Whistleblower John Kiriakou said "I am proud that I stood up to our government. I am not a criminal. I am a whistleblower. Torture is illegal and it’s officially abandoned in our country and I’m proud to have had a role in that." Sounds a bit like Patrick Henry's "Liberty or Death". A hero right? And yet...
Don't expect the media to save you. NBC's Savannah Guthrie began her interview of him: "Some people say you betrayed your former colleagues in order to raise your media profile in order to sell books and get a consulting business going." Are *you* going to be holding a candlelight vigil for a cad of a man who betrayed his country to sell books?
Don't expect the judge to save you: The US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema said on Friday that Kiriakou had damaged the CIA. She called the sentence, the result of a plea arrangement with prosecutors, "way too light". Before issuing the sentence, the judge asked Kiriakou if he had anything to say. When he declined, she said: ''Perhaps you have already spoken too much.''
This book tells how once you're jailed the public think you deserve it and quickly forget about you. http://books.google.com/books?id=Tu5RB6YHf10C&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&ots=51Ya4U8XFt&dq=lynch+in+the+name+of+justice (Go to page 43 of this Google Books preview).
2. Swartz broke the law and should do the time.
These posts are usually accompanied by an anal exploration of the relevant statute by watched too many courtroom dramas and thinks they are real life, but was there ever an Episode of Law & Order when McCoy said "Let's fuck this college kid over! I want a promotion! "
> "the inspiring story of Newegg vs the patent troll. Perhaps the system does work after all."
Unfortunately this doesn't take into accounts the costs. Newegg was lucky that they had an in-house lawyer and the original owner who was prepared to make a stand. This is rare: Conventional wisdom is to hire outside lawyers - patent specialists and all. Lawyers don't come cheap, so Patent troll victims end up owing their lawyers millions of dollars EVEN IF THEY WIN. Under the American court system usually the loser does not have to pay the winners costs, and even in countries where they do, the loser only pays a fraction of the winner's costs costs. The article also doesn't consider the incredible waste of employee time responding to a suit where they could be doing something profitable instead. It also doesn't consider the stress on the employees and the owners. No one will buy a business threatened with a patent lawsuit. Business development grinds to a halt. In theory judges are supposed to dismiss law suits without merit, but they don't - because they don't give a shit about the costs and it gives them something to do.
That the original judge fucked up does not surprise me. Forget what you see on TV about just and fair judges: In patent troll counties like the Eastern District of Texas the judges are blatantly pro-plaintiff. If they were not all the money flowing into their district would dry up, the judges and legal fraternity would be looking for a job somewhere else. The system has not worked. Newegg may have won, but the suit would have still cost them a fortune. This is a rare outcome and usually costs the trolls nothing who shrug and move on to their next victim.
I suggest a new strategy: but the judges of the Eastern District of Texas and other patent troll counties under a microscope and petition the government to remove judges who are playing sides or unfit or incompetent to serve. Did you notice the article doesn't name the original judge? Awesome job. Imagine being able to fuck up like that but everyone is so in awe of your power no one will name you. In any other profession people would be laughing at them over the water cooler.
1. Have some academic write a paper using public funding
2. Have academics peers volunteer to check the paper for free
3. Publisher won't publish paper unless academic gives up their copyright
4. Academic gives up copyright FOR FREE to publisher
5. Publisher prints journal article
6. Academic gets acclaim from being featured in journal
7. Universities have to pay $$$ for journal subscriptions so they can see paper
8. Public who paid taxes for the academic to write the paper see nothing at all - Enter Aaron Swartz, and we all know what happened next...
How about they bring back 'Law and Order' with a few twists to make it more honest?
1. They add a 'Final Act' to each show where the accused - innocent or not - goes out and files for bankruptcy.
2. They have a running dollar total in the corner of the screen.
3. They replace the McCoy crowd with aggressive, publicity-hungry prosecutors who pass up on big time criminals to pursue small fry: "No, not him. He's rich. We'd be tied up in court for years, but what about this guy? College student. Family not wealthy. We can bleed him dry and make him cop anything. Plea bargain the sucker to the slammer, and I get the corner office with a view. Threaten him with 35 years in jail, then offer him 6 months. His family will thank us!'
There is much rubberiness in what exactly a "criminal" act. There are generally two types of breaches of law; civil (a private matter between two parties) and criminal ("an act so horrendous it is a crime against society"). Criminal acts used to be covered by Common Law overseen by judges who kept the whole thing 'just'. But governments took this over and now 'criminal' is whatever the government decides to write in statute as being criminal. Statutes always trump Common Law, which really ties the judges' hands. Enter lobbyists. They lobby to have anything that violates their client's business model declared criminal by statute.
