mob is a preferable option.
Let's see, if you are a bank that intentionally helps terrorists circumvent our laws, a bank that committed massive fraud, or a telecom company that illegally spied on millions of people, you will get immunity. If you are a hacker that wants to see free access to a journal, you will get hit with a hammer.
There is no Rule of Law anymore. It is simply the powerful using and making the law to hurt the weak. When the revolution comes, the people who committed these abuses are going to be put against the wall.
It was a "very volatile atmosphere" before Shwartz killed himself. These people were destroying a life in order to justify their egos, further their careers, avoid suffering through cognitive dissonance, and avoid treating a person as anything other than a thing. Everyone here should come forward and face the music, not to mention lose their jobs. False secrecy like this will only bait the hacktivists.
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
Really? No wrong committed? The same people who threatened with 35 years something that alternately could be convicted with only 6 months, if only he assuaded their pride by proclaiming himself guilty?
They threatened a man with 70 times the supposedly appropriate punishment -- he'd have to go to jail WITHOUT a trial, if he didn't want that threat against him.
So either they were willing to help a man escape 34.5 years of a just punishment, or they were willing to penalize a man with an additional 34.5 years that he didn't deserve. Which one is it?
FUCK your plea-bargaining system, and anyone who defends it. You put to jail people who never had a trial, by merely SCARING them with a hundredfold vengeance if they dare proclaim their innocence. Anyone who doesn't DEMAND that your horrid and villainous plea-bargain system changes is complicit to such crimes.
Lynch mobs are about as much "due process" as plea-bargains are. "Hey, let's threaten you with 35 years in jail, so you'll be willing to forfeit your right to a trial and go to jail without one!"
Not being criminally responsible for Swartz's suicide doesn't mean that there weren't inappropriate actions taken that, at the very least, are of public interest.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
And we already know who did that. Anonymity would only protect the victims of Swartz from getting caught in the crossfire.
Aaron Schwartz paid a very heavy penalty for what he did. His deeds were illegal in an abstract way: public money paid for the information, and he tried to keep it in the public. For this he was arrested, interrogated at length, threatened, and offered 30 years in prison. Quite a long time for publishing information, and not even information that is a threat to the state: no national security violations or missile codes here. He took his life under this intense pressure. He was *never* convicted in a court of law. Nothing was ever proved. Now those doing the harrassment, enticing those threats, threatening his civil liberties are desperate to not have their civil liberties threatened. They are desperate to not be 'named and shamed'. Why not? Sunlight is always the best disinfectant. If they are not ashamed of their actions, certainly they should be willing to step out into the light of day and stand by them. If their conduct was honorable and upstanding, then they should feel absolutely no shame at all in what they did. On the other hand, if they are weasily little cowards, backstabing rat bastards hiding in the shadows, then they would want to hide in dark places like slimy little worms, afraid to have their deeds exposed to public scrutiny. Fess up! Stand and be counted. Be accountable for your actions! Quit being the slimy worm!
Mobs are uncontrollable. Once they start to rage, you won't be able to constrain them to a select few cases.
They deserve threats, harassment, and abuse. God knows de facto power structures and corruption will prevent any of the individuals involved from being brought to adequate justice within the bounds of the law. If people could trust that the right thing will be done, they wouldn't feel so compelled to do it themselves.
Cowards!
He was accused of multiple felonies, but he didn't commit a single act that was deserving of felony punishment. Fuckheads like you that hide behind the letter of the law without exercising the critical thinking of what the purpose of the law and what would be just are the lifeblood of tyranny.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Every last MIT student should stop and protest the school. It should shut down until the people who helped to create the situation are called onto the carpet. It is my understanding that MIT wanted to stop things but were unable to stop things. But they did make a rash choice of calling in the authorities. They could have handled it differently. Some people have grown completely insensitive to the prospect of ruining the lives of others with police involvement. I blame entertainment/media saturation for turning the entire population into people as in touch with the depth of reality as "The Cable Guy."
