JSTOR an Entitlement For US DoJ's Ortiz & Holder 287
theodp writes "If Aaron Swartz downloaded JSTOR documents without paying for them, it would presumably be considered a crime by the USDOJ. But if U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz or U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder did the same? Rather than a crime, it would be considered their entitlement, a perk of an elite education that's paid for by their alma maters. Ironically and sadly, that's the kind of inequity Aaron railed against with the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, a document the DOJ cited as evidence (pdf) that Swartz was a menace to society. On Thursday, Ortiz insisted Swartz — who she now characterizes as 'mentally ill' — received fair and reasonable treatment from the DOJ. But that wasn't good enough for Senator John Cornyn, who on Friday asked Eric Holder to explain the DOJ prosecution of Aaron Swartz."
Federal prosecutors have come under heavy criticism for their handling of the Swartz case. Legal scholar Orin Kerr provides counterpoint with two detailed, well-reasoned posts about the case. Kerr says that, as the law stands, the charges against Swartz were "pretty much legit," and that the law itself should be the target of the internet community's angst, rather than the prosecutors. "...blame the system and aim to reform the system; don’t think that this was just two or three prosecutors that were doing something unusual. It wasn’t." James Boyle, co-founder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain, disagrees with Kerr (partly), arguing that Swartz's renown is simply drawing people together to collectively shine a light on poor legislation and poor prosecutorial practices.
The law is a ass. (Score:5, Insightful)
While he may have had issues, it's dangerous to characterize different opinions as mentally ill.
Re:The law is a ass. (Score:4, Insightful)
While he may have had issues, it's dangerous to characterize different opinions as mentally ill.
Yeah but we live in McCarthy-era, can't you tell? Well, it's a novelty really. It used to be communists, then it was minorities, then pedophiles, then terrorists, then computer hackers. Now it's the "mentally ill".
See how that works? Label, then persecute. I can't wait to see how events unfold in New York based on their new unconstitutional and persecuting gun laws.
They're coming for your guns, what are you going to do when they label you "mentally ill"?
Re:The law is a ass. (Score:5, Insightful)
with no chance for a second opinion, no appeals, no lawyers, no burder of proof on anything.
Re:The law is a ass. (Score:5, Insightful)
... what are you going to do when they label you "mentally ill"?
And we might note how easy it can be to get such a label. One of last year's minor science/medical news stories that was picked up by some reporters, and also by a number of comedians, was a change made by the American Psychological Association (APA) to their definition of "depression". The fun part of this story was the previous definition, which included the case of a loved one dying, and a survivor's mourning continuing for more than a month. This was all it took to get a diagnosis of depression, and a "mentally ill" label. The time period has now been extended somewhat, but that won't affect the medical records from previous years.
So if someone close to you dies, you might want to be careful to hide signs of sadness when talking to medical people (or strangers ;-), lest you end up on the list of people determined to be mentally ill by a professional psychiatrist.
It really is that easy to get "mentally ill" on your medical record, to be used against you in cases like this.
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My understanding is that some issues about a year and a half ago came up regarding his mental illness and they were addressed at the arraignment.
Theodp wrote:
On Thursday, Ortiz insisted Swartz — who she now characterizes as 'mentally ill' — received fair and reasonable treatment from the DOJ.
While similar, the phrases "mental illness" and "mentally ill" have different implications. A 'mental illness' is something you have. It is something that you possess, it doesn't define or negate what you are. 'Mentally ill' is something you are, it defines who and what you are. Theodp is misquoting Ortiz, and putting words in her mouth. He is the one using the phrase 'mentally ill' to label Swartz, not Ortiz, making it sound like she's being ca
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I, personally, would say she is engaging in carefully constructed slander which is probably just this side of illegal. Not that she would be in any danger no matter what she said. He's dead, and precedent says that you can't slander the dead.
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I guess in Australia it's not view as badly (wow, never thought I'd say that) as the states?
Re:The law is a ass. (Score:4, Insightful)
"They're coming for your guns, what are you going to do when they label you "mentally ill"?"
Its things like this that makes me think that the NRA is a huge hypocrite when it comes to the second amendment. I was listening to the NRA's president on NPR last week and he was adamant that mentally disturbed people should be allowed to have guns, and that all law abiding citizens should be allowed to have them. Aside from the fact that mentally disturbed people can be law abiding I see nothing in
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Where it says ".. except if they are mentally ill, or felons". In my opinion the position of the NRA is akin to the old joke with the punchline
now we are just haggling over the price
and that they are already supporting abridgment of the second amendment - just only one that suits their selfish beliefs.
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"and that they are already supporting abridgment of the second amendment - just only one that suits their selfish beliefs."
As opposed to your selfish beliefs. The BULLSHIT goes both ways.
Re:The law is a ass. (Score:4, Insightful)
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
It makes all gun control law illegal, period. I know, how about repealing the 2nd amendment. You know the only legal way instead of the illegal way of marginalizing it to irrelevance. Oh right because it wouldn't happen and a civil war would spring up the next day if it did. So disarm the population any way you can so they are not a threat to government abuses. Government cannot be trusted ever, even the framers of the constitution knew this.
