White House Responds To Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz's Prosecutor

First time accepted submitter devloop writes Petitioners requesting the White House remove D.A. Carmen Ortiz from office for gross prosecutorial overreach in the case of Aaron Swartz, received today what amounts to a denial from WhiteHouse.gov. "Aaron Swartz's death was a tragic, unthinkable loss for his family and friends. Our sympathy continues to go out to those who were closest to him, and to the many others whose lives he touched. We also reaffirm our belief that a spirit of openness is what makes the Internet such a powerful engine for economic growth, technological innovation, and new ideas. That's why members of the Administration continue to engage with advocates to ensure the Internet remains a free and open platform as technology continues to disrupt industries and connect our communities in ways we can't yet imagine. We will continue this engagement as we tackle new questions on key issues such as citizen participation in democracy, open access to information, privacy, intellectual property, free speech, and security. As to the specific personnel-related requests raised in your petitions, our response must be limited. Consistent with the terms we laid out when we began We the People, we will not address agency personnel matters in a petition response, because we do not believe this is the appropriate forum in which to do so."

Comments

question

[the_Bionic_lemming]

How many times has this administration embraced a petition and moved forward with it?

Re:question

[phantomfive]

Another question, do you think Obama even reads them?

At a minimum they've been a good source of entertainment for eight years. I'll miss them when they're gone.

Re:question

[Geoffrey.landis]

How many times has this administration embraced a petition and moved forward with it?

Yeah, because the white house peititions have been so wonderful, they should move forward.

http://theweek.com/article/ind...

Especially this one: Transfer funds from the drug war to fund the research and development of the genetic engineering of domestic cat girls. Total signatures: 838.

I can't see why this one hasn't had more signatures. Maybe a conspiracy involving Batman.

Another question, do you think Obama even reads them?

I'd hope so! They're even better than the Onion.

Re:question

[Bob the Super Hamste]

At first it was 5 or 10k then eventually it got moved up to 50K and at present I believe it requires 100k signatures. And yes if it crosses what ever threshold they currently have set you can expect them to provide a patronizing response that at best says they are going to do the exact oppisite and you can go sit on it and spin or they bitch, moan, and dodge the petition.

Re:question

[CauseBy]

Hey, getting a response is a significant achievement. It's like nobody remembers previous Presidents. It might not be perfect but it's more perfect than it was. Even a tepid meaningless response like this is something.

Re:question

[dgatwood]

Not like they pay much attention to any of the promises they've made to the people of the United States anyways.

You were expecting change?

As much as could be expected

[guises]

This is probably the best response possible to an "I demand you fire that person who has made me angry" rant. The petition could have asked for some reform to the prosecutorial discretion system which allowed her to hound Aaron in the first place, or maybe to the ridiculous wire fraud law that she used, but demanding the head of someone who annoys you is, one: ineffective scapegoaterry, and two: asinine entitlement.

Re:As much as could be expected

[Anonymous Coward]

...but demanding the head of someone who annoys you is, one: ineffective scapegoaterry, and two: asinine entitlement.

Not sure if you're trolling (in the classic sense) but I'll bite.

This wasn't just about a random stranger wearing ugly socks. This was a government official abusing their official authority for personal gain. As you note, there may be a broader issue that prosecutors have no legitimate need for such authority but expecting government officials to (only) use their power for the benefit of the people generally is hardly "asinine entitlement". And it's not scapegoating if the person actually did the thing that people are angry about.

Re:As much as could be expected

[Anonymous Coward]

The procecutor overreacted by bringing down a sledge hammer to swat a fly.

Humans aren't flies and this wasn't some accidental panic on the part of the prosecutor: she was abusing her power, with absolute disregard for anyone who might be hurt, in order to enhance her own personal political standing.

Re:As much as could be expected

[guises]

It's scapegoating in that it's pinning the problem onto a single person, who ultimately isn't responsible for a systematic issue. This is not a case of crooked individual undermining a fair and just system - what she did was commonplace, it just doesn't usually happen to someone with whom you've heard of and sympathize with. Saying, "Let's get her!" and then going home satisfied that you've beaten the bad guy is exactly how this sort of thing is allowed to continue.