Life is longer than 30 minutes with commercial breaks. Ruining a life is a life ruined. But with our reduced attention span, our consciences have been reduced as well.
Therefor, all of their names must be part of the public record when they go on trial for the conspiracy to murder Mr. Swartz - as that is what it was - a conspiracy that ended in the murder (harassed and bullied until suicide is the only option left to the victim per definition of anti-online bullying laws)...
So let the murder trials begin...
I for one will bring my own bullets for the firing squad duty which I hereby volunteer for.
Sorry I meant to write USA sucks. Things will get better when you move to China for your new manufacturing jobs.
A brilliant light extinguished itself when faced with the very credible possibility of several decades in prison.
In order to avoid repeating this kind of tragedy, it would be beneficial for society to know all of the details of the case, understand the thinking of the individuals involved, and examine their actions, so we can fully understand why the tragedy occurred, and work to avoid it in the future.
It's very simple really. Our society should be encouraging its Aaron Swartzes, not hounding them to death. This benefits all of us.
Vigilante justice act as a very rough, messy, and far from ideal solution and should be avoided when possible. However while it is a bad solution it is a solution to a lack of accountability that in very extreme cases may be a lesser evil. Preventing this is the whole point of having a justice system, equal accountability ensures that revenge feels redundant and disproportionate. If people feel they aren't remotely being served by it then it loses legitimacy. If it loses legitimacy bad blood builds up to critical levels and things get messy.
So really, what the fuck do they think will happen when they put themselves above justice, bypassing the mechanism that defuses retribution? It is no surprise then that people get mad enough to go below justice to get to them in kind. A justice system isn't just to protect the victims....
Fuck You, you cowardly pack of assholes.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
The English system of universal justice, based on the Roman model, explicitly banned anonymity. If even one person is able to hide their face legally, every powerful person will ensure this 'right' applies to them.
Across the last few decades, dim bulbs have been 'persuaded' by mainstream media propaganda campaigns, to accept that increasing numbers of participants in the legal system need their identity to be a secret...
- victims of sex crimes
- informers
- 'undercover' members of the police and intelligence agencies
It gets worse- where the ability to hide the faces doesn't go far enough, the UK and USA will happily hold 'closed' and/or 'secret' trials where the State gets to release only the info it desires to the public gaze.
JSTOR is a massive criminal conspiracy to hold hostage an extraordinary amount of Human knowledge, the vast majority of which has been created with public money. JSTOR managers, and the university officials they 'bribe' to extract JSTOR payments from every student, are made extraordinarily rich by the whole criminal conspiracy, and do everything they can to protect 'their' revenue stream.
No criminal ever willingly walks away from a profitable criminal enterprise. Obama runs a regime infinitely more corrupt than even those seen under the worst Republican presidents. Those making money from being members of this 'mafia' will fight to your death to keep their lifestyles intact.
MIT is at the heart of the government machine. Its managers would happily see the death of a thousand new Aaron Swartzs if it kept them and their political allies rich and powerful. The only way to punish these monsters is by bringing their empire crashing down around their ears. Demand that all academic papers are published openly- free to access and free for any to archive.
someone will probably wikileaks the list/info then you may get your wish
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a reference to Godwin's Law approaches 1
Worked in the past. It also stopped scrubby companies from existing because if they done shit to people, they were lynched.
I say bring it back. The patent and justice system sure doesn't work.
You should be careful to use the sarcasm emoticon, especially if you live in the UK, you could get four years in prison for that invitation.
I've followed #opangel with interest to see how the physical protests in support of Aaron turned out. Best as I can tell turnout has been pathetic at each one and increasingly pathetic with time. The most recent one I don't think anyone showed up.
that's the point. The bureaucracy is out of control.
Lynch mobs are made up by insufferable retards like you, who are all up in rage over a "35" number you saw on the internet somewhere, but who can't take 5 fucking minutes to learn the bare basics of how the legal system works.