Were Aaron's actions an act so horrendous what he did was a 'crime against society'? I think not. Just because some dorkenmeiner government official wrote it into a criminal statute so they could lock up people doing it doesn't mean it genuinely was 'an act against society'. The 'Terms of Service' violation under the Computer Fraud act is laughable. I would love to know how the hell that go in there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act
Governments workers have incredible power over the citizenry, and they have rewritten laws to make them so ridiculously broad so they can get anyone for anything. You would be amazed what you can be imprisoned for. Here's an example where a guy was imprisoned for not properly supervising one of his employees. No one was hurt, but federal employees went after him. We're not talking about the FBI here, but federal agency employees love to flash their badges and throw their weight around. It's good to be the king. The poor sap probably can't believe that he ended up doing hard time. So those readers beating their chest about Aaron that he 'did the crime - do the time' really should know what they are signing up for: http://books.google.com/books?id=Tu5RB6YHf10C&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&ots=51Ya4U8XFt&dq=lynch+in+the+name+of+justice (Go to page 43 of this Google Books preview). http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20120803gw.html
'Fractal dimension' seems like a cool buzzword which will make it easier to get research noticed, so call it what you will, but a the color of birds feathers except for blues are determined by their diet. Blue is determined structurally. The pattern is determined by proteins following genetically-laid out patterns, same as like stripes or spots on other animals. There is some logic that birds with good diets would have 'better' patterns as determined by their prospective mates.
The problem is Federal Prosecutors pick a career-building target and then shop for a crime. Big Criminals are too much work, but small fry like Aaron don't have the resources to fight back so all they have to do is bully them into taking a plea bargain and then bask in the glory. It's been going on for a long time and many people have been swallowed up, but the media usually never reports it: http://books.google.com/books?id=Tu5RB6YHf10C&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&ots=51Ya4U8XFt&dq=lynch+in+the+name+of+justice (Go to page 43 of this Google Books preview).
"10. When an individual computer user types "Guy Hin... ", into the Google search engine as a search, the words "Guy Hingston Bankrupt" appears. When the link(s) is clicked on, the article{s) to which the user is directed has absolutely nothing to do with a bankruptcy associated with Dr. Hingston. Dr. Hingston is not bankrupt. Any association with Dr. Hingston and a bankruptcy is in false light and/or defamatory. Dr. Hingston has directed numerous inquiries and made numerous requests, both oral and written, to Google for immediate action to resolve the foregoing issue to no avail."
My compliments to his lawyer who resisted padding this out to 30 pages.
It wasn't overturned, his lawyer said it was annulled: "Separate documents obtained from Insolvency Trustee Services Australia show Dr Hingston was bankrupted on August 4 2009. Dr Hingston's lawyer Philip Beazley said that bankruptcy had been annulled."
There are three ways a bankruptcy can be annulled:
* The creditors’ debts including interest and trustee’s fees and expenses are paid in full.
* Your creditors accept a composition or arrangement which is an offer of something less than payment in full.
* Application to the court in some limited circumstances.
Effects of annulment.
* Your annulment is recorded on the public record, the National Personal Insolvency Index (NPII) database, forever.
* Assets not needed by your trustee to pay your creditors, expenses and fees will be returned to you.
"Mr. Caswell’s family-owned and -operated property was worth approximately $1.5 million with no mortgage—making it a perfect target. Without a bank involved, the likelihood of the Caswells’ mounting a drawn-out legal defense was miniscule. For Carmen Ortiz, Russ Caswell was like the weakest kid on the block who was wearing something she, or the agencies her office represents, coveted. Ms. Ortiz’s fervency seems to have stemmed from the publicity such cases were sure to generate. All the defendants insisted on their innocence and fought the charges. The jury’s still out on O’Brien and Caswell, but Swartz and Mehanna have paid the price for their defiance." http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/01/17/carmen-ortizs-sordid-rap-sheet/
To be fair, Carson said that there are big criminals but not on the scale there once were. He said they are easy to arrest, but hard to prosecute. They need big and long police probes to gather evidence, and they are wealthy so will be defended by top tier lawyers. So do Oritz and Heymann go after the drug kingpins of Miami? No. Too much work. Low-hanging fruit like Aaron are much more attractive. He's a frightened kid with a family. They know they can break him easy. He doesn't have much money. Once they decide to go after him they know they can find something to stick him with. They're bullies who choose weaklings instead of other bullies.
Dale Carson points out there are many, many cases of this going on all the time, but it's been under the public radar. Most of these people get eaten up by the system and no one cares except their family who by then are bankrupted by the lawyers if they could afford them. Public Defenders don't have time for these so-called petty cases. No one else cares so journalists don't even consider it newsworthy. You won't even read about it. Aaron is an exception.
> The decision whether to charge a defendant, and with what -- is almost entirely discretionary.... > Hope you enjoyed that freewheeling culture while it lasted, kids — now Everything is a Crime."
Once to be charged with a crime there needed to be a criminal intent. No longer. There are so many ridiculous laws on the books now that you can't be a citizen without breaking some laws, and zealous prosecutors can pluck those laws out of obscurity to target anyone the don't like, or even just choose some unlucky sap they pick on to boost their career.
There's a good book by ex-FBI cop & criminal lawyer Dale Carson who explains these people have run out of big time criminals to prosecute, and so now the justify their existence by filling jails with poor saps who meet this criteria, or they would be laying off cops, judges and prisoners for lack of business: http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-Arrested/dp/1556526377
Here's a real life case where US officials made life hell for a California marine biologist for no other reason than they have big swinging dicks and they could: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20120803gw.html
This has been going on for a long time. Aaron is the first person to draw it to the wider public attention: "Legions of government lawyers inundate targets with discovery demands, producing financial burdens that compel the innocent to surrender in order to survive. Silverglate, a civil liberties lawyer in Boston, chillingly demonstrates how the mad proliferation of federal criminal laws — which often are too vague to give fair notice of what behavior is proscribed or prescribed — means that "our normal daily activities expose us to potential prosecution at the whim of a government official." Such laws, which enable government zealots to accuse almost anyone of committing three felonies in a day, do not just enable government misconduct, they incite prosecutors to intimidate decent people who never had culpable intentions. And to inflict punishments without crimes. The more Americans learn about their government's abuse of criminal law for capricious bullying, the more likely they are to recoil in a libertarian direction and put Leviathan on a short leash."