Here's a remedy from before the 1980's. How about treating people with physical and mental problems by treating the actual cause of the problem instead of the symptoms? Right, because that would cost time and money. Never mind it took time and the lack of money to make the problem this bad in the first place.
Now how about getting On Topic.
Re:The law is a ass. (Score:4, Informative)
That's ridiculous. No right is absolute. Congress shall make no law.... except of course slander etc are illegal. The guarantee of free exercise of religion does not permit you to harvest whores off the street and stone them according to the requirements of various religions.
I am sure the founding fathers would recognize that public safety does in fact place restraints on gun ownership as well.
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"They're coming for your guns,.
That's easy to correct, have Holder sell you guns all the while you claim to be a Mexican drug cartel dealer. It worked in Mexico and it worked in Oklahoma City.
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Everytime "treating mentally ill", gets brought up in the news, its always been a highlight after some tragedy, with the implications the treatment was non-consentual, with zero burdern of proof, and no restrictions on treatments, nor any sort of legal, or public oversight.
Its been well known for a long time that if you can label someone "mentally ill", without really specifying, or rapidly chaning diagnosis, you can get most of mainstream society to stop as
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it's dangerous to characterize different opinions as mentally ill.
This is very true, but anyone who takes their own life is going to be tainted by the possibility of being "mentally ill" because suicide isn't commonly accepted as the act of a "well" individual.
Re:The law is a ass. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's nothing more than cultural bias.
Plus there's always context. This wasn't just some teenager worried about not being asked to the prom. This was a kid that was facing having is entire life destroyed apart by the government.
That kind of situation is quite often NOT portrayed as a sign of mental illness when the result is suicide. (even in the West)
Re:The law is a ass. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's nothing more than cultural bias.
Plus there's always context. This wasn't just some teenager worried about not being asked to the prom. This was a kid that was facing having is entire life destroyed apart by the government.
That kind of situation is quite often NOT portrayed as a sign of mental illness when the result is suicide. (even in the West)
The plea deal offered by the government was six months in jail and a felony conviction. Yes, the punishment is out of all proportion to the crime. It's wrong. It's a bullshit deal. It's six months more than anyone on Wall Street served after they blew up the banking system and destroyed the world's economy. But most people, faced with the choice of being unjustly convicted and losing six months of your life, and losing the entire rest of your life, will take six months. It wasn't the end of everything. After six months for trying to liberate the entire contents of JSTOR, he would have come out of prison a martyr and a hero. Serving time for an idealistic, altruistic act like that would have given him a credibility that no other activist had. He would have had the rest of his life to use his notoriety to push for internet freedom.
But that's the kind of optimistic, lemons-into-lemonade kind of thinking you just can't manage when you're severely depressed.
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"because suicide isn't commonly accepted as the act of a "well" individual."
Except in times of war or fighting crime and then we give medals and accolades for it. Especially when he or she survives the attempt. We call them heros.
Oritz "terribly upset" (about her career) (Score:5, Insightful)
Carmen Oritz routinely destroys other people lives in order to advance her career without any signs of conscience. For me this is psychopatic behavior. And if her career is the only thing she actually cares of, I'd even call her narcissistic psychopath. Unfortunately, the economic and political system in US promotes psychopaths at the cost of basically everyone else.
I wouldn't pay much attention to what she has to say, she just covers her ass. Psychopaths typically don't show any remorse for their actions - when caught on misbehaviors and lies, they tend to cover it with even bigger bunch of lies.
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"For me this is psychopatic behavior."
Doesn't that classify her as mentally ill. Time to lock her up, preferably with the people she put in.
Re:Oritz "terribly upset" (about her career) (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. Because we all know that everyone is presumed guilty and everyone that is ever noticed by the state deserves to be destroyed.
There is some irony that this is playing out in Boston.
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The formal features you cite are not of themselves sufficient. Only if they are comprised of and used by individuals with a sense of proportion and fairness will there be justice. That's what this story is about.
Re:Oritz "terribly upset" (about her career) (Score:4, Insightful)
How fucking insightful for you to describe the status quo of legal recourse available to the accused. Particularly in a discussion about the status quo of "due process" being inexcusably distinct from anything that resembles justice.
Maybe you should familiarize yourself with the "reality", where stereotyping disadvantaged minorities is obscured and dressed up as a scientific process using "criminal justice education" to rationalize cognitive biases & prejudice. The "reality" where law enforcement officers regularly collude with each other in manufacturing evidence, covering for each other's unprofessional behavior, and suppressing exculpatory facts.
The "reality" where the role of prosecutor is represented almost exclusively by lawyers with political ambitions, more concerned with making a name for themselves as being "tough on crime" than on ensuring that the outcome of the process is just. The "reality" where prosecutor's office's have a back log of drug offenders that undermine