There was never the remotest of chances that Swartz would have gotten 35 years, and everyone involved knew that, because as opposed to the internet mob, they were not idiots wallowing in their ignorance.
I'll choose a proper court system where people can defend themselves over internet justice, where you're lucky if people get your name right, let alone any facts of the case.
If he was innocent then he should have proved it in court but he knew he was guilty. Luckily he decided on a self punishment.
You're either a troll or a horrible excuse for a human being. The way it works (or is supposed to, anyway) is you are innocent by default. The prosecution has to prove you did something that merits punishment. What kind of a sick fuck are you that thinks an accusation in ANY WAY defaults to a guilty defendant, and they should have to prove their innocence? Let me guess, you're one of the filth who think "well, if he was innocent, they would NEVER accuse him of anything." You probably want to "reform" the justice system so that accusation = guilt, and the trial is only to cause the "guilty" to repent. Well, this isn't fucking Cardassia, you ignorant fuck.
The prosecution has to prove you did something that merits punishment.
Wrong. A person can plead guilty. Then the prosecution doesn't need to prove anything.
He was given a chance to plead guilty or go to trial to defend his innocence. He choose to kill himself because he knew he was guilty and the prosecution could prove it and didn't. Want to take the reduced punishment. All evidence shows it was an open and shut case. The scumbag was guilty. Thankfully he killed himself removing one more felon from humanity.
MIT and JSTOR are private entities just as much as private citizens are. If, Swartz broke into your house and stuck equipment on your network would you want your families email correspondence in the aftermath fully public? I don't think so.
Mob rule is generaly a bad idea, but this is an example of what hiding behind the system leads to. There needs to be a better way than an individual does a good job/ the system made a mistake. Accountability is missing from the government (and big business as well).
Control of information is probably the cornerstone of tyranny, with overly broad laws and means of perverting justice being other key elements. And you are taking it further than even the asshats behind the prosecution, who only used the threat of 35 years as a means of scaring the defendant into a plea bargain. They weren't seeking that term because you would have to be a total fucking moron to think that's appropriate.
Even if you think what he did was a bad action, it's not something deserving any prison time, and certainly not prison time in the range of decades.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
You don't seem to understand the kind of "work" that Anonymous actually does. Burning down someones house? Racking up a $5 million debt in Dubai? What parallel world do you live in where that kind of thing actually happens as a result of Anonymous raids? In this one, we deal primarily with generally embarassing leaked documents and DDoS attacks. I also call into question your perceived choice of targets in another post... The JSTOR janitor having their life ruined by them? You think enough people hold the janitor personally responsible to dish out vigilante justice on him? I think you've boarded the crazy train a little too long.
You're worse than that Fox news report a few years back, showing the exploding van as a "demonstration" of their "domestic terrorism."
Wouldn't it be nice if the Feds supported due process? I mean, isn't that they're primary purpose as defenders of the Constitution? The Feds are the biggest threat to due process of any organization on the planet.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
And Will Be Hunted.
A lot of posters here would like far worse considering all the calls for revolution in response to petty issues that crop up on this site. Maybe Syria isn't getting enough news coverage so people don't understand what sort of price they would have to pay.
Not every problem, but perhaps the issues of the "justice" system being broken in many cases.
If slashdot comments be believed, the majorty of posters seem to believe that we (those in the US) live in an orwellian police state.
Thats kind of what GP was talkinga bout.
he same people who threatened with 35 years something that alternately could be convicted with only 6 months,
Prosecutors can threaten all sorts of stuff, that doesnt make it A) reality or B) illegal.
he'd have to go to jail WITHOUT a trial, if he didn't want that threat against him.
Then go to trial. Wait, whats that, he doesnt want to do that because hes actually guilty? Boo hoo.
It almost sounds like youre trying to spin it so that it would be an injustice if a person who had broken the law was actually found guilty, or actually recieved prison time for breaking that law.
Fair enough, but if the posts be believed the "major problem here" is that Schwartz was somehow goaded into suicide because he was threatened with legal consequences for having broken the law. To me, that seems kind of backwards.