That is not true. You merely have to accept the contract to be bound by it. What you are thinking at the time you accepted it is immaterial. The so called "meeting of the minds" is no longer used as a test for contract acceptance because it was too hard - impossible - for the courts to know what the parties were really thinking. Instead the courts determine whether a contract is formed by how the parties act. For example if you are sending me work and I am doing it the courts will hold we have a contract, even if there was never any written or even oral agreement. http://e-lawresources.co.uk/Offer-and-acceptance.php
Once you accept the contract you are bound by it even if at the time of accepting it you do not intend to adhere to it or were not acting in good faith. For example, if you are selling me a Picasso for $5 because you don't know what it is, and I do know and intend to screw you over big time, the courts will uphold that contract in my favor. US Courts do take consider good faith, but not like that. Other Common Law countries don't place any weight on good faith at all.
> If they furnished false information, eg a fake name, when a real name was required, then they have committed a criminal act that goes far beyond simple breach of contract.
"Fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual." Aaron didn't do what he did for personal gain, or with the intention of damaging JSTOR.
> In most cases a ToS will not be a contract, because nothing prevents you from accessing the site without verifiably agreeing to it. The ToS is something else.
For a contract to be formed it has to be offered to you and you have to accept. If you are presented with the ToS beforehand as a condition of accessing a site, yes, it is a contract and you are bound by it.
> A ToS is more like a "No trespassing" sign; or more like a "No trespassing; No admittance, except if you follow these rules...." In the event, you don't follow the rules, then you committed the crime of trespass.
If it was never offered to you, then there never was any contract. Also as @Mitreya points out: If they are changing the contract and not telling you let alone getting your agreement, then that's no contract. Civil Law puts a very big emphasis on "reasonable". It's not reasonable to expect consumers to go and check the TOS of every company they buy from every day and sift through thousand work legalese agreements trying to spot changes.
BTW any good lawyer will come up with half a dozen ways to get out of a contract. An easy one with TOS and shrinkwrap agreements is the companies that offer them know most people don't read them and most people wouldn't understand them even if they read them. A lawyer could argue a client didn't know what they were agreeing too and so claim the contract never existed.
http://busines
The Terms of Service are a contract. For breach of a contract you are entitled to economic damages*. You are not entitled to throw the other party in jail. Only the government can imprison people and only when the breach is criminal. See post below.
*JSTOR could have sued him for lost earnings or copyright, but chose not to.
Yes, the law is supposed to distinguish between a non-criminal civil dispute between two private parties (Aaron and JSTOR) and a crime which is "an act so horrendous it is against society" - I am paraphrasing a law professor. Aaron's acts don't come close to that. Yet there he was looking at prison.
ArsTechnica has a good article on this case, which quotes Columbia law professor Tim Wu on the appalling behavior of federal prosecutor Carmen Ortiz: In our age, armed with laws passed in the nineteen-eighties and meant for serious criminals, the federal prosecutor Carmen Ortiz approved a felony indictment that originally demanded up to thirty-five years in prison. Worse still, her legal authority to take down Swartz was shaky. Just last year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a similar prosecution. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, a prominent conservative, refused to read the law in a way that would make a criminal of “everyone who uses a computer in violation of computer use restrictions—which may well include everyone who uses a computer.” Ortiz and her lawyers relied on that reading to target one of our best and brightest... The prosecutors forgot that, as public officials, their job isn’t to try and win at all costs but to use the awesome power of criminal law to protect the public from actual harm... Today, prosecutors feel they have license to treat leakers of information like crime lords or terrorists. In an age when our frontiers are digital, the criminal system threatens something intangible but incredibly valuable. It threatens youthful vigor, difference in outlook, the freedom to break some rules and not be condemned or ruined for the rest of your life. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/opening-arguments-in-the-trial-of-public-opinion-after-aaron-swartz-death http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/01/everyone-interesting-is-a-felon.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/nov/17/silverglate-three-felonies-book
Academic publishers have been price gauging universities and students for a long time, but to their credit at least JSTOR had the brains to tell the feds to back off. Oritz should have listened to them. Their behavior is merely greedy. Hers is unforgivable: there is no place in government for public officials who abuse their power and harm the public for their own personal advantage.
In some countries (your mileage may vary) there is an implied statutory warranty that the product will operate properly for the reasonable lifetime of the product. This is ADDITIONAL TO the express manufacturer's warranty. It doesn't cover wear and tear and obviously doesn't cover abuse either, but does mean the product must function properly and do what it is supposed to do. If it doesn't, you are entitled to a remedy: a refund, replacement, etc., to be mutually agreed between you and the seller.