Note: I am not defending her any more than I'd defend the gangster used as a classical scapegoat. Neither of their hands are clean. Does she deserve to be fired? I don't know, maybe, but it wouldn't actually do anything.

Re:As much as could be expected

[Anonymous Coward]

It's scapegoating in that it's pinning the problem onto a single person, who ultimately isn't responsible for a systematic issue.

So if there's a lot of crime in a neighborhood then it's scapegoating to punish someone who commits a crime in that neighborhood?

Saying, "Let's get her!" and then going home satisfied that you've beaten the bad guy is exactly how this sort of thing is allowed to continue.

Doing nothing,as you seem to be advocating by agreeing with Obama, is also a pretty good way to let it continue.

Does she deserve to be fired? I don't know, maybe, but it wouldn't actually do anything.

The president doesn't make the laws nor does he determine the interpretation of the laws. He has a limited capacity to veto laws - and hopefully we'll see a lot of the in the next couple years. The president's power is to exercise discretion in the execution of the laws - more specifically, to carefully choose good people to exercise discretion in the execution of the laws on his behalf. It is not just the president's prerogative to fire bad subordinates, it is his fundamental responsibility.

And, would it do anything? Yes, absolutely! He might have to fire more than one prosecutor but the message would get through eventually. Obama may be giving the impression the the president of the USA is merely a powerless figurehead. But it does not have to be this way. It is not for nothing that the president of the United States is often said to be the most powerful man on the planet.

Re:As much as could be expected

[Anonymous Coward]

The prosecutor overreacted...

Now hold on a minute there pardner, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that there point. Unauthorized downloading of academic journal articles is a truly heinous crime. If anything, the decades in prison that he was facing were far too lenient - anything less than death by stoning would have been letting him off easy.

Re:As much as could be expected

[sjames]

The prosecutor was indeed wrong. The charges leveled were well beyond the alleged act. Prosecutors are supposed to press reasonable charges. They should never press a charge that a reasonably knowledgeable observer feels sure will never stick if it goes to trial.

Re:As much as could be expected

[sjames]

I'm all for firing each and every participant in the systemic issue. Systematically.

However, we only happen to know of one or two at the moment, so let's start there and work our way out.

Re:As much as could be expected

[Lennie]

There was a law (amendment) proposed, it got shot down:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Also notice the last line on Wikipedia says:
"As of May 2014, Aaron's Law was stalled in committee, reportedly due to tech company Oracle's financial interests.[42]"

Re:As much as could be expected

[turp182]

They over-press with charges to guarantee a case is pleased out before trial (by reducing or removing charges for the plea).

It shouldn't happen of course, but it is very common.

Re:As much as could be expected

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

MIT, the organization whose access was used to download the documents, declined to press civil charge and according to the report on MIT's involvement "MIT never requested that a criminal prosecution be brought against Aaron
Swartz." (page 13) and "MIT did inform the prosecution that it was not seeking punishment for Swartz, and it did inform the defense that it was not seeking any civil remedy from him." (page 14)

JSTOR, the organization whose documents were copied, declined to press civil charges. A quote in the MIT report attributed to JSTOR said "The criminal investigation and today’s indictment of Mr. Swartz has been directed by the United States Attorney’s Office. It was the government’s decision whether to prosecute, not JSTOR’s. As noted previously, our interest was in securing the content. Once this was achieved, we had no interest in this becoming an ongoing legal matter." (page 84)

When the two parties who were affected choose not to proceed with civil charges and don't press for criminal charges, is calling for criminal charges that carried a possible 50 years of imprisonment and a $1 million dollar fine, and which a former White House counsel called "overcharging" and "overzealous" really necessary? Consider that several Senators, including both Republicans and Democrats, questioned or criticized the prosecution using words or phrases like scapegoat, outrageous, and way out of line. How often does THAT happen anymore?

So, what does that make the record ?

[argStyopa]

...for Whitehouse.gov as a platform to spur/enact popular initiatives?
0 for 15,000?

Do I believe that 5000 internet dorks signing a petition should compel action from the government? Not at all.
Do I believe that having such a forum should be useful to a government to see what things are 'catching the public's attention'? Sure.
Do I believe that Whitehouse.gov petition site was *mainly* meant as an anodyne to Obama supporters to make them *feel* connected when in effect it is actually meaningless? Absolutely. I believe the actual record of initiatives that came from this proves my point over what, 7 years?