This is slashdot, the solution to EVERY problem must involve a mob.
Dude, calm down. You're talking to a troll that's just trying to get you riled up. I doubt he believes what he's saying, he's just having fun pushing your buttons. He's anonymous for a reason, a cowardly reason. Ignore him.
Worked for the French.
Why are we better?
You're using that term, "victims", but it doesn't mean whatever it it is you think it means.
I say, put their names out there for all to see, and let Anonymous make a bonfire out of their pathetic lives.
I'd say that the fact that these particular individuals are being protected from answering for their actions by these corrupt private and public entities puts all of the individuals in those organizations, private and public, from top to bottom, into the target pool by their own choice in protecting these individuals. The others in those organizations not directly involved are also guilty of passively accepting such injustices by staying silent and continuing to work in and with those corrupt organizations.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
It's not because 97% of people charged are guilty
If not, I bet it's pretty close--maybe somewhat higher.
None of the geek hordes speaking for Swartz claim he didn't do what he was accused of.
You're arguing for a lack of accountability because someone on the internet wrote something stupid? The government must love you.
The criminal case is over because of the suicide.
In theory that leaves no one with a legitimate interest (standing?) to ask for the identities to be made public.
Perhaps the estate has a legitimate interest in
1) clearing his name
2) holding some folks responsible
3) but definitely not ruining the lives of those not primarily responsibe
Seems like MIT's defense was hiding behind #3 to protect #2.
Perhaps a more specific request to open only a part of the names would be harder to deflect.
A lot of Americans think of the American Revolution when they consider revolution. In reality no American revolutionary got within a 1000 miles of the King or Imperial Parliament and the revolution morphed into a (very successful) war of separation.
Real bloody revolutions hardly ever actually resort in an improvement whereas non-bloody revolutions sometimes do result in an improvement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The Orwellian part might be inaccurate but the police state is quite accurate. There are millions of Americans in jail with a large percentage in jail to prop up failed business methods. Your government isn't much different then China's, alternating between progressive and conservative every 8 years though the people do have slightly more input and the capability of throwing out a (perceived) weak ruler after only 4 years.
The smart thing about Americas rulers is that they let the plebs bitch and even let them have some weapons. Note that they still have the feudal ideas of whole segments of society with diminished rights allowing a type of segregation that the honest American backs whole heartily without even considering that it is wrong that political criminals shouldn't be allowed to change things through the vote.
America is a very successful police state with the people honestly thinking they're free.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The real bad actor in this saga is JSTOR;
This needs to be repeated until JSTOR is removed from existence.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
Even if he had disseminated the documents, it still would not have been wrong. Disseminating Public Domain documents is everyone's right no matter how they were obtained.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
JSTOR didn't do it. They asked DoJ to stop.
That is the lie JSTOR wants everyone to believe. While they claimed to be dropping the case, they were pushing MIT to prosecute -- repeatedly. They must have learned from Adobe's treatment of Sklyarov. Like all corporations, they want to keep their reprehensible activities out of the spotlight. This is why they are pushing for anonymity. They can hide and claim it really was not their fault. In fact, they are the principal puppet master for this whole show. And in the end, they will be seen as having no guilt. This is both the worst possible and most probable outcome.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
If that is so, invariably, and a count of no foul against the harrassers, then surely if the people are known who were involved in this are named and they are harrassed and they or their family kill themselves in depression, then this suicide is no foul either, so there is no need to keep the names secret: no crime will be committed.
What if the petrified stolidity of JSTOR was that death and that volatility, just freeze-dried?
It seems to me that this is the same sort of "justice" the Department of Injustice was meting out. It seems as if the old proverb "what goes around comes around" is particularly applicable in this case. What is unjust about the abusers being abused?
