Losing Aaron

theodp writes "It's said that you can't fully understand someone until you meet their family. In Janelle Nanos's 'Losing Aaron,' you'll meet Bob Swartz, father of the late Aaron Swartz and adviser to MIT's Media Lab, and get a better understanding of how Aaron's family helped plant the seeds of his idealism. You'll also, sadly, see how MIT — the institution which Bob Swartz long felt stood for compassion and creativity, challenging authority, and pure scientific inquiry — took a self-described stance of 'neutrality' in the aggressive prosecution of his son that ended with Aaron's senseless death last January. 'Clearly I failed,' a tortured Bob Swartz acknowledges. 'There's no question, my son is dead. On the other hand, do I feel that I didn't try hard enough? Yes. Do I feel guilt about not trying hard enough? No. If you understand the distinction I'm trying to make. Could I have done more? Of course I could have done more. Because you can always do more. Did I put everything in that I possibly could? Did I work as hard pretty much as I knew how? Yes. Do I wish I did more? Yes. But I don't go home at night and say, "Well, you didn't care." Because I did. I cared about it more than anything else. And I don't go home at night and say, "I didn't try." Because I tried. Everything I could figure out. But I failed.'"

Comments

"Senseless Death?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Was he killed by a mob of angry citizens? Wrongfully executed?

No.

He committed suicide, the coward's solution, after committing a crime. He happily committed the crime, and when he realized there would be consequences to his actions, he decided to avoid them, too.

Re: "Senseless Death?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, his death was senseless, and my heart goes out to his family. Aaron did not deserve to be persecuted, and MIT should be embarrassed for their acquiescence. As a father myself, I can empathized with Aaron's father. It really hurts to know that you've done everything you can, but sometimes it isn't enough.

Re:"Senseless Death?"

[Anonymous Coward]

You call it the cowards solution. While you yourself are not facing a life completely ruined, near zero chance of employment, and a trip thru the US jails.

For what... Did he kill someone? Nope. He was being made an example of....

He made the right choice.

Re: "Senseless Death?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Bull,
When prosecutors have every advantage and reason to puff up any charge to a felony
When prosecutors receive their raises and political position based on WINNING, not JUSTICE
When legislatures pass laws with outrageous punishments for infractions to gain political favor
When victims who have lost nothing stand back and let this machine crush people and send them off to prison for life

That is persecution and everybody on the interwebs is a potential victim of it

Re: "Senseless Death?"

[N0Man74]

I don't think that "persecution" is the right word.

We've created a monstrosity of a system that regularly grinds up many ordinary citizens for the sake of political and financial gain. He wasn't persecuted, but rather ground by the cogs.

Re:"Senseless Death?"

[bzipitidoo]

Aaron Swartz didn't commit any real crimes! He didn't violate any rights, except in the imaginations of a few IP trolls.

He was railroaded by a rapacious justice system that took advantage of the backwardness of our lawmaking. These shameless enforcers were more interested in scoring points and pumping up their crime fighting numbers than in justice. They didn't do their jobs right and should be fired. And fired not just for the persecution of Aaron Swartz. I read of an independent motel that the chief enforcer tried to run out of business through misappplication of the law, and why? Most likely to cut down some of the competition for one of her campaign contributors who is a franchisee for a motel chain. They have shown no mercy to those who should have received mercy, and should not have the privilege of serving the public, should not have further opportunity to ruin lives.

The laws on the new are always over the top, written hastily by old dogs fearful for the status quo that they love too much. It is only an event like his suicide that shows everyone that the law went too far, paid too much attention to the loss of some old ways and did not give enough allowance to the new. The law should not be in the business of preservation of obsolescence, it should be for upholding justice. It should be balanced. Justice was not served. The public interest was not served. The law, and the too zealous enforcers of it failed us all.

Shove your self-righteous simplistic "he got what he deserved" attitude. It sure as hell doesn't apply to Aaron Swartz.

Re:"Senseless Death?"

[bzipitidoo]

who determines whether a law is reasonable or not

Who? The people.

and by what standard?

When a law forbids an activity that most people do, and that activity is natural and of great value to the public, then the law is wrong and should be changed. Now cannabis is legal in some places, despite its dubious effects on health. In contrast, sharing of information has no negative effects on health. No one is harmed, no one loses, everyone gains. Artists can be compensated in many other ways. Yet that's not good enough for some who cry that they deserve more for "their" works. How many estates of famous dead artists cling, Gollum-like, to the works of their ancestors, thinking they're sitting on gold? And for what? Surely not so their ancestors will be encouraged to produce more works of art, as being dead, they can't. And sharing is still demonized as "piracy", and still illegal everywhere.

This entire debate over copyright and patent law has centered around a misunderstanding that extremists have refused to acknowledge. That misunderstanding is an oversimplification, an attempt to treat two manifestly different things, material goods and information, with the same principles. Over and over, we've heard copying and sharing compared to stealing. That comparison is simple, and it's wrong. It's propaganda. If the extremists were right about this, then also we should not have copyright law, because it wouldn't be needed, we could handle information with the identical laws we use for material goods. There would be no legal difference between shoplifting and making a recording, no difference between fencing stolen goods and uploading recordings. No difference between creating a counterfeit of a physical item, and a copy of a recording. Yet we have two different bodies of law, two different legal treatments for these different things, an implicit acknowlegdment that they are different.