Re:So, what does that make the record ?

[Powercntrl]

...for Whitehouse.gov as a platform to spur/enact popular initiatives?
0 for 15,000?

The cell phone unlocking petition actually accomplished something. Then again, the government has never really liked phone companies.

Re:So, what does that make the record ?

[mrg17]

I would like to see a bit more comment on whether the statement starting "Consistent with the terms we laid out when we began We the People" is true in response - if it is then srely the complains should be able the terms rather than about the response to this petition?

Re:So, what does that make the record ?

[aralin]

There is no need to invent words like Cronycapitalism. It is called Oligarchy.

Zero accountability

[Kohath]

This is one reason why some of us want to stop giving the government more power. Because they can never be held accountable when they misuse that power and hurt people. No one in power is ever guilty of anything. Care and recklessness are rewarded equally.

It's easy to say you're for "openness" (and whatever other buzzwords) when you never have to actually live up to any sort of standards. Why should anyone listen or believe or trust? Apparently, we shouldn't.

Re:Zero accountability

[Crashmarik]

Child labor laws are largely irrelevant due to rising standards of living. Families would put kids out on the street to fend for themselves at a much earlier age. Ask yourself what the alternative is letting the kid go hungry because they are having hard times ? Of course these days the question is likely moot due to reasons contained in the second response.

Environmental laws are a good bit of what moved our manufacturing to China. Hard to argue that isn't at best a mixed bag. It also decimated what were many entry level jobs. A very good example of how well meaning and emotionally appealing policy can have horrible consequences.

Limiting where people can build and how they can use land, drives up housing costs and fuels housing speculation housing speculation we now have 14.2 million vacant homes while people are going homeless. http://www.realtytrac.com/cont...

Pierce, Buchanan, and now Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

..we do not believe this is the appropriate forum in which to do so.

Presumably if the White House believed that such a forum existed, it would have mentioned it. So, essentially, the White House is saying that no forum exists to "address agency personnel matters". But one of the main things the president is supposed to do is insure that good people are executing the laws and policies of the USA.

Sometimes I wonder if Obama wakes up in the morning, looks himself in the mirror, and says "How can I undermine the American public's faith in democracy?" People were angry with all the nonsense that was going on in the Bush presidency and they elected Obama with the hope that he would change it. But he hasn't. It's like he's trying his best to prove that democracy doesn't work.

Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan are widely regarded as some of the very worst presidents in the history of the USA. They were all about civility and comprise and the rule of law - pretty much just like Obama. But then Lincoln came along did what he had to do to get rid of slavery - civil war, suspension of habeas corpus, etc. And he's remembered as one of the best presidents in the history of the United States.

Obama hides behind bureaucracy in order to excuse his moral cowardice. Fine, he's gotta be who he is. But he shouldn't be surprised when he goes down in history with the likes of Pierce and Buchanan.

Change the policy

[Roodvlees]

If you want the internet to remain open and free, then why are you allowing copyright to lock it down?

How many times done anything helpful?

[Futurepower(R)]

"How many times has this administration embraced a petition and moved forward with it?"

How many times has this administration helped make the U.S. government better for its citizens in any way?

The U.S. government has been arranging that the rich get richer, allowing the violent to be more violent, and helping those who want to make money by killing people.

For example, the "Affordable Care Act" is, in my opinion, in the direction of other recent changes in government. Instead of 2 organizations between you and a health care provider, there now are 3 or 4. The ACA gathers money from those like myself who never get sick. See, for example, Oregon Health Care Cost Increases under the Affordable Care Act.

The ACA was announced and pretended to be in operation before the software was ready: How Obamacare's epic fail exposed our government's biggest tech problem. Whoever is at the top of the U.S. government was obviously completely incompetent. (Often a U.S. president merely pretends to be in charge, hiding what is actually happening, and who is arranging it.)

The ACA helped technology companies take advantage of state officials who are completely ignorant about technology development. For example, Oregon sues Oracle over failed Obamacare website.