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
Yet I remember a mother who tortured a child online so much she committed suicide. Guess it happens. Is that adult a felon? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-494809/Girl-13-commits-suicide-cyber-bullied-neighbour-posing-teenage-boy.html
It was all these unethical scientists who didn't share 2 papers with 2 people. If these sub-humans didn't have such terrible low social standards non of this would have happened. It requires millions of socially dysfunctional scientists to create the current situation. By design they have me read scape goat stories in stead of science. There is suppose to be some excuse for this? There is no loss of income because current prices are set to prevent me from buying anything. Have to imagine it, imagine millions of people with ethics that are so low that lulsec becomes their moral authority. These people at JSTOR are just one tiny example. They are hardly representative of the anti-information paradigm.
What we need to do is get one of these other monstrosities of automation to manhandle the little scientists... I see a future where scientists have legal obligation to make their claims evident to the general public. Claiming things without providing evidence should put you behind bars for a good amount of time. Any theoretical science should be considered fraud. You take resources but produce nothing. If obvious results are missing from the publication then we should assume you sold them to 3rd parties. We already have the wonderful framework criminalizing creationism. I see no reason why this wouldn't work for other nonsense. If the highest paying job is teaching at the university the whole branch is a fraud. I should care you want to gaze at the stars? Do I need mars rovers? I don't have disease X. In a world where private jets are more important than peoples lives I see no reason to pay for research into X.
You wanted science to be all about the money, we can make this for you.
> Prosecutors can threaten all sorts of stuff, that doesnt make it A) reality or B) illegal.
Correct. It makes it C) super scary.
You think a trial is some kind of mathematical equation which somehow always spits out justice? You got the wrong branch of mathematics --- it's much, much, more like sampling a random distribution (I'm sure you'll find more than one trial lawyer who will gladly call it --- off the record -- "a crap shoot").
The whole idea that so many things should be crimes that the justice system couldn't possibly function properly if every accused held out for a trial is kind of twisted. And so is the system of blackmail into plea bargaining which currently reigns in the US.
Somebody needs to read Les Miserables.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
In that case then no because multiple laws were broken by you.
Richard "When The President Does It, It Is Not Illegal" Nixon, is that you?
You would be guilty of a whole slew of crimes, such as false imprisonment and kidnapping.
So what you're saying is that we should be going after the prosecutors for those reasons, rather than trying to get them for involvement in a suicide.
You put to jail people who never had a trial, by merely SCARING them with a hundredfold vengeance if they dare proclaim their innocence.
Thank you. I've changed my mind because of this.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
What a bunch of shit
'The supercharged nature of the public debate about this case, including hacking incidents, gun hoaxes and threatening messages, gives JSTOR and its employees legitimate concern for their safety and privacy.'" What about the concern of our safety and privacy you hypocritical bastards? Theres no justice in the DOJ anymore, if there ever was...shameful.
Not at all. It is the practical basis for the right to face your accuser. There are more ways to bring about a just and gentle society than abdicating all social responsibility to government authority. We excersise those responsibilities every day in our lives when we engage in the dispensation of approval and disapproval over social behavior. The light of day must shine on those in authority. Authority that can't bear the light of day is authority that is false and must be removed. To ask that every action toward government authority must be through the government is an obvious path to failure and it reeks of irresponsibility and cowardice. Less frustration experienced in trying to get what should be open information will result in more sober and concise criticism and backlash. While certain forms of backlash may be despicable there are entirely legitimate and legal forms of reprisal. We have checks and balances. The people who have acted poorly are vulnerable to legitimate and legal political pressure. The attempt to hide highlights this vulnerability. I say make the names known and give anyone who supports or would support the abusers rejection and contempt.
The guy broke the law, that has consequences. Whether or not you like it, "injustice" would be if he got away with breaking laws passed by our society.
Yes, it is super scary when you break the law and the law catches up with you.
There are millions of Americans in jail with a large percentage in jail to prop up failed business methods.
Your government isn't much different then China's, alternating between progressive and conservative every 8 years though the people do have slightly more input and the capability of throwing out a (perceived) weak ruler after only 4 years.