Not only are the extremists wrong, but deep down they know it. They refuse to publicly admit it, so that they can cynically continue their rent seeking, milking us for money for what rightfully belongs to us all. They have shown no scruples. They have demanded and received harsh punishments for violators, persuading the law to treat what should never have been anything more than a civil matter as a criminal matter. Prison, for making a few copies?! And not copies of commercial works of art, but copies of valuable research that we, the people, had already paid for through grants! If any theft was going on, it was theft by publishers of our works for hire. And also theft of resources we have provided to enforce the law. Our police and courts serve us, not thieving scum like publishers who lock our research away behind paywalls. To pull off this disgusting theft, they were perfectly willing to stand by while people were sent to prison for decades, and bankrupted, and their lives ruined. When the zealous enforcers of the law threatened extreme punishment, they were nowhere to be seen. They didn't so much as peep that maybe, just maybe, the punishment Aaron Swartz was threatened with was too much. If anything, they have asked that even harsher punishments be handed out. Think about what they said upon the conviction of Jammie Thomas for "making available" 24 songs. They celebrated, declaring that this "sends a message", and at no point did they address the totally unfair size of the penalty she was being asked to pay. If she had let someone borrow one of her CDs with 24 songs on it, there would have been no penalty at all, because that is not a crime. But because she did it online, she was dragged through court and handed a punishment of $1.92 million. As many pointed out, the punishment for shoplifting a CD is far, far smaller. Loaning out a CD is not a crime at all, nor should it be.

Re: "Senseless Death?"

[bbsalem]

Brave words for an AC.

please stop

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone who kills themselves rather than go to prison for 4 or maybe 18 months is very sick. Especially when they are independently wealthy, widely considered to be a genius, and have many well connected friends who will help them get back on their feet. I know that Swartz was loved by many people, including those with bully pulpits, but blaming other people for his death is revolting. The people who were close to him blame themselves for not helping him and are lashing out at the prosecutors and MIT.

As for the prosecution of his case, ask yourself why Swartz didn't access JSTOR with his own account at Harvard.

Re:please stop

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are whitewashing the prosecutor. He demanded something like 25 years.

Re: please stop

[iamhassi]

4 months or 25 years, Aaron could have done more good alive in jail than dead. Death never solves anything. If you're going to die then die fighting for what you believe not by suicide.

Re:please stop

[Anonymous Coward]

The prosecutor was offering a deal of 6 months in jail. Had Swartz gone to trial and been found guilty of all charges he would have faced perhaps 14 months, maybe more, according to an analysis by Jennifer Granick. There was never any possibility that Swartz would receive a sentence of 25 or 50 years.

Re:please stop

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no one ever implied anything as ridiculous as that.

Do computer nerds not know how maximum penalty laws work? There are fixed maximum penalties based on what laws you have broken. The prosecutor must inform you of the maximum penalty based on everything you are charged with. This does not imply that a typical sentence will be anywhere near that length, and no one with a brain would think that Swartz was due for 25 years.

Re:please stop

[Ardyvee]

Some child comment made me wonder: jail time and what? I mean, I have the idea that some crimes may result in you being forbidden from interacting with certain things/people. It might not have been jail time, but that the crime would be permanently recorded (which can be a stigma) and in his case being forbidden from interacting with computers (I assume there need to be exceptions for this, otherwise you might be unable to get a large part of the jobs simply because you wouldn't be able to use a computer). Perhaps the thought of life after prison under the conditions that he would have had to live in, added with the stress from the situation... Perhaps... perhaps it was everything and no specific thing?

I mean... imagine you were a painter (you know, one of those that feel the need to paint because that's how they express themselves, their thing?) and somebody told you that from now on you can't paint. Of course, I don't know what would have been his sentence anyway, so I'm just speculating.

Re:please stop

[russotto]

Someone who kills themselves rather than go to prison for 4 or maybe 18 months is very sick.

Life after a felony conviction is a living death. You can't get any but the most menial jobs (and often not even them), nor a professional license. You can't travel outside the country. You can legally be denied rental housing. Basically it's the state's way of removing people from society without needing to take the trouble of feeding and housing them. Of course, it works better on "geniuses" than it does on people who were robbing banks for a living anyway -- the latter just go back to robbing banks.

Re:please stop

[russotto]

Computer nerds know that "anything that can go wrong, will" and that an odd edge case that you are absolutely sure will never happen will indeed happen. So if you say, oh, we have these maximum penalties but no one ever gets them... well, the assumption is that yes, those maximum penalties are a distinct possibility.

And anyone familiar with the Neidorf and Mitnick cases knows that disproportionate penalties for computer crimes are rather common.

Re:please stop

[Desler]

Aaron was set for life financially and it's highly unlikely he wouldn't find another job with his history. It also ignores all the other people with history of computer crime charges that are currently employed as security researchers.

Re:please stop

[russotto]

Perhaps he didn't kill himself to avoid a few months of jail. He killed himself because the prosecution threatened to charge his girlfriend as well and put their kid in the foster care system.

While that is a typical prosecution tactic (often used against reluctant witnesses), it wasn't one used in this case, probably because he had no children.

Re:please stop

[spire3661]

The root meaning of Felony is 'civil death'. We hand them out for people packing up their weed in certain ways. "O you divided up your 1/4 ounce of cannabis into daily doses, thats intent to distribute, FELONY.

Re:please stop

[Jarik C-Bol]

Some of the info i've seen was they where asking for 35 years, and multiple millions of dollars in fines. So maybe they where going to offer 6 months in minimum security, but the way it sounds, he was under the impression he was not getting a 6 month offer, but a lifetime of prison and debt.

Re:please stop

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, look at what they did to Kevin Mitnick after his conviction... Oh, that's right. None of the stuff you mention happened to Mitnick... You're so full of crap it's not even funny.

Re:please stop

[farble1670]

O you divided up your 1/4 ounce of cannabis into daily doses, thats intent to distribute, FELONY

if someone told me that they parceled and packaged their stash into 1/4 oz doses just because, i wouldn't believe it either. why would you think johnny law would?

the proverbial book can and will be thrown at you if you let it. be prepared. everyone needs to be aware of the laws they are breaking. good intentions are very hard to prove in a court of law.

Re:please stop

[TJ_Phazerhacki]

Bullshit.