Quoting: Oregon's suit, filed Friday in state court, alleges that Oracle, the largest tech contractor working on the website, made falsely convinced officials to buy "hundreds of millions of dollars of Oracle products and services that failed to perform as promised." It is seeking $200 million in damages.

If you love the U.S. like I do, help deal with the immense problems and lack of good leadership.

Re:How many times done anything helpful?

[drinkypoo]

The ACA gathers money from those like myself who never get sick.

Look, there are real problems with the ACA, but this is not one of them. This is how insurance works. The problem is that it's actually a system of graft from stem to stern. The health insurance companies must be eliminated if we are to have working health care in America. That's how you know the ACA is a lie. If it were meant to help us, the insurance companies would be gone, because we would no longer need them.

Re:How many times done anything helpful?

[JRV31]

The ACA was announced and pretended to be in operation before the software was ready: How Obamacare's epic fail exposed our government's biggest tech problem. Whoever is at the top of the U.S. government was obviously completely incompetent. (Often a U.S. president merely pretends to be in charge, hiding what is actually happening, and who is arranging it.)

The President is very much a figurehead - he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. Douglas Adams - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Re:How many times done anything helpful?

[Bonzoli]

Oracle's sales teams do this all the time to business. Selling crap to people they really don't need has made many a company rich beyond reason. The cure for this is public college education, everyone would be smarter then. Preferably in hard sciences.

How about instead of tearing things down and whining, you love your country enough to help make something work.

"The ACA gathers money from those like myself who never get sick."
You should understand at some point you will be sick, at that point in your life you won't care about anything else other than getting better or dieing.

Believing you will never get sick is something that should be pondered.

Re:How many times done anything helpful?

[g0bshiTe]

Explain how prior to ACA I could escape a dr visit with a $30 copay and maybe get a bill for 60 - 70% the balance, now I get 100% the balance up until 10k.

I could buy it was about providing healthcare to those without, yet you can try to deny it's about healthcare but your argument falls apart due to it being a "requirement for healthcare coverage".

If it were about healthcare it would be about healthcare not coverage.

Re:How many times done anything helpful?

[CauseBy]

Their ability to refuse care increased under the Act. They still won't let you die but they might elide things that they previously provided.

The nice thing about being in the system is that you can get preventative care and screening. As it turns out, it's super nice to catch cancer early. By the time you go to the hospital with a sore throat that won't go away, you're too late.

She's not a scapegoat, just a bad prosecutor

[Anonymous Coward]

So to be clear, those choices that she made were not her choices, and its scapegoating to want her fired for making those choices because 'the system'.

Nope, she made the choice to load on bogus charges to try to force a plea bargain, that was her choice within her power. She also did a lot a press work around the same time promoting herself and making statements that called into question her grasp of legal principles like 'theft'.

She is not a scapegoat, she is an bad prosecutor.

You voted for it

[Anonymous Coward]

Joe Biden is the copyright industry's puppet and was paid to introduce hard prison time for copyright violation:
http://www.cnet.com/news/joe-bidens-pro-riaa-pro-fbi-tech-voting-record/

Note the date. This was already known before Obama's first election. The copyright industry bought themselves the vice presidency.

And all of Slashdot, reddit, etc. looked away, nanana I can't hear you, and voted for that. You voted for this strong prosecution, which Biden implemented as instructed to. The White House are hypocrite psychopaths if they are denying it. The voters are huge hypocrites if they are complaining about it - they shouldn't have voted on this policy. And they will deny it and look away, and vote psychopaths into power again. How fucking convenient for everybody.

End all immunity for government employees

[MikeRT]

Especially prosecutors. Prosecutors, in fact, absolute civil immunity from the consequences of their courtroom hijinks. They can literally, with malice aforethought suborn perjury, withhold evidence that proves innocence (not just cast doubt) and other things and you cannot sue them. Why? The Supreme Court a long time ago ruled that if prosecutors could be sued into the ground for their courtroom conduct it would "unduly influence" their decisions to bring cases.

So you can sue a cop who beats you up because that's not within his training and there's no good faith defense. A prosecutor, legally trained with a JD, can intentionally commit a felony against you in a court of law and your only resources are as follows:

1. Plead with another prosecutor to prosecute him.
2. Get a friend/relative/street thug to meet him in the court parking lot with a baseball bat.