Most consumers are ignorant of their statutory warranty rights, so when a manufacturer provides a 12 month warranty consumers think if it breaks a day after that they aren't covered. Not true, though they may have to approach the manufacturer directly instead of the retailer. Another is that when a manufacturer advertises "a lifetime warranty" you already have one by law anyway, so they are only telling you what they have to give you anyway. And finally it means that Extended Warranties are usually a complete waste of money: They are getting you to pay for a right you already have by law anyway.
Again, your mileage may vary. Talk to your local consumer affairs bureau to find your local rules. Be warned that retailers can be real pricks about warranties , and sometimes consumer affairs will need to come in with a baseball bat and remind them if your statutory rights. Manufacturers would prefer it if you didn't know any of this. Also sometimes a manufacturer will insist you pay for return shipping or drop off at your own expense. Check your local laws: they might be obliged to pick up the cost or do this for you.
One bonus tip for reading this far: Merchants often trick people into accepting warranties with clauses waiving your statutory rights, no returns signs and the like. It often works by dissuading from trying, but if it goes to a small claims court the judge will draw a big line through them.
>... was left to wither away as the company focused on chasing Apple and wasn't updated in a meaningful way, making it look just old and tired.'"
Which is the same thing Microsoft did chasing Apple, most recently trashing the Windows brand by turning Windows 8 into a tablet clone. It was enough to spook consumers to say 'well why don't I just get a tablet anyway' and Windows developers to wonder since the captain was getting into the lifeboat perhaps they should be doing the same thing? You attract customers by innovating. You lose them by imitating. Yet when faced with a dropping market share the usual practice is to imitate the competition.
BTW Lenovo's Thinkpad Tablet is nice. One reviewer said "If your IT department designed a laptop, it would look like this." It was a backhanded compliment, but it convinced me to give it a go.
> CERN has revealed that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is going into hibernation and will be shut down for a period of two years for upgrades.
Clearly they have discovered a network of interstellar wormholes and are are trying to hush it up while assembling a team of space commandos a la Richard Dean Anderson.
I looked at Anand's and found nothing claiming the Z2670 was capable of anything other than DirectX 9. I used links to back up my assertions, even Intel's own damned spec sheet which says DirectX 9. You accuse me of FUD and didn't offer any links at all.
PS. If you have been trolling me, well played!:-) But your Atom still only runs DX9.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
1. Quote Martin Luther King as saying disidents should be proud to go to jail.
Not everyone is heralded like Mandella with a large base of supporters and international attention. Most are swallowed up by the penal system never to be heard from again. Only their family remembers. Look what happened to John Kiriakou who blew the whistle on illegal torture. He's gone away for 30 months. http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/01/28/convicted-cia-whistleblower-john-kiriakou-confronts-government-talking-points-on-nbcs-today-show/
Whistleblower John Kiriakou said "I am proud that I stood up to our government. I am not a criminal. I am a whistleblower. Torture is illegal and it’s officially abandoned in our country and I’m proud to have had a role in that." Sounds a bit like Patrick Henry's "Liberty or Death". A hero right? And yet...
Don't expect the media to save you. NBC's Savannah Guthrie began her interview of him: "Some people say you betrayed your former colleagues in order to raise your media profile in order to sell books and get a consulting business going." Are *you* going to be holding a candlelight vigil for a cad of a man who betrayed his country to sell books?
Don't expect the judge to save you: The US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema said on Friday that Kiriakou had damaged the CIA. She called the sentence, the result of a plea arrangement with prosecutors, "way too light". Before issuing the sentence, the judge asked Kiriakou if he had anything to say. When he declined, she said: ''Perhaps you have already spoken too much.''
This book tells how once you're jailed the public think you deserve it and quickly forget about you. http://books.google.com/books?id=Tu5RB6YHf10C&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&ots=51Ya4U8XFt&dq=lynch+in+the+name+of+justice (Go to page 43 of this Google Books preview).
2. Swartz broke the law and should do the time.
These posts are usually accompanied by an anal exploration of the relevant statute by watched too many courtroom dramas and thinks they are real life, but was there ever an Episode of Law & Order when McCoy said "Let's fuck this college kid over! I want a promotion! "
People who post these overlook the whole point that these are unfair laws. Volokh showed how unfair they are when he wrote a TOS that could be used to send anyone to jail named "Ralph".
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20120803gw.html
http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-Arrested/dp/1556526377
http://www.volokh.com/posts/1227896387.shtml
> "the inspiring story of Newegg vs the patent troll. Perhaps the system does work after all."
Unfortunately this doesn't take into accounts the costs. Newegg was lucky that they had an in-house lawyer and the original owner who was prepared to make a stand. This is rare: Conventional wisdom is to hire outside lawyers - patent specialists and all. Lawyers don't come cheap, so Patent troll victims end up owing their lawyers millions of dollars EVEN IF THEY WIN. Under the American court system usually the loser does not have to pay the winners costs, and even in countries where they do, the loser only pays a fraction of the winner's costs costs. The article also doesn't consider the incredible waste of employee time responding to a suit where they could be doing something profitable instead. It also doesn't consider the stress on the employees and the owners. No one will buy a business threatened with a patent lawsuit. Business development grinds to a halt. In theory judges are supposed to dismiss law suits without merit, but they don't - because they don't give a shit about the costs and it gives them something to do.