While this may generally be a popular liberal justification for Judiciary reform (and I'm not saying we don't need it) I have worked in a number of high-security environments, held multiple positions with banking institutions, I have a passport with no restrictions on it, and by itself (violent, Drug, or sexual offenses obviously carry a different classification,) it does not qualify as a legal denial for protected-housing (which most rental units fall under.) You can be licensed and insured (*but not BONDED* - I can't be a locksmith) and in most states, it doesn't affect your voting rights at all. The biggest downside at this point is that I can't legally possess a firearm, so if I *were* to go trap shooting a couple of times a year at the country club, I *could* get in trouble.

Re:please stop

[Anti-Social Network]

The real irony here is the original justification of outlawing pot in the first place. "Gateway drug" to harder stuff was the original argument.

Here we are some years on and we can review and see that even if that theory was good (it's not), the price we pay to draw that line in the sand is way too high. I can grow coffee plants on my own land for noncommercial purposes that have more dangerous effect, and yet we're willing to let people break down your door, shoot your dog, and give your whole family PTSD you just might need drugs to help with, if only there was a miracle crop that could safely reduce anxiety... (seriously, have you *seen* the list of uses hemp has? The original US Constitution document was written on hemp parchment, among many other things)... oh, look at that house of cards collapse. Intent is a pretty stupid thing to consider without speaking to some more serious crime (i.e. first degree murder vs. manslaughter). I'm not saying you're wrong, but you really shouldn't be right in a just world.

Honestly, there's no moral theory that makes the law reasonable, particularly given how racist the enforcement tends to be, now that we have actual data on how the "war on drugs" is prosecuted. We'd save a boatload on prison spending if we legalized it across the board, to say nothing of restoring the actual freedom politicians like to reference but have gone AWOL in the last few decades, and maybe give the US some of its international dignity back.

Re:please stop

[russotto]

The banking regs are fairly new; they cover any crime of dishonesty or breach of trust, which for some reason includes simple theft (including misdemeanor shoplifting!) and a lot of other things you wouldn't expect them to cover. Felony convictions do qualify as denial for housing. They do disqualify you for many professional licenses.

The travel restrictions aren't because the US won't issue a passport. It's because some countries (including Canada) will deny you entry if you've been convicted of a felony.

Black swan

[bluefoxlucid]

Bob knows that none of the "obvious signs" were really there, that everyone made them up to explain in hindsight what nobody saw coming. He knows he did exactly what he could have done, and he could have done more if he could predict the impossible-to-predict events of the future.

It's the same thing as 9/11. The FBI, CIA, the executive branch, everyone had all these documents about 3000 terrorist groups and hundreds if not thousands of operations and actions and movements. A lot of hot seats to check into. Then one of those hot seats inexplicably caught fire. Everyone looked back and shouted, "Oh my GOD it was so obvious! We should have known it was going to happen today! Look at the time line! 6 weeks ago, then a month, then just 12 days before the towers came down... it was screaming at us!!" ... but, it wasn't.

Aaron's death came roughly the same way. When Aaron started doing what he was doing, someone could have predicted easily that somebody might not be amused. Nobody could predict it becoming an outright holy war against one person, nor could they predict that he'd just kill himself instead of having his life crushed and getting shoved into buttsex prison for 18 years per count for 200,000 counts of shit he didn't do wrong. It just happened. The big story of his life has a lead-in, but the really big surprise twists were a total surprise.

Re:Black swan

[Anonymous Coward]

There are probably thousands of similar situations where young people are goaded and bullied "legally," but not ethically, into suicide. I don't know how many of those people set in motion themselves the events that eventually overwhelmed them as was the case here. He made a choice, dimly aware of the consequences to come. Or he may have read somewhere that he would be subject to dozens of years in jail and decided "Oh, they'll never do that to me."

I feel for him and for what happened, but I also would like to see similar light shown on the lost lives of others, especially those who did not break the law but got the hammer anyway. As for MIT being the safety net of last resort, this just goes to show you that these days nobody really gives enough of a crap to come to the aid of their fellow human if it is in any way personally or organizationally inconvenient. We have pretty much become a nation of "I don't want to get involved," "I'm not political" and/or "9/11! 9/11!," the latter being the excuse for EVERYTHING no matter how nonsensical it may be.

One thing is for certain however: In light of what happened to this adult (and the "untouchable" members of LulzSec, remember them?), the message has been made pretty clear that you risk getting the hammer if you do anything that those in power don't like. And it doesn't matter if it is excessive. Just look at the situation in Texas where a prosecutor who put a man away for 25 years on bogus procedures got NINE DAYS in jail. N-I-N-E. So, nothing at all will happen to a prosecutor who follows the rules and uses his discretion to absolutely destroy you. So, kids this is not a game. If you're gonna play on this field, be ready for war because they will bring it to your door.

Re:Black swan

[bluefoxlucid]

Saddam got executed as a response. I was talking about the imagined fantasy that anyone could have predicted the planes getting hijacked and hitting the tower in the first place.

Re:Black swan

[Sir_Eptishous]

It's the same thing as 9/11.

Insightful...?

I've seen some cheezdick comparisons on Slashdot before, but this one takes the cake.

Re:Black swan

[TheCarp]

> Bob knows that none of the "obvious signs" were really there, that everyone made them up to
> explain in hindsight what nobody saw coming.

Exactly hindsight is a bitch. I lived with a con artist once. It was impressive the way he manipulated me and everyone I knew. After we kicked his ass to the curb, this weird thing happened. Every person I talked to about it, everyone had noticed something. Something they thought was odd, or something they shrugged off.

It was like telling them the end result, shines the light on the things that are obvious. Like the way he claimed to have spent summers in France and would demonstrate by asking me what time it was in French. I was out of practice but one day I belted back the time in French to him. I could see he didn't get it, so he pretended like he didn't hear me right, so I repeated, but, even as he nodded and smiled, I could tell he had no clue what I said.

Shugged it off.... little things, all these little things that make so much sense together, so much sense in hindsight....but...nobody actually knew until the shoe dropped....then everybody knew.

