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Aaron Swartz Prosecution Team Claims Online Harassment
twoheadedboy writes "Members of the legal team responsible for prosecution of Aaron Swartz have claimed they received threatening letters and emails, and some had their social network accounts hacked, following the suicide of the Internet freedom activist. Following Swartz's death, his family and friends widely lambasted the prosecution team, who were accused of being heavy-handed in their pursuit of the 26-year-old. He was facing trial for alleged copyright infringement, accused of downloading excessive amounts of material from the academic article resource JSTOR. U.S. attorney for Massachusetts Carmen Ortiz, who headed up the prosecution, and another lead prosecutor, Stephen Heymann, have reportedly become the target of 'harassing and threatening messages,' and their personal information, including home address, personal telephone number, and the names of family members and friends, was posted online. Heymann also received a postcard with a picture of his father's head in a guillotine."
Being constantly harrassed like that must be hell. I'm sure Aaron Swart's family and friends have nothing but sympathy for those poor harried prosecutors.
They deserve to rot away in prison for a few decades. They should be happy that harassment is all they get.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The prosecution still has the files for the prosecution under a gag order. They are asking to extend this gag order and are using the excuse that their safety could be harmed if a judge lifted it. In reality, all they are trying to do is cover up their misconduct.
Activism is useless when it is aimed at unproductive channels. Instead, they should have signed the petition to remove the DA in question. Or written a letter to the state.
Petition to remove DA Carmen Ortiz
For some reason, I just can't seem to feel bad for these assholes.
There is a war going on for your mind.
I don't see a problem with it at all.
You reap what you sow.
Gee whillikers. Karma. How's that work?
Infuriate left and right
Eye for and eye, tooth for a tooth. It could be much worse, you politically driven RIAA/MPAA hatchetmen, aka Federal Prosecutors.
sudo make me a sandwich
I think we all know "someone paid me money to do it so it's not my fault" doesn't actually fly. As individuals we have free will and the responsibility to behave ethically. To unquestioningly execute commands is to give up our humanity.
Throughout history we have frequently rejected "I was following orders" and "I was just doing my job". These mantras do not provide absolution.
That didn't fly for people working in the concentration camps, it doesn't fly here.
If something doesn't pass even the basic sniff test, then you need to say NO.
UPS Sucks
Instead, they should have signed the petition to remove the DA in question.
Yeah, that's gonna work...
Maybe instead, we should vote out the republicans and democrats, but I suppose that's too much to ask. Besides, we would probably just end up with the tea party loons, or worse. I think majority rule has run its course. All the ignorance is becoming such a burden.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
"Sucks to be you"... Aw, shoot, I already did.
Seriously, though, threats are not the way to accomplish anything here. Rather than online vigilantism, people who have strong feelings about this should be talking to newspapers, senators, congressmen, etc. That way they might actually get something changed, and incidentally make these peoples lives difficult as a happy bonus. Remember, these are the people who (for this purpose) define right and wrong. If you want to go after them, short of full revolution, you have to play by their rules. Otherwise you're just another criminal they can use to justify their tactics.
The result, of course, is that they now believe that they are entirely justified.
Bullshit, they always did believe they were justifid. Furthermore, these people have no morals -- look up "innocence project" to see how many men prosecutors knew were innocent but still prosecuted and executed.
Said every Nazi ever.
sudo make me a sandwich
As a former DOJ employee involved mainly with the BOP (Federal Bureau of Prisons), I witnessed a long history of overaggressiveness on the part of US Attorneys (mainly, the AUSA's- the Assitants)... my experience with the court people was often that the AUSA's were trying to make names for themselves and build up their resumes, in hopes of: 1) becoming full US Attorneys, 2) seeking phat money employment in the private sector, or 3) eventually running for some political office.
The females I interacted with were often the most aggressive and over the top- often utilizing severe bias based on their personal lives to make decisions affecting cases... female USA's with histories of being abused by men often saw no possibility of innocence in ANY male defendant, regardless of any facts. In several instances I witnessed state prosecutors refuse to indict based on lack of evidence and/or the specifics of the defendant (i.e. no criminal history, relatively minor charge at state level), only to have a federal prosecutor (an AUSA) throw federal charges at the defendant based on something loose like "the crime involved phones (i.e. modem)", so therefore it could be considered interstate blah blah and allow federal jurisdiction. The startling statistics I discovered were the following:
over 90% of individuals indicted at the federal level are convicted without trial (i.e. plead guilty)
of the remaining approx. 10% who go to trial, 90% LOSE, and are convicted
Do we really believe the federal investigators are so good they really only catch that amount of "bad guys"?