That the original judge fucked up does not surprise me. Forget what you see on TV about just and fair judges: In patent troll counties like the Eastern District of Texas the judges are blatantly pro-plaintiff. If they were not all the money flowing into their district would dry up, the judges and legal fraternity would be looking for a job somewhere else. The system has not worked. Newegg may have won, but the suit would have still cost them a fortune. This is a rare outcome and usually costs the trolls nothing who shrug and move on to their next victim.
I suggest a new strategy: but the judges of the Eastern District of Texas and other patent troll counties under a microscope and petition the government to remove judges who are playing sides or unfit or incompetent to serve. Did you notice the article doesn't name the original judge? Awesome job. Imagine being able to fuck up like that but everyone is so in awe of your power no one will name you. In any other profession people would be laughing at them over the water cooler.
Academic publishers business plan:
1. Have some academic write a paper using public funding
2. Have academics peers volunteer to check the paper for free
3. Publisher won't publish paper unless academic gives up their copyright
4. Academic gives up copyright FOR FREE to publisher
5. Publisher prints journal article
6. Academic gets acclaim from being featured in journal
7. Universities have to pay $$$ for journal subscriptions so they can see paper
8. Public who paid taxes for the academic to write the paper see nothing at all - Enter Aaron Swartz, and we all know what happened next...
George Monbiot: Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist
Academic publishers charge vast fees to access research paid for by us. Down with the knowledge monopoly racketeers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist
> Hope they drop some hardened screens, too, to help with setup.
No screens but don't worry: it comes with SIRI!
His girlfriend said he had spent all his money on lawyers too. Probably his families as well. Dale Carson says this is what they never show on TV Law shows: Just how much the charade costs. http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-Arrested/dp/1556526377
How about they bring back 'Law and Order' with a few twists to make it more honest?
1. They add a 'Final Act' to each show where the accused - innocent or not - goes out and files for bankruptcy.
2. They have a running dollar total in the corner of the screen.
3. They replace the McCoy crowd with aggressive, publicity-hungry prosecutors who pass up on big time criminals to pursue small fry: "No, not him. He's rich. We'd be tied up in court for years, but what about this guy? College student. Family not wealthy. We can bleed him dry and make him cop anything. Plea bargain the sucker to the slammer, and I get the corner office with a view. Threaten him with 35 years in jail, then offer him 6 months. His family will thank us!'
There is much rubberiness in what exactly a "criminal" act. There are generally two types of breaches of law; civil (a private matter between two parties) and criminal ("an act so horrendous it is a crime against society"). Criminal acts used to be covered by Common Law overseen by judges who kept the whole thing 'just'. But governments took this over and now 'criminal' is whatever the government decides to write in statute as being criminal. Statutes always trump Common Law, which really ties the judges' hands. Enter lobbyists. They lobby to have anything that violates their client's business model declared criminal by statute.
Were Aaron's actions an act so horrendous what he did was a 'crime against society'? I think not. Just because some dorkenmeiner government official wrote it into a criminal statute so they could lock up people doing it doesn't mean it genuinely was 'an act against society'. The 'Terms of Service' violation under the Computer Fraud act is laughable. I would love to know how the hell that go in there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act
Governments workers have incredible power over the citizenry, and they have rewritten laws to make them so ridiculously broad so they can get anyone for anything. You would be amazed what you can be imprisoned for. Here's an example where a guy was imprisoned for not properly supervising one of his employees. No one was hurt, but federal employees went after him. We're not talking about the FBI here, but federal agency employees love to flash their badges and throw their weight around. It's good to be the king. The poor sap probably can't believe that he ended up doing hard time. So those readers beating their chest about Aaron that he 'did the crime - do the time' really should know what they are signing up for: http://books.google.com/books?id=Tu5RB6YHf10C&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&ots=51Ya4U8XFt&dq=lynch+in+the+name+of+justice (Go to page 43 of this Google Books preview). http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20120803gw.html
'Fractal dimension' seems like a cool buzzword which will make it easier to get research noticed, so call it what you will, but a the color of birds feathers except for blues are determined by their diet. Blue is determined structurally. The pattern is determined by proteins following genetically-laid out patterns, same as like stripes or spots on other animals. There is some logic that birds with good diets would have 'better' patterns as determined by their prospective mates.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Why-Are-Some-Feathers-Blue.html
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/studying/feathers/color/document_view
Federal Prosecutor Oritz said Aaron's suicide won't change how she handles cases:
... 6 months is not 35 years or lifetime" What an asshole.
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/01/ortiz_says_suicide_will_not_change_handling_cases
And Assistant United States Attorney Stephen Heymann 'drove another hacker Jonathan James to suicide in 2008 after he named him in a cyber crime case':
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262831/Revealed-Aaron-Swartz-prosecutor-drove-hacker-suicide-2008-named-cyber-crime-case.html
Here are some other grubby cases Oritz has been involved in: http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/01/17/carmen-ortizs-sordid-rap-sheet/
Ortiz’s husband attacked the Swartz family on Twitter: "Truly incredible that in their own son's obit they blame others for his death and make no mention of the 6-month offer
http://www.boston.com/business/innovation/blogs/inside-the-hive/2013/01/15/attorney-carmen-ortiz-husband-attacks-swartz-family-twitter/vzxbY5lrrG7BvGjQGnNDtJ/blog.html
http://twitchy.com/2013/01/15/husband-of-mass-attorney-general-deletes-twitter-account-after-defending-prosecution-of-aaron-swartz/
There are "We the people" petitions to remove both Orirz and Heryman, but don't hold your breath. She is an Obama appointee and Heymann's father is a Clinton staffer. How about Someone in the press corps ask Obama what he thinks of his appointees killing off bright young kids?