Re:Black swan

[nobuddy]

I believe they were comparing common hindsight outcry, not severity or type of event.
Tons of people look at the one report on 9/11 that was ignored and cry foul- disregarding the thousands of equally plausible reports in the pile it came out of for that day.

I happen to agree that for the number of analysts the three-letter agencies employ that the totality of reports pertinent to this should have set off alarms... but you cannot ignore the sheer volume of data they had to sift through. Hindsight makes the buried seem obvious because you know what to look for now.

Re:Black swan

[bluefoxlucid]

Yes. More to the point, the totality of pertinent reports would set off alarms... but there would be a thousand other alarms with reports pertinent to a thousand other attacks that never materialized. How do you pick out the right one to respond to?

Re:Black swan

[bluefoxlucid]

The thing is it makes sense in hundreds of contexts; when you put the keystone information in (i.e. "he's a con artist and is manipulating you"), only then does it tie together. Otherwise it's a bunch of stuff that can't forward-predict anything: we all know egomaniacs who act like this but aren't conning you.

Re:Black swan

[Your.Master]

I also read a fictional book that predicted an alien invasion in 2015, so we better start getting prepared.

Re:Black swan

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Just look at the situation in Texas where a prosecutor who put a man away for 25 years on bogus procedures got NINE DAYS in jail. N-I-N-E.

It really pisses me off when people make extraordinary claims without providing any proof.

So here is the proof.

What could I have done differently?

[rmdingler]

Losing a grown child is the unnatural order of things, and parenting is a trial and error process few are properly trained or equipped for.

Could I have raised him a little differently so this didn't happen? Haunting. To say 'I did my best' is as wholly inaccurate as 'I did my worst' as most all of us fall somewhere in the middle.

It is pointless self-torture. Perhaps if he'd been taught to react differently in the situation that led to his doom, another earlier timeline close call was not averted.

Re:What could I have done differently?

[Plammox]

Perhaps if he'd been taught to react differently in the situation that led to his doom, another earlier timeline close call was not averted.

You can influence your child's personality to a limited extent. You can't sculpt its reaction patters down to the last detail to suit future or past needs.
Look at your own current or future kids.

The American Legal System's Double Standard

[TheNastyInThePasty]

The worst part is that the appalling behavior of the prosecution is standard practice. Any laws that could possibly apply (and some that have no chance of sticking) get thrown at the defendant in an effort to get them into a plea deal because they can't possibly afford the law talent required to protect themselves.

Meanwhile, if you have money or power, you are only charged under the laws that absolutely apply and only if they absolutely have proof you did it and are fully at fault. We wind up with corporations, governments, and the wealthy doing incredibly immoral things that obviously should be illegal but are not "technically" illegal or it's just too difficult to prove that they did it, so no prosecutor wants to take it on.

It's sickening.

Re:The American Legal System's Double Standard

[nobuddy]

Change you can believe in.

Re:The American Legal System's Double Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, if you have money or power, you are only charged under the laws that absolutely apply and only if they absolutely have proof you did it and are fully at fault. We wind up with corporations, governments, and the wealthy doing incredibly immoral things that obviously should be illegal but are not "technically" illegal or it's just too difficult to prove that they did it, so no prosecutor wants to take it on.

Oh give me a break. Aaron Swartz was a child of privilege, like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, not just upper middle class but upper class. He attended private schools, his college degree was from Stanford, he was a fellow at a lab at Harvard where he was mentored by Larry Lessig. He had influential friends all over as a result of Reddit and his RDF work.

Don't play the "two systems of justice in America" card on Swartz's behalf.

Re:The American Legal System's Double Standard

[JWW]

Don't play the "two systems of justice in America" card on Swartz's behalf.

Why not? It only proves that even with his wealth and privilege, he wasn't granted any lenience by those in power. He wasn't powerful enough to stop them. He wasn't powerful enough to persuade MIT to get off its ass and help him out (even JSTOR settled things with him).

The fact that the line dividing us from them is moving up to the point that only fully vested ruling elite are getting protected from aggressive action is troubling.

Re:The American Legal System's Double Standard

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Right. This is what happened with the financial meltdown, exactly. There were few prosecutions and none of the household -name people - Jamie Dimon Lloyd Blankfein, Angelo Mozilo, Richard Fuld, Bear Stearnsâ(TM)s Jimmy Cayne, Merrill Lynchâ(TM)s Stan Oâ(TM)Neal, Citigroupâ(TM)s Chuck Prince all of these people are untouchable even though we lost literally a trillion dollars and more during the meltdown and entire lifetime retirements of people were destroyed . Eric Holder and his justice department looks and looks but golly! just can't find a gosh-darn thing he can charge them with.

It's a joke. A sick sick joke and made me lose a LOT of respect for the whole process of criminal justice. This is not a nation of laws, it's a nation of money and a nation of men when it comes right down to it. Same thing with the Transpacific Partenership- people with money and connections are literally usurping the environmental, labor , patent, copyright and other laws of nations. Laws which were arrived at through the respective societys' democratic process.

This is how empires fail They overreach. They heedless impose the will of mere individuals - or in this case corporations- upon people who disapprove of what they're doing by a ratio, in this nation at least , of 300 million to one.

This is how societies collapse. This is the steady rip rip of the social contract between the government and it's people that is not forgotten but instead goes underground, into people's living memories only later to emerge and play a decisive roll in the dissolution of that society. The government is known by all, in this case left and right and center, to be corrupt, unresponsive, indifferent to its people and serving only the needs of its elite, which are endlessly craven and grasping and greedy. People are cynical, but that's just the outward tell of their inner states.

Then something ecological happens directly owing to the untrammeled greed of the 1% and the society goes down all at once. This is not speculative, it's happened time and time again. To the Anasazi of the U.S. Southwest, to the Classic Lowland Maya, to the inhabitants of Easter Island and some other Polynesian societies, to the Greenland Norse, to the Mycenean Greece, and to the Western Roman Empire.