You sound like you have never been to the US, and also like (luckily for you) youve not been to China or seen its problems.
Heres a shortlist of differences between the two.
* In China, you can be summarily and indefinately detained and your family placed on house arrest for political speech (Liu Xiaobo)
* In China, student protests may and have been broken up by the military (Tianamen Square)
* In China, it is illegal to search for such incidents (GFW)
* In China, every cellphone call you make is tracked. Every website you visit is monitored. The state owns and controls every single method of communication. Distributing anti-government newspapers is illegal.
* In China, you are required to take an oath of atheism in order to work for the communist party. Proselytzing / speaking of religion to anyone under 18 is illegal. It is illegal to form private churches.
In the US, the only one of those you could POSSIBLY claim is bits of the "monitoring"; the US certainly does have echelon, tho its capabilities are unknown, and at the very least ISPs can refuse to turn over customer records without a warrant. In China, they dont need cooperation from the ISP; they already have the info you need as everything passes thru their filters.
Its unfortunate that a number of people ignorantly think as you do, having little experience with either country. The US has some issues, but China is currently a minefield of problems with things that are taken for granted in most western societies.
Where to begin.
The link talks about Aaron selling his website (meaning the IPR of the code and domain of Reddit.com) to Conde Naste, and so that means Aaron's a hypocrite. Also, a letter to the editor of the New Yorker says that he (the letter writer) was a journalist, depending on copyright for his salary.
Let me break it down: We (taxpayers, students/parents) pay people (professors) for the express purpose of thinking and writing (i.e., professing). That's the source of their salary, not from publishing in journals, which don't pay anything anyway. So Aaron's copying of journal articles did not mean that professor's lost their salary, that's so stupid.
Secondly, society did not pay Aaron and the gang to develop Reddit. They did so privately, and hence are entitled to private gain. Again contrast with professors. They are paid by the public, and don't deserve anything extra for publication (which is what they're paid to do anyway).
So, no, Aaron is decidedly not a hypocrite.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I've been to the States a few times and have spent a good part of my life within sight of the US. In response to your list,
In America the police can summarily beat or execute you by claiming resistance to arrest or just being in the way when the para-military police force kicks in your door.
In America student protests have been broken up, including students shot to death by the national guard, a form of military (Kent State)
In America you are allowed to search but often need to know the search terms as the press doesn't report to much on things like free speech zones or massive anti-war protests.
In America massive resources are put into tracking phone calls, email messages, and web site visits with the courts routinely ruling that adding cell phone or internet to something traditionally considered illegal for government to suddenly be legal.
In America it is (was?) simply illegal to belong to the Communist Party and you better be prepared to be a member of a mainstream religion to get anywhere in the main political party[ies].
While China is much worse in many ways then the USA the big difference is where they're coming from and going. China has always repressed its people to the point where they're currently the freest they have ever been whereas America was founded by people who were pissed off that their natural rights as Englishmen were being repressed and set out to come up with a system of government that recognized certain rights and now only one of the rights spelled out in the Bill of Rights is respected (3rd amendment)
That is the problem with the States, an unfounded belief that they're the freest, greatest people ever while the evidence says otherwise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
> Yes, it is super scary when you break the law and the law catches up with you.
One wonders why, somehow, the law chose to "catch up" with Aaron, rather than 1000's of jaywalkers. It couldn't be because he had a "manifesto", could it?
You should look up the logical fallacy called "false dichotomy", the whole point of all/most of the arguments you are ignoring is that "breaking the law" is not a binary thing. If the legal system is designed to dish out results which look even approximately just, the punishments need to be in line with the crimes. Care to actually address this argument, rather than infinitely repeating "he was guilty"?
> "injustice" would be if he got away with breaking laws passed by our society
"got away"? Could you define that? Please explain what you personally think the proper penalty should be for what he did? Or is it true that you have no individual opinion, and you actually believe that in all cases, whatever "people in authority" say should be done, should actually be done? I vaguely remember a famous psychological experiment....