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-attorney-steve-heymann/RJKSY2nb?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
Civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate said of Aaron: "He was being made into a highly visible lesson, He was enhancing the careers of a group of career prosecutors and a very ambitious — politically-ambitious — U.S. attorney who loves to have her name in lights.” http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57564212-38/prosecutor-in-aaron-swartz-hacking-case-comes-under-fire/
The problem is Federal Prosecutors pick a career-building target and then shop for a crime. Big Criminals are too much work, but small fry like Aaron don't have the resources to fight back so all they have to do is bully them into taking a plea bargain and then bask in the glory. It's been going on for a long time and many people have been swallowed up, but the media usually never reports it:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Tu5RB6YHf10C&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&ots=51Ya4U8XFt&dq=lynch+in+the+name+of+justice (Go to page 43 of this Google Books preview).
Here is the statement of claim. http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1221&context=historical
... ", into the Google search engine as a search, the words "Guy Hingston Bankrupt" appears. When the link(s) is clicked on, the article{s) to which the user is directed has absolutely nothing to do with a bankruptcy associated with Dr. Hingston. Dr. Hingston is not bankrupt. Any association with Dr. Hingston and a bankruptcy is in false light and/or defamatory. Dr. Hingston has directed numerous inquiries and made numerous requests, both oral and written, to Google for immediate action to resolve the foregoing issue to no avail."
"10. When an individual computer user types "Guy Hin
My compliments to his lawyer who resisted padding this out to 30 pages.
It wasn't overturned, his lawyer said it was annulled: "Separate documents obtained from Insolvency Trustee Services Australia show Dr Hingston was bankrupted on August 4 2009. Dr Hingston's lawyer Philip Beazley said that bankruptcy had been annulled."
...
http://www.itsa.gov.au/dir228/itsaweb.nsf/docindex/Bankruptcy-%3EPersonal+Insolvency+Information-%3E5F.+Annulment What is annulment?
Annulment is the cancellation of a bankruptcy.
There are three ways a bankruptcy can be annulled:
* The creditors’ debts including interest and trustee’s fees and expenses are paid in full.
* Your creditors accept a composition or arrangement which is an offer of something less than payment in full.
* Application to the court in some limited circumstances.
Effects of annulment.
* Your annulment is recorded on the public record, the National Personal Insolvency Index (NPII) database, forever.
* Assets not needed by your trustee to pay your creditors, expenses and fees will be returned to you.
etc
Under Australian Law the Truth is a Defence to Defamation. You don't even need to show "public interest", just that what was said was "substantially true." http://www.thenewsmanual.net/Resources/medialaw_in_australia_02.html
But he's suing in America which has even stronger free speech laws! Good luck with that!
"Mr. Caswell’s family-owned and -operated property was worth approximately $1.5 million with no mortgage—making it a perfect target. Without a bank involved, the likelihood of the Caswells’ mounting a drawn-out legal defense was miniscule. For Carmen Ortiz, Russ Caswell was like the weakest kid on the block who was wearing something she, or the agencies her office represents, coveted. Ms. Ortiz’s fervency seems to have stemmed from the publicity such cases were sure to generate. All the defendants insisted on their innocence and fought the charges. The jury’s still out on O’Brien and Caswell, but Swartz and Mehanna have paid the price for their defiance."
http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/01/17/carmen-ortizs-sordid-rap-sheet/
There is a petition to remove her, but don't hold your breath. She is an Obama appointee and her Heymann's dad worked for Clinton.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Ortiz
Same deal with non-profits ICANN who oversee domain names: In theory non-profit but the people who run it are richly compensated. That JSTOR locks up publicly-funded knowledge to keep it out of the hands of the masses really sucks, and it was started by Princeton!
"Who are the most ruthless capitalists in the western world?" George Monbiot of the Guardian asks in a recent article. Scanning this week's headlines alone, one would find any number of viable candidates. Monbiot's answer: "While there are plenty of candidates, my vote goes not to the banks, the oil companies or the health insurers, but – wait for it – to academic publishers...Of all corporate scams, the racket they run is most urgently in need of referral to the competition authorities."
http://townsendlab.berkeley.edu/thl-administration/lab-blog/academic-publishing-one-big-racket
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/02/bad-science-academic-publishing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/aug/31/real-cost-academic-publishing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist
To be fair, Carson said that there are big criminals but not on the scale there once were. He said they are easy to arrest, but hard to prosecute. They need big and long police probes to gather evidence, and they are wealthy so will be defended by top tier lawyers. So do Oritz and Heymann go after the drug kingpins of Miami? No. Too much work. Low-hanging fruit like Aaron are much more attractive. He's a frightened kid with a family. They know they can break him easy. He doesn't have much money. Once they decide to go after him they know they can find something to stick him with. They're bullies who choose weaklings instead of other bullies.