Hate to present a totalizing narrative which "explains all things" but it's not just my opinion that this is coming; it's the Pentagon's and the NSA's also:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/jun/14/climate-change-energy-shocks-nsa-prism

If the Pentagon and the NSA and Obama had any sense at all, they'd prioritize climate legislation and start treating the manufacturers and purveyors of climate change denial like the threat to civilization they literally are.

Then they'd go after the deprivations of the 1% - typical example the contents of the TPP- which are literally tearing the social fabric of this nation apart.

https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp

http://www.exposethetpp.org/

https://www.citizen.org/TPP

Environmental disaster as the trigger to societal collapse:

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/10/3632.full

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed

\http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2003/07/17/2858655.htm

Re:The American Legal System's Double Standard

[TheNastyInThePasty]

Wealth (and with it, power) is heavily concentrated at the top. The top 1% of the top 1% make even most of the 1%-ers look poor. Being able to attend Stanford might make you part of the upper class, but that's not the kind of money I'm talking about.

Re:The American Legal System's Double Standard

[bad-badtz-maru]

We don't know that he wasn't granted lenience, the case never even went to trial.

Re:The American Legal System's Double Standard

[farble1670]

This is how societies collapse.

yes, and there's not much we're going to do about it. the top 1% that has the power isn't going to yield it without a fight ... and by fight, i don't mean a courtroom battle, i mean violence. those people control the police and the military, so your option is civil / guerrilla war.

that, and observe that's there's never been a time in history / a land where this hasn't been how it works. look at any ancient society. there were kings and queens and there cohorts, and you didn't hear about anyone else. the US was founded by wealthy land owners that didn't want to pay taxes to the even more wealthy elite of another country. all of them were rich, powerful men.

Re:The American Legal System's Double Standard

[MrKaos]

Meanwhile, if you have money or power, you are only charged under the laws that absolutely apply and only if they absolutely have proof you did it and are fully at fault. We wind up with corporations, governments, and the wealthy doing incredibly immoral things that obviously should be illegal but are not "technically" illegal or it's just too difficult to prove that they did it, so no prosecutor wants to take it on.

It's sickening.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. - John F. Kennedy

Minimum Security?

[beaverdownunder]

I get how the martyr meme is cool, but putting it aside for just one second:

If he had gone to prison, it would've been the country club type, no? With the games rooms, libraries, etc. Not the rapey, death-row kind.

So in that context, committing suicide to avoid incarceration seems a tad over-reactive, doesn't it? Not trying to make light of the tragedy here, just pointing out that perhaps the bigger one is that he thought he was going to SuperMax, not Club Fed.

Computer crimes don't get you sent to maximum security, FYI.

Re:Minimum Security?

[HBI]

It was an over-reaction, but the guy wasn't willing to pay the price for civil disobedience. So now the hipster crowd wants to redefine civil disobedience as something that should never inconvenience you.

This, luckily, is something that will never fly with the public at large, who will continue to think he's a criminal forever.

Re:Minimum Security?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was an over-reaction, but the guy wasn't willing to pay the price for civil disobedience.

No, his reaction related to a pre-existing mental illness.

The fact is, he broke the law, and if he had been cooperative when busted, he would have recieved a year or two at most, but probably no jail at all.

Jesus

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure you can explain to us why it was Jesus' own fault to be nailed to a cross. He should have known that he should not tip over the tables of moneychangers.

Exactly the same with this guy. And Bradley Manning.

We are living in a world of corrupt ethics, our world is propelled by the dark fire of wickedness and lies.

Cheers.

Re:Jesus

[NatasRevol]

According to the biblical account, the local Roman authority stated that Jesus had committed no crimes.

Re:Jesus

[NatasRevol]

Exactly. Thus he didn't commit crimes against the state.

Re:Jesus

[camperdave]

I am sure you can explain to us why it was Jesus' own fault to be nailed to a cross.

Yes, it was his own fault. In fact, it was his own plan, and the very purpose of his life.

People in powerful places

[sl4shd0rk]

The helplessness Aaron felt must have been overwhelming. When people in high places conspire against you, there is not much left you can do. They are in control of your life and will twist the legal system into whatever they want in order to satisfy their ego. It's a game to them. Shit needs change.

Re:People in powerful places

[Anonymous Coward]

I see the shills and astroturfers are out in force today. Slow day at Ortiz's office today?

Re:People in powerful places

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. He didn't behave like an intelligent adult. He behaved like a child thinking the worst he would get is dressed down and maybe a slap on the wrist.

Perhaps that's because after JSTOR (the 'victim' in this case) had been compensated satisfactorily, a dressing down and a slap on the wrist would have been the proportionate consequence!

Re:People in powerful places

[fredprado]

Sure he commited a crime nobody contends that, but the crime "victims" did not press charges and the punishment with which the prosecutors were threatening him was ridiculously disproportional to the crime commited. It is because of immoral prosecutors like these that do anything to bully into settlements normal people who can't afford to put millions of dollars into lawyers that US justice system is screwed.

Re:People in powerful places

[serviscope_minor]

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Ah so because it was illegal, any punishment, no matter how severe is justified, right?

Re:People in powerful places

[serviscope_minor]

When you say "victims" to whom are you referring?

JSTOR.

The possible penalties are set by law to the crimes committed. He should have educated himself on the crimes he was committing and the possible penalties, as should you.

Wire fraud aka we can fuck your life up with 25 years in a PIMTA prison for a minor crime online.

Threads like this really seem to bring out the bootlickers. Whenever anyone points out the sheer insanity of the threat of 25 years in prison for doing nothing that anyone actually cared about you get all sorts of people springing out of the woodwork pointing out how it's fince because it's the law.

Legal != moral.

If you believe otherwise, then the thread will get Goodwined very, very quickly.

Re:People in powerful places

[east coast]

When people in high places conspire against you, there is not much left you can do.

I'm glad that people like Martin Luther King Jr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Gandhi didn't listen to your kind of bullshit.