Because the civilized option 3) of taking matters into your own hands in a civil court is completely impossible and has been for a few decades.

Ok, the forum was not appropriate

[Psychotria]

What is the appropriate forum to get the agency to address these matters?

Can we stop worshipping Swartz already?

[damn_registrars]

Swartz was an idiot, not a hero. Stop making him a religious idol. Has anyone criticized Carmen Ortiz for the prosecution that her office led on Whitey Bulger or Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

No, they have not. This petition isn't about Carmen Ortiz, it is about more people trying to make a hero out of a fool. Carmen Ortiz worked hard to get to where she is, don't paint her as a super-villian just because Swartz crapped himself when he realized how stupid his choices were.

Re:Can we stop worshipping Swartz already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Carmen Ortiz worked hard to get to where she is,...

So did Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.

But what I don't get is the idea that there needs to be a high threshold for replacing people in positions of power. I mean, as a lower level scientist I could end up not getting my contract renewed for any number of reasons ranging from not quite enough available funding, to not churning out quite enough publications, to the boss deciding that my personality isn't quite the right fit for the team. If anything, we should have even higher standards for people in positions of power - if they so much as wear a pair of socks that doesn't match the rest of their ensemble then kick them to the curb and replace them with somebody better. If janitors need to lay awake in the wee hours of the morning with cold fear in the pits of their stomachs that they might not be able to feed their families because of inadequate job performance then high level government officials should fear much worse.

Re:Can we stop worshipping Swartz already?

[Trailer Trash]

Swartz was an idiot, not a hero. Stop making him a religious idol. Has anyone criticized Carmen Ortiz for the prosecution that her office led on Whitey Bulger or Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

No, they have not. This petition isn't about Carmen Ortiz, it is about more people trying to make a hero out of a fool. Carmen Ortiz worked hard to get to where she is, don't paint her as a super-villian just because Swartz crapped himself when he realized how stupid his choices were.

You're creating a false dichotomy where either Swartz was a hero or Ortiz is a hero. In fact, neither is a terribly respectable character.

The issue with Ortiz's prosecution was that she offered him a plea deal of 6 months with the alternative of prosecuting him with charges that would carry up to 50 years in jail and $1,000,000 in fines. If she thought the crime was worth 6 months in jail then she should have simply prosecuted it as such (and frankly should be forced to prosecute it as such since she obviously can't be trusted with any discretion).

She's scum. That doesn't mean that Swartz is some kind of hero.

Re:Can we stop worshipping Swartz already?

[Anonymous Coward]

My point here though is that the case never made it to court. In fact it really was quite a ways from making it to trial.

That is part of why she is evil. Rather then pushing for it to go to trial she intentionally kept a Sword of Damocles over his head as a way to punish him, via threats of jail time and lawyer bills.

Re:Can we stop worshipping Swartz already?

[Trailer Trash]

My point here though is that the case never made it to court. In fact it really was quite a ways from making it to trial. This makes it basically impossible to tell what she (or her office) would have presented in the trial that never happened. Calling her an evil person based on a trial that never happened is not exactly well connected to reality.

Yes it is. She charged him and then brought out the plea deal. When he refused she piled more charges on in an attempt to get him to take the deal. Had he not killed himself it's difficult to say where she might have stopped. She's nothing but scum for doing that. Literally, she is as valuable to our society as a piece of dog shit that I might find on the bottom of my shoe. Nothing more.

An honest prosecutor would have brought forth a set of charges that are proper for the crime, offered a plea deal (which wouldn't be 1/100th of the possible sentence for the charges, by the way) and then let it go to trial if the deal was rejected. It shouldn't be legal for a prosecutor to pile charges on, but moral and ethical people don't actually need a law to make them do what is moral and ethical.

Ortiz showed what she really is (scum) by doing that. Also, saying "everybody does it" also doesn't absolve her of guilt. See the last paragraph if you want to go down that road.

Re:He was wrong, and he knew it

[sjames]

A jaywalker also knows he's doing wrong. That doesn't absolve the prosecutor who tries to contort it into a terroristic threat and prosecute a felony.

I'm fine with prosecutors pressing jaywalking charges to jaywalkers.