White collar criminals have it much easier, but if they make for a career-making photo OP then prosecutors will use the same tactics they used on Aaron to find something to stick: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/nov/17/silverglate-three-felonies-book
Nancy Black may be a better poster girl: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20120803gw.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/06/nancy-black-marine-protection_n_1189118.html
Dale Carson points out there are many, many cases of this going on all the time, but it's been under the public radar. Most of these people get eaten up by the system and no one cares except their family who by then are bankrupted by the lawyers if they could afford them. Public Defenders don't have time for these so-called petty cases. No one else cares so journalists don't even consider it newsworthy. You won't even read about it. Aaron is an exception.
It's called Mens rea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea
Granted manslaughter isn't as cut and dry as premeditated murder, but I believe it would be having a state of mind of reckless indifference towards human life: http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120228041559AAE8XI3
> The decision whether to charge a defendant, and with what -- is almost entirely discretionary. ... > Hope you enjoyed that freewheeling culture while it lasted, kids — now Everything is a Crime."
Once to be charged with a crime there needed to be a criminal intent. No longer. There are so many ridiculous laws on the books now that you can't be a citizen without breaking some laws, and zealous prosecutors can pluck those laws out of obscurity to target anyone the don't like, or even just choose some unlucky sap they pick on to boost their career.
There's a good book by ex-FBI cop & criminal lawyer Dale Carson who explains these people have run out of big time criminals to prosecute, and so now the justify their existence by filling jails with poor saps who meet this criteria, or they would be laying off cops, judges and prisoners for lack of business: http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-Arrested/dp/1556526377
Here's a real life case where US officials made life hell for a California marine biologist for no other reason than they have big swinging dicks and they could: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20120803gw.html
This has been going on for a long time. Aaron is the first person to draw it to the wider public attention: "Legions of government lawyers inundate targets with discovery demands, producing financial burdens that compel the innocent to surrender in order to survive. Silverglate, a civil liberties lawyer in Boston, chillingly demonstrates how the mad proliferation of federal criminal laws — which often are too vague to give fair notice of what behavior is proscribed or prescribed — means that "our normal daily activities expose us to potential prosecution at the whim of a government official." Such laws, which enable government zealots to accuse almost anyone of committing three felonies in a day, do not just enable government misconduct, they incite prosecutors to intimidate decent people who never had culpable intentions. And to inflict punishments without crimes. The more Americans learn about their government's abuse of criminal law for capricious bullying, the more likely they are to recoil in a libertarian direction and put Leviathan on a short leash."
> but hacking into private computers, or even spreading the information from a hack, could lead to charges under the CFAA.'
You forgot to add "unless you are a government employee."
That is not true. You merely have to accept the contract to be bound by it. What you are thinking at the time you accepted it is immaterial. The so called "meeting of the minds" is no longer used as a test for contract acceptance because it was too hard - impossible - for the courts to know what the parties were really thinking. Instead the courts determine whether a contract is formed by how the parties act. For example if you are sending me work and I am doing it the courts will hold we have a contract, even if there was never any written or even oral agreement. http://e-lawresources.co.uk/Offer-and-acceptance.php
...." In the event, you don't follow the rules, then you committed the crime of trespass.
Once you accept the contract you are bound by it even if at the time of accepting it you do not intend to adhere to it or were not acting in good faith. For example, if you are selling me a Picasso for $5 because you don't know what it is, and I do know and intend to screw you over big time, the courts will uphold that contract in my favor. US Courts do take consider good faith, but not like that. Other Common Law countries don't place any weight on good faith at all.
If you use an alias on a contract, you're still bound by it. You can even have a contract without either party knowing who the other party is. You can still legally use an alias - suppose you want to get away from bad people - though thanks to new laws against identity theft it now means you can accidentally end up on the wrong side of the law - even when no identity was stolen and even when there was no criminal intent. This is a big change in the US that people need to be aware of:
http://news.cnet.com/police-blotter-is-it-legal-to-use-an-alias-anymore/2100-7348_3-6213284.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/nov/17/silverglate-three-felonies-book
> If they furnished false information, eg a fake name, when a real name was required, then they have committed a criminal act that goes far beyond simple breach of contract.
"Fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual." Aaron didn't do what he did for personal gain, or with the intention of damaging JSTOR.
> In most cases a ToS will not be a contract, because nothing prevents you from accessing the site without verifiably agreeing to it. The ToS is something else.
For a contract to be formed it has to be offered to you and you have to accept. If you are presented with the ToS beforehand as a condition of accessing a site, yes, it is a contract and you are bound by it.
> A ToS is more like a "No trespassing" sign; or more like a "No trespassing; No admittance, except if you follow these rules
If it was never offered to you, then there never was any contract. Also as @Mitreya points out: If they are changing the contract and not telling you let alone getting your agreement, then that's no contract. Civil Law puts a very big emphasis on "reasonable". It's not reasonable to expect consumers to go and check the TOS of every company they buy from every day and sift through thousand work legalese agreements trying to spot changes.
BTW any good lawyer will come up with half a dozen ways to get out of a contract. An easy one with TOS and shrinkwrap agreements is the companies that offer them know most people don't read them and most people wouldn't understand them even if they read them. A lawyer could argue a client didn't know what they were agreeing too and so claim the contract never existed. http://busines
The Terms of Service are a contract. For breach of a contract you are entitled to economic damages*. You are not entitled to throw the other party in jail. Only the government can imprison people and only when the breach is criminal. See post below.