Compared to the truly oppressed, Aaron had it easy. Millions of people took a stand in a time and a place where saying the wrong thing would have gotten them dumped off some back road with a bullet in their head and they still had the strength to go through with it. Some died, some were unjustly jailed, some were beaten and raped. They still did it with their heads high and didn't run from their ideals. Aaron was weak. Mod me down but the testimony of people who stood against oppression should make you ashamed to do so in the face of the facts.

Re:People in powerful places

[serviscope_minor]

he possible penalties for his crime are right there in the law.

And any punishment, no matter how disproportionate, is justified, right?

Actually, the 8th amendment has been read to mean that wildly disproportionate punishments are "cruel". Therefore, no it is actually not clear that 25 years in a federal prison for minor copyright infringement is right there in the law.

You think his crime deserved a slap on the wrist because you like what he did.

Please don't make up lies about my motives.

I think 25 years for minor copyright infringment is wildly unreasonable because no one was harmed significantly by the crime: even the victims wanted the charges dropped. You'd get less for murder. This is not reasonable.

The prosecutor didn't share your view and was willing to ask for the maximum penalty.

So? That just means the prosecutor has no morals.

Because of that, the proper move for the prosecutor is to always seek the maximum penalty because the judge can impose whatever sentence the judge wishes within the bounds of the law which often means less than what the prosecution asks for AND it encourages defendants to make a deal and save the expense of prosecution.

Basically no. This shit encourages people to avoid fighting the spurious charges because the risk of faiure is so severe (not to mention wildly disproportionate) that it's worth copping to a lesser crime unless they can afford top notch legal representation.

Threatening people with 25 years in prison for minor copyright infringement is morally wrong, no matter how much you quote the law.

If you still persist in believing that legal==moral, then you might want first to read about "Goodwin's Law" and see how it might very soon apply.

Re:People in powerful places

[DaveV1.0]

If no one cared about what was done, he wouldn't not have been prosecuted, therefore your entire line of reasoning is false.

Re:People in powerful places

[fredprado]

Only the DOJ cared about what he did. Neither the MIT nor the JSTOR pressed charges. The DOJ decided to prosecute him despite that, and it proceeded to charge him with anything they could, charges whose penalties added to the incredible amount of possible 35 years in prison.

Re:People in powerful places

[DaveV1.0]

In other words, those that enforce the law cared about whether he violated the law. You have proved my point.

Re:People in powerful places

[wbr1]

Sorry to Gowdin the thread,but just as a point of fact that legal != moral, it was legal to gas Jews in Nazi Germany. It is legal now for the US to waterboard terrorist suspects. It was legal for Pilate to have Jesus crucified.

Re:People in powerful places

[serviscope_minor]

All I hear is you saying that you don't like the penalties for the crimes he committed.

Yes, because the phrase YOU used "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime" makes some sort implication about the reasonablility of the crime.

If not, you might apply the same reasoning to the Jews in Nazi Germany. "Well, if they didn't want to be gassed, they shouldn't have been Jewish." That is clearly ridiculous. If your argument lends itself to ridiculous conclusions then your argument is ridiculous.

resort to ad hominem

You resorted to making up random (incorrect) stuff about my motivations. So, you can now climb down off your high horse.

Probably the biggest misconception you have put forth is that JSTOR had a say in the prosecution.

Where did I make this misconception? Hint: I didn't.

The victim of a crime doesn't decide if a perpetrator is tried, rather the state does.

Yes, and? What's your point? The victim can still tell the state if they want the charges dropped if they wish. It's a very strong indication that the crime was not egregious. 25 years for a crime with no real victims is excessive.

Personally, I have not seen a statement from JSTOR

Here you go:

From http://bigstory.ap.org/article/swartz-death-fuels-debate-over-computer-crime:

JSTOR's attorney, Mary Jo White â" formerly the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan â" had called the lead Boston prosecutor in the case and asked him to drop it, said Peters, also a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan who is now based in California.

Re:People in powerful places

[serviscope_minor]

If no one cared about what was done, he wouldn't not have been prosecuted, therefore your entire line of reasoning is false.

The trouble with lumping in the prosecutors is that they gain power (e.g. votes) by prosecuting people, no matter how just. They only care because prosecuting serves to enrich them personally.

Let me rephrase:

No one (excepting third parties able to gain personally from his prosecution) wanted him prosecuted.

Re:People in powerful places

[serviscope_minor]

Arguing that I should change my tune because you might call me names is both a weak appeal to consequence and a threat to resort to ad hominem which tells me you know your argument is untenable.

It would be if I threatened that.

I made no threat to call you names. So again, you are making up stuff about me (first about my motivations, now about threats I haven't made). It's kind of entertaining that you are the one flinging fallacies around with ripe abandon and then accusing me of doing exactly that.

By the way, making stuff up does not lend weight to whatever points you are trying to convince me of.

Re:People in powerful places

[TheGratefulNet]

those that enforce the law cared about whether he violated the law

how long have you been alive? not long, I take it. you sound young and not all that aware of how the world really works.

those that prosecute do NOT care about right and wrong. they care about WINNING.

sorry to break it to you, but this isn't a disney movie. this is cold hard life and those who are in the legal system as prosecuters are not much more than human-like wolves.

right vs wrong never enters into it. if it did, how could plea bargains ever exist? do they serve justice? of course not.

its a game to them. how many 'wins' do you have and how many more are needed for that promotion.

this is what they play. they don't care about us at all.

this is why people in-the-know hate them. people in authority who are borderline psychos and love to exercise their power.

Re:People in powerful places

[serviscope_minor]

prosecuters are not much more than human-like wolves.

That is probably how prosecutors like to think of themselves. In truth, wolves won't go and attack you unless they're hungry or are threatened. They lack the vindictiveness and malice of humans. When wolves fight, the winner will stop as soon as the loser yields. They seem to have no desire to destroy the loser utterly.

