US Attorney Chided Swartz On Day of Suicide 656
theodp writes "The e-mail that Defendant Swartz's supplemental memorandum (pdf) cites as paramount to his fifth motion to suppress [evidence against him] is relevant, but not nearly as important as he tries to make it out to be,' quipped United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz (pdf) in a court filing made on the same day Aaron Swartz committed suicide. In the 1-7-2011 e-mail Ortiz refers to, which was not produced for Swartz until Dec. 14th — almost two years after his 1-6-2011 arrest — a Secret Service agent reported to the Assistant U.S. Attorney that he was 'prepared to take custody anytime' of Swartz's laptop, although no one had yet sought a warrant to search the computer. In Prosecutor as Bully, Larry Lessig laments, 'They [JSTOR] declined to pursue their own action against Aaron, and they asked the government to drop its. MIT, to its great shame, was not as clear, and so the prosecutor had the excuse he needed to continue his war against the "criminal" who we who loved him knew as Aaron.' Swartz's family also had harsh words for MIT and prosecutors: 'Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's office and at MIT contributed to his death. The US Attorney's office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims. Meanwhile, unlike JSTOR, MIT refused to stand up for Aaron.' With MIT President Emeritus Charles M. Vest currently serving as a Trustee of JSTOR parent Ithaka as well as a Trustee of The MIT Corporation, one might have expected MIT to issue a statement similar to the let's-put-this-behind-us one JSTOR made on the Swartz case back in 2011."
Re:terrorism (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone who starts a moral sermon with "Son" is appealing to emotions and not logic in order to hide their own lack of reason. You can dismiss what they say right from the start.
There's so much wrong with this bullshit that I don't even know where to start. So I won't. I'll just let this stand here as a testament to the sanctimonious bullshit that people can spew out.
Well, it seems somebody can't handle the truth.
Re:Psychopaths (Score:5, Funny)
When people use the term 'psychopath' they generally mean 'sociopath' which is a clinical term for someone without so called normal emotional responses toward others. I remember my psych 101 prof saying something like, "they can murder or seriously injure someone like you or I might take a drink at a water fountain."
Ah, so with utter revulsion, and only if you cannot think of an alternative?