The prosecutors often have NO CLUE whatsoever of technical details of complex issues (i.e. computer related incidents, copyright/piracy, etc). They further confuse things by often presenting information that is outright wrong or confusing to judges or others involved in the process, and often play on the fact the defendants often have no clue of the true law and their rights. At the federal level at least IGNORANCE OF THE LAW IS INDEED A VALID DEFENSE. Several federal laws have been changed over the years to add the specific wording "whoever knowingly", because in some cases obscure laws were being abused to prosecute people who had no valid way of knowing that what they did was illegal (i.e. the law was not some "common sense" thing... like a law saying it is illegal to sow grass seed on Tuesday).
I have no comment on the Aaron Swartz case as I don't know all the facts and it is always a damn shame when someone chooses to resort to suicide, but based on my personal experience with "the system" from the inside, I can say that there is no doubt the prosecutor and others on "that side" did indeed play a major role in pushing this troubled young man towards a terrible fate-- and no matter what they say to the contrary, their overaggressiveness in a case involving copyrights for God's sake was truly uncalled for and ultimately serves no proper purpose for the sake of society.
online harassment?
ONLINE harassment?!
You scum-sucking douches hectored someone into killing themselves with hyperinflated charges intended to "send a message" to score political points. MESSAGE RECEIVED . You should never work in law or government again. You probably should be in jail for abuse of power.
I would have no problem if someone PHYSICALLY broke each and every one of your collective kneecaps.
Signing Internet petitions is only marginally less useless and pointless than harassing government employees. In fact, if I made a list of the most pointless activism on Internet, they would be:
1. Printing form letters and mailing them to Congresspeople
2. Writing e-mails to Congresspeople
3. Signing Internet petitions
4. Complaining loudly on Internet forums
5. Hacking and vandalism
6. Publishing a batshit crazy manifesto
7. DDOSing the government
8. Sending death threats via e-mail
That's in vague order of (comparatively) least pointless to most pointless.
Even if it plays into their mythology, it does change the equation somewhat. Even when power is criminal or juvenile, it is still a consequence people with political ambition will increasingly have to factor in when they take various moves. In a way, no response would have been worse since that sends the message that there are no negative consequences or risks involved in such overreach, only gains. Even if it is just a minor effect, the story will stick around and will be remembered when prosectors are pondering how they want to handle such cases in the future and if the political payoff is enough to offset the impact on their life.
Aaron Swartz Prosecution Team Claims Online Harassment
As you sow, so shall you reap Monsieur Javert.
This particular phrase and verse is most fitting to describe whatever they are going through (that which will forever pale in comparison to what Swartz when through.)
What comes around goes around and shit like that, and you reap what you sow. C'est la fucking vie.
Government, specifically law enforcement, tend to threaten people with all sorts of scary crap in order to get people to do things they don't want to do. In Swartz's case, he wasn't doing anything strictly illegal but they wanted to believe he did so badly and the JSTOR people want to believe he did so badly that they were willing to harrass and frighten this guy to the point of suicide. After all, they were threatening his life in the sense that he would no longer have a good one.
So now, there is turn-about and they cry foul.
Why is it acceptable for law enforcement to use threats and fear as a means of getting their jobs done. Isn't it they that went too far? Shouldn't it be "okay, we have evidence of X, let's charge him with X" and be done with it? Why is it "we think he has done Y, but we only have evidence of X which is not specifically illegal. So let's threaten him with Z until he pleas to Y."
Harrassment and intimidation by government should not be allowed. Just do straight business.
I can. Not for the harassment, or the "hacking" of their social network pages. That's an almost inevitable consequence. I feel bad for them because they were doing their job of prosecuting a law that shouldn't exist. Nothing says prosecutors have to agree with the law.
Ever heard of prosecutorial/judicial discretion? It is part of our legal institutions, and it is what differentiate good prosecutors from Javert-wannabes trying to make their mark.
Reading the article helps. He was arrested for "downloading excessive material". In other words, he had a legal JSTOR account, he wasn't accessing it illegally, he just downloaded more material than they wanted him to. Really? That's a crime now?
Where were you when we went over this in all its gory detail? Yes, this is Slashdot and everything The Man does is evil, so I get the whole simplification thing. But the real situation was actually a bit complicated. He basically tried to download every article they had, which went beyond the terms of use of the service. His downloads impacted other users of the service at the time by slowing them down because - wait for it - he was trying to download everything and chewing up resources to do it. His plan was to make all these articles available for free when access to them required a paid service. He also hid the computer doing the work in a closet and took actions to hide his face from security cameras when going to the closet to check on his equipment. From a legal standpoint, this can be interpreted to mean he knew his actions were wrong. There's a lot wrong with how the prosecutors handled this, but he was hardly some innocent school boy who got bullied for no reason.