Re:People in powerful places

[fredprado]

Yes, those that are paid and empowered by society to enforce the law to the benefit of society, which was not benefited in any way by this truculent behavior. No one affected wanted him in jail, but those who should represent them decided to do it anyway.

Re:People in powerful places

[russotto]

When wolves fight, the winner will stop as soon as the loser yields. They seem to have no desire to destroy the loser utterly.

If the loser won't submit, won't roll over and show his belly, the winner will kill him. That's pretty much what happened here; Swartz wouldn't accept the omega (felon) position offered by the alpha prosecutor, so he had to be destroyed.

Re:People in powerful places

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm. It's worth noting that the prosecutor did not, in fact, seek the maximum penalty. The prosecutor recommended the following sentences to the judge:

- 6 months, if Mr. Swartz accepted a plea deal to avoid trial;
- 7 years, if Mr. Swartz opted to take the case to trial by refusing a plea bargain;

The maximum sentence, repeated ad nauseam here is 50 bazillion years, plus 37 googlejillion eternities, with constant prison rape and no chance of time off for good behavior, with Dick Cheney being promised 40% of Swartz' soul once he'd served 2 years. And I read that on the intarwebz, so it MUST be true.

I agree with you that Swartz should have educated himself before he decided to break the law - people engaging in civil disobedience should always consider whether the possible prison sentence is worth it. But the prosecutor recommended on several occasions a much lighter sentence than the maximum, which simply underscores the political nature of all the mock outrage from the Slashdot "intelligentsia."

Re:People in powerful places

[sgtrock]

First things first. Based upon what I've read elsewhere, it's still not clear that Aaron was guilty of ANY crime. A decent defense attorney might have been able to demonstrate that. Unfortunately, because Aaron couldn't afford decent counsel, the Federal prosecutor took the opportunity to just pile on lots of bogus charges to the few that were questionable to begin with in order to force him to take a plea deal.

Do the time? First you have to do the crime.

4 months and what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not being allowed to touch a computer again? No ability to get a job with a felony record...it was a felony right?

I have sympathy but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have sympathy for the family and the guy's original plight, but... this who social commiseration and pretty much blaming his death on prosecutors is too far. Yes what they tried to do to him was shitty. Is there anything that even remotely caused his own choice to take his own life. No freaking way.
He wasn't a martyr. He was an overly emotional kid with problems. I'm sure he was a neat guy, a kind spirit, a smart person. He was also coddled into thinking that his emotions were the most important thing in his life. How incredibly silly to waste your life on such a trivial topic... even if it was injustice.. It's still a small subset of 1st world uptown problems. I dare say probably never experienced any real struggle or suffering in his life that might help put it into perspective.
Instead of continuing to lament his death, maybe teaching people that you may have to struggle for things and you may not always get what you want or receive the justice you deserve.

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me what Bradley Manning did wrong on an ethical basis ? He exposed brutal, cynical behaviour in a war that was clearly illegal. And then a "constitutional lawyer" turned out to be a Torture-Meister. He gave up his life for the truth and for a better world

In my ethical framework, that amounts to Jesus. No less, no more. And I don't need the official church to see this. They are corrupt conspirators with the rich, powerful, warmaking, warmongering and Apartheid-state-runners these days.

If your corrupt mind cannot see this truth, I really feel sorry for you. Their propaganda has sowed your eyes shut.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure Adolf Hilter's and Napoleon Bonaparte's lawyers approved of their respective actions, too. And sure Stalin got whatever "justice" he demanded.
But it is still a fact the Iraq war was done for the benefit of the jews, who had a bill to settle with Saddam. And the arms industry, who needed revenue. It was plain illegal and Bush is a war criminal. Plus the helo pilots are cyncial bastards.

Bradley Manning ? He merely violated some technicalities in the big picture of a crime that cost 100k people, AND COUNTING, their lifes. Committed by George Bush and Dick Cheney. Against the clear will of CIA, for example.

Re:Nope

[Desler]

but managed to expose, endanger AND KILL sympathizers and spies working with the US and the UK on the other side.

Sorry cold fjord, but this is false. From here:

The military's position took another hit Wednesday, as the former brigadier general who headed the Information Review Task Force investigating the leaks said that he had never heard that a source named in the Afghan war logs was killed.

Though the Taliban had claimed that its review of the war logs led them to an Afghan whom the U.S. military named as a source, the supposed informant the Taliban claimed to have executed was not in fact named in the leaked materials.

Now-retired Brig. Gen. Robert Carr had wanted to testify about the Taliban's claim Wednesday, but Col. Denise Lind, the military judge presiding over Manning's court-martial, barred such testimony as inadmissible hearsay.

The revelation supports an assessment by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that the rhetoric about the supposed harm caused by the leaks was "fairly significantly overwrought."

Re:Nope

[tlambert]

As a military intelligence officer he released military intelligence during wartime in a war that LEGALLY approved by all political parties in both the US and the UK.

Citation needed.

Specifically, where are the Articles of War, ratified by both houses of the Congress of the U.S., and signed by the President of the U.S. which are required for the U.S. to actually BE in a state of war, such that this was in fact an act which occurred during wartime?

Re:Nope

[Desler]

Didn't bother reading the quote, eh?

The military's position took another hit Wednesday, as the former brigadier general who headed the Information Review Task Force investigating the leaks said that he had never heard that a source named in the Afghan war logs was killed.

Though the Taliban had claimed that its review of the war logs led them to an Afghan whom the U.S. military named as a source, the supposed informant the Taliban claimed to have executed was not in fact named in the leaked materials.

The Taliban can claim things all they want. The retired general in charge doing the real investigations said they were full of it.

Re:Nope

[Desler]

And to add, the Taliban gains a lot from lying and posturing. The guy doing the investigation doesn't gain anything from lying. In fact it only weakened the case of the government.

Re:Nope

[Quila]

Tell me what Bradley Manning did wrong on an ethical basis ?