*JSTOR could have sued him for lost earnings or copyright, but chose not to.
Yes, the law is supposed to distinguish between a non-criminal civil dispute between two private parties (Aaron and JSTOR) and a crime which is "an act so horrendous it is against society" - I am paraphrasing a law professor. Aaron's acts don't come close to that. Yet there he was looking at prison.
ArsTechnica has a good article on this case, which quotes Columbia law professor Tim Wu on the appalling behavior of federal prosecutor Carmen Ortiz:
In our age, armed with laws passed in the nineteen-eighties and meant for serious criminals, the federal prosecutor Carmen Ortiz approved a felony indictment that originally demanded up to thirty-five years in prison. Worse still, her legal authority to take down Swartz was shaky. Just last year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a similar prosecution. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, a prominent conservative, refused to read the law in a way that would make a criminal of “everyone who uses a computer in violation of computer use restrictions—which may well include everyone who uses a computer.” Ortiz and her lawyers relied on that reading to target one of our best and brightest... The prosecutors forgot that, as public officials, their job isn’t to try and win at all costs but to use the awesome power of criminal law to protect the public from actual harm... Today, prosecutors feel they have license to treat leakers of information like crime lords or terrorists. In an age when our frontiers are digital, the criminal system threatens something intangible but incredibly valuable. It threatens youthful vigor, difference in outlook, the freedom to break some rules and not be condemned or ruined for the rest of your life.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/opening-arguments-in-the-trial-of-public-opinion-after-aaron-swartz-death
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/01/everyone-interesting-is-a-felon.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/nov/17/silverglate-three-felonies-book
Academic publishers have been price gauging universities and students for a long time, but to their credit at least JSTOR had the brains to tell the feds to back off. Oritz should have listened to them. Their behavior is merely greedy. Hers is unforgivable: there is no place in government for public officials who abuse their power and harm the public for their own personal advantage.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-prices
http://enculturation.gmu.edu/knowledge-cartels
http://boingboing.net/2010/01/03/prescription-for-con.html
http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/2012/ending-knowledge-cartels/
In some countries (your mileage may vary) there is an implied statutory warranty that the product will operate properly for the reasonable lifetime of the product. This is ADDITIONAL TO the express manufacturer's warranty. It doesn't cover wear and tear and obviously doesn't cover abuse either, but does mean the product must function properly and do what it is supposed to do. If it doesn't, you are entitled to a remedy: a refund, replacement, etc., to be mutually agreed between you and the seller.
Most consumers are ignorant of their statutory warranty rights, so when a manufacturer provides a 12 month warranty consumers think if it breaks a day after that they aren't covered. Not true, though they may have to approach the manufacturer directly instead of the retailer. Another is that when a manufacturer advertises "a lifetime warranty" you already have one by law anyway, so they are only telling you what they have to give you anyway. And finally it means that Extended Warranties are usually a complete waste of money: They are getting you to pay for a right you already have by law anyway.
Again, your mileage may vary. Talk to your local consumer affairs bureau to find your local rules. Be warned that retailers can be real pricks about warranties , and sometimes consumer affairs will need to come in with a baseball bat and remind them if your statutory rights. Manufacturers would prefer it if you didn't know any of this. Also sometimes a manufacturer will insist you pay for return shipping or drop off at your own expense. Check your local laws: they might be obliged to pick up the cost or do this for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code Implied Warranties US
http://www.apple.com/au/legal/statutory-warranty/ Statutory Warranties AU
http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=84941 Statutory Warranties AU
http://www.consumerlaw.gov.au/content/the_acl/downloads/consumer_guarantees_guide.pdf Most Recent Laws AU
http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/consumer/article/-/9803967/worthless-warranties/ Extended Warranty
One bonus tip for reading this far: Merchants often trick people into accepting warranties with clauses waiving your statutory rights, no returns signs and the like. It often works by dissuading from trying, but if it goes to a small claims court the judge will draw a big line through them.
> ... was left to wither away as the company focused on chasing Apple and wasn't updated in a meaningful way, making it look just old and tired.'"
Which is the same thing Microsoft did chasing Apple, most recently trashing the Windows brand by turning Windows 8 into a tablet clone. It was enough to spook consumers to say 'well why don't I just get a tablet anyway' and Windows developers to wonder since the captain was getting into the lifeboat perhaps they should be doing the same thing? You attract customers by innovating. You lose them by imitating. Yet when faced with a dropping market share the usual practice is to imitate the competition.
BTW Lenovo's Thinkpad Tablet is nice. One reviewer said "If your IT department designed a laptop, it would look like this." It was a backhanded compliment, but it convinced me to give it a go.
> CERN has revealed that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is going into hibernation and will be shut down for a period of two years for upgrades.
Clearly they have discovered a network of interstellar wormholes and are are trying to hush it up while assembling a team of space commandos a la Richard Dean Anderson.
Slashdot: Embellished news for nerds.
I looked at Anand's and found nothing claiming the Z2670 was capable of anything other than DirectX 9. I used links to back up my assertions, even Intel's own damned spec sheet which says DirectX 9. You accuse me of FUD and didn't offer any links at all.
:-) But your Atom still only runs DX9. ;-)
PS. If you have been trolling me, well played!