As we know, there is no privacy anymore. Hence, prosecutors are going to be facing more and more of this sort of thing. You cannot hide. Ask that DA in Texas. Once prosecutors become aware of this, they might become smart enough to NOT mount silly prosecutions like this - but I doubt it. If you as a prosecutor think your own bureaucracy can protect you, think again. I'm predicting an increase in violence against prosecutors and law enforcement in general.
It involves a noose.
I think we all know "someone paid me money to do it so it's not my fault" doesn't actually fly. As individuals we have free will and the responsibility to behave ethically. To unquestioningly execute commands is to give up our humanity.
Throughout history we have frequently rejected "I was following orders" and "I was just doing my job". These mantras do not provide absolution.
Nope. In the US that doesn't fly. You'll go to jail, and the ones who gave the orders will put you there. (See Abu Ghraib)
A functional justice system keeps us from descending to the level of personal vengeance and feuding.
It is very sad to see the Justice system failing here.
No one has officially called these prosecutors out on their failings in any other way so we get this. I don't think harassment of these prosecutors and MIT and JSTOR is the appropriate reaction. Nor do I think it is the appropriate reaction that the prosecutors have not been reprimanded and appropriate taken to keep non-sense like this from happening.
How high does this failure in the Justice system go?
They were just doing their jobs....
There's this little thing called "Prosecutorial discretion". You may not have heard of it. As it turns out, at least in the US, the prosecutor has fairly broad latitude, within the scope of 'doing their job' to push or not push specific cases. This is arguably a bad thing from a 'rule of laws not of men' perspective; but thems the rules as they stand. In this case, the 'victim' wasn't even asking for prosecution, so their hands' weren't being forced even by 'stakeholder' request or public opinion.
In their minds, they were just "doing their jobs" They are clearly unrepentant. Does that justify taking this any further? Of course not.
Vigilante expressions like this never promote good results.
As I recall, showing remorse can get you a lighter punishment. Maybe they should do that. Or they could agree to quit their jobs in exchange for less harassment, kind of a bargain, if you will.
So vigilante actions might not work. Writing your elected officials doesn't either unless you can afford to include a big campaign contribution. So if both approaches don't improve the situation, why not go with the one that's more gratifying?
Maybe it will result in even harsher laws. The worse, the better, in terms of getting the general public to finally be fed up.
Oh, who am I kidding? I just enjoy seeing them suffer. There. I said it.
I am not a crackpot.
Guilty of what though? Did his actions warrant the type of heavy handed tactics that the federal prosecutors used? Should there have been a prosecution at all, much less an arrest made?
Having been the defendant in a situation like adam was in, and having seen the options laid out in front of me by the prosecutor (Pay 25,000$ now and avoid the case all together, or chance spending time in prison and pay $25,000 later) I can say that maybe if these prosecutors didn't believe in what they were doing with the conviction that they exhibit when they're flat out telling you to cough up some cash or you're going to prison, If they did, then maybe, just maybe they wouldn't be waffling about their decision now.
(I realize thats a bit of a rant but I just woke up and am constantly appalled, albeit not surprised, by the prosecution of this case not fully standing by what they did).
If you can't stand by your decision in the face of adversity, then what good is it?
I don't think that's entirely correct I'm afraid. It's been my experience with "Type A" personalities that strong responses from the unwashed masses are not comprehended as consequences. Sure, they understand some of the motivations of the political adversaries, and they can even understand the reactions of the fans of their political adversaries, but when it comes to the mainstream middle, they don't really know how predict what will happen.
Certainly these people recognize in hindsight when they've made a decision with terrible consequences on them personally, but they have a much harder time predicting in advance. Look at the George Allen Macaca Controversy as an example.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
FFS, why on earth hasn't she been sacked yet?
She tried to undermine the courts using an insane number of BS claims, trying to force Aaron to accept a guilty plea rather than let the court decide.
THAT'S NOT HER JOB. It's the OPPOSITE of her job.
She made political speeches on the back of this case, to promote her political career. At some point she should have been fired for misconduct, but she wasn't. The threats and anger relate to HER INCOMPETENCE at the job.
Just resign already Carmen, nobody wants you, every prosecution with your name on it, is tainted, because judges will automatically assume you're doing another insane overreach. Do the nice thing, hand in your resignation, you made a mistake, you want to spend more time with your family and FUCK OFF.
Given the choice between doing something immoral to follow orders and refusing orders, people follow orders. And given the choice between doing something immoral and losing money, people do the immoral thing. Morals take a back seat, except for really fundamental social norms. (Most people won't rape someone for money, for example.)
Morals take a back seat, whether because of the almighty dollar or because of societal norms or even norms within most environments. There are some exceptions--for example, where the person giving the orders is not respected, such as an insurance company.
The fact is that the goal is to make money/stay employed/be respected by peers/bosses. Moral calculus rarely enters the picture.
This is also true in law. The law does have ethics, a particular set of rules, which have their own problems (in design and enforcement). Legal ethics do not prohibit charging someone with anything you can make even a colorable argument they are guilty of. In elected legislative policymaking, the incentive is for overcriminalization, which has been known for centuries. In addition, the culture of prosecution is such that success is measured by putting people away for long periods of time.
As a result, the system does a great deal of harm. It also does good (limiting the ability of people to offend again and incentivizing people not to offend), but the good is intangible, whereas the harm is readily apparent.
Conspiracy? Go out and do a survey, ask around, and I don't mean asking hackers and activists, take Mr. Joe Random Average. When even my dad, an old-school ultra-conservative who makes Reagan look like a hippy, says that things ain't right and that the status quo ain't something to be supported, you know that something's not running right in this society.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We live in a country where the powerless are routinely made scapegoats for the crimes of the powerful, and the powerful are almost never brought to account. Given that, it is no surprise that the citizens are taking matters into their own hands. Expect for it to get worse as long as those preconditions continue.
Bullshit. See: My Lai massacre. The Nuremburg defence was accepted.
Despite the fact that I don't feel this sort of harassment is actually very helpful, the prosecutors really should just man up and realize that they get no more privacy than anyone else does, so maybe they should understand that there are consequences for being jerks. "Just doing your job" doesn't have to mean that you ditch your ethics and humanity to do it.
I wonder if they are actually suffering. They could be parlaying their "pain" into a reason to avoid people looking into their prosecutorial conduct. The real solution for the aggressiveness of the US Attorneys is to open up the actual documents to a reasoned review of the case and what was being discussed. Assuming it was aggressive and out of scale to the crime actually committed, you can point to actual situations that need to change and advocate a positive political change. Just hacking these guys does little to nothing because they've already done their damage, and I doubt other US Attorneys will do more than just shrug at their colleagues' problems and continue to do the same things they have always done.
Guilty of what amounts to a pretty minor infraction. The notion that a punishment should fit the crime should have been the overwhelming concern of the prosecutors, but they showed themselves to be power-mad maniacs, or at least in one case, a sociopath who couldn't have given the tiniest shit about justice and was trying to pave a way to political career with some sort of "tough on crime" record.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Let's get one thing perfectly clear about the United States justice system. It is not equitable and in no way just. Police are not objectional investigators any more that Prosecutors are looking for justice. The job of the police is to strictly gather any evidence that they can use to pin the accusations on the individual. They interview using coerction, lies, and threats to try and break a subject. Once they "think" you've done something the game is over. They are not out for the truth any longer, they are out to set you up. Prosecutors are the same. They will level 30 or more trumped up charges to intimidate the individual into accepting a plea bargain. The plea bargain adds a "win" to their statistics and doesn't cost them an arm and a leg to prosecute and get a win. Let's change the laws to even the playing field. Don't allow them to use lies, coerction, or threats to gain a conviction! If they are the upstanding honest hard working individuals that they claim to be then this would be fine by them. Also remove their protections under "color of law". If they screw up, make them personally liable for any and all damages. Then you will begin to see an equitable system of justice.
Jesus said that if someone hits you on the right cheek (the one they'd hit if they backhanded you like an inferior), you should present the other one (the one they'd hit if they punched you with their dominant hand, like one does with someone of their own social station).
If you think the "right" part isn't significant, then perhaps this is advocating extreme nonviolence. But many people see this as actually a call to insist on being treated as an equal, even in the context of being assaulted.
An eye for an eye leaves one man with one eye, and we know already that in the land of the blind, the one-eye'd man is king.
By the way: "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" was really about avoiding escalating vendettas by limiting retaliation (official or otherwise) to no more than the original offense.
Draconian punishments for copyright violation (or allegations of it) seem to be a textbook case of what the prescription was about. If the massive escalation on the institutional side led to substantial retaliation against those administering it, resulting in an escalatory spiral, that would be unsurprising.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way