He released hundreds of thousands of classified documents, revealing the internal communications of our government to other governments, without any regard to whether or not the release was exposing illegal activity.

Re:Clearly you have never seen office space

[nobuddy]

Theres no such thing as the contry club type *for the poor*.

There most certainly are much softer and pleasant prisons. And if you can afford the right lawyers, you will go here instead of Lompoc.
http://articles.latimes.com/1989-04-23/news/mn-1771_1_club-fed-eglin-federal-prison-camp-higher-security-prison

Re:MIT's failure to intervene

[phantomfive]

As far as I can tell, MIT was on the side of the prosecution.

He saved his family from bankruptcy

[Anonymous Coward]

4 months or 25 years, Aaron could have done more good alive in jail than dead. Death never solves anything. If you're going to die then die fighting for what you believe not by suicide.

You are overlooking that Aaron's decision was not just to avoid jail time. It was also to save his family from bankruptcy for his legal defense. The prosecutor made sure that even if Aaron would be acquitted from all charges, the running tab for that would be in the millions.

The U.S. "plea deal" system is not just bereaving defendants of a jury trial by the threat of jail time, but rather with the immense cost of an effective defense. If you are innocent, you can buy yourself out of every year of prosecution jail time for about $200000 in legal defense cost. If you are guilty, it gets more expensive and less reliable to buy yourself out, but the main mitigating factor is not innocence but money.

The prosecutor was going for the 25 year demand. Getting Aaron mostly acquitted would have been a $5000000 job (probably involving an appeal as well).

Most corrupt judicial systems are cheaper than the U.S.

Re:He saved his family from bankruptcy

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If you are innocent, you can buy yourself out of every year of prosecution jail time for about $200000 in legal defense cost.

I would like to see a citation for thiat. It would make me feel confident in quoting that number to other people in similar arguments.

JSTOR was not the only victim.

[Anonymous Coward]

When MIT's journal access was shut off, every researcher on campus who needed access to those journals was a victim.

Idealism is Good and Harsh

[Bob9113]

'Clearly I failed,' a tortured Bob Swartz acknowledges. 'There's no question, my son is dead.'

While I appreciate and respect the balanced view he goes on to express, I think even this opening may be harsher than is deserved.

This is a screwed up world; a world of pragmatists and sociopaths. When you send a fiercely idealist person out in into the world today, often it does not end well. That is the nature of the modern human condition. I think it is particularly challenging to idealists when pragmatism appears to be winning in The United States -- a nation founded on idealism -- and even more so at MIT -- an iconic temple of rationalism and truth.

The easiest alternative is to raise a pragmatist instead of an idealist. But the preference for that easy path is the very reason our world is so challenging for idealists. It is better for society, though almost certainly much harder for you, to have tried to make your son a good man and see him lost than to have raised him to compromise his principles. The weight of that can be immense.

Re:MIT's failure to intervene

[citizenr]

What do you mean? MIT was on the forefront of prosecution, and it wasnt the first time they did this. Remember Star Simpson?

ACCEPTANCE

[Dr Max]

1. Denial

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5. ACCEPTANCE

Suicide eliminates all other options

[mbeckman]

When you kill yourself, you rule out the possibility of intervention, by God or anyone else.

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how we've all completely forgotten that the overwhelming majority of JSTOR's shit is available in MIT's libraries in print.

Binary thinking

[slew]

Binary thinking is for the young. The dichotomy of the idealist and the pragmatist is really a failing of idealism that pragmatism is thought to be unprincipled. In most cases, there is no true understanding of an ideal, it is really just an unembodied idea with unforeseen consequences. The truism is that world is changed by people that can change the world, not people that only wish it. Of course one would hope to change the world for the better rather than the worse, but it's the height of arrogance that a single person always know which direction is better.

It's not easy to raise a pragmatist that realizes every hand is a winner and a loser, and not to count their money when it's sitting at the table... It's much easier to raise an idealist that ignores these facts of life and laments the world for not seeing things the way they do. That's what my 3-yo son does now. He doesn't know the rules to all the games that we play together and the surprising (to him) strategies that seem to work yet, so he makes some assumptions which sometimes don't turn out to be true and that disappoints him (which is reflected in different severity of negative behaviors depending on his energy status / mood).

I'm hoping to prepare him to experience his own chosen path in life by pointing him in what I think is a good direction and giving him some tools to continue to make his way as he discovers the true rules of various "games" he will experience. I'm sure I too will regret not giving my son enough tools someday, but he owns his own life path...

On principle (one of the few that I have), my son doesn't have to change the world to be better for me (or the rest of society). Actually, I think that deliberately sending my son on such a mission would be sociopathic behavior on *my* part (might be akin to sending him on a suicide mission if I can be momentarily extra insensitive to the above mentioned situation). However, if he choses to walk that path, I wish him all the luck.

Re:MIT's failure to intervene

[MickLinux]

Umm, because his father works for MIT, and is worth more than to have his son killed with the cooperation of his employer?

Next time you go in to your workplace, ask yourself this: "Of all the workers here, who does and who does not deserve a full living wage--a place to live, food to eat, enough to train their kids to do the same, or better, and a retirement such that they can live peacefully until they die?"

Now, the next day, go in, and ask yourself, "which of these workers deserve to die?"

Now, the next day, go in, and ask yourself, "for all those who I judge deserve to die, how many are doing jobs that are still necessary to the employer, and yet I would judge the same no matter WHO was doing the job?"

We've fallen a long way.

Frankly, I think it is our society that deserves to day. The people -- and the leaders -- all deserve to live, but maybe they don't deserve a lot more. We've all messed up pretty badly.

an old chestnut:

[wild_quinine]

Putting yourself at risk of a crime, doesn't really excuse the criminal for comitting it.

Re:an old chestnut:

[camperdave]

Putting yourself at risk of a crime, doesn't really excuse the criminal for comitting it.

Do you know a better way of being caught and punished for a crime than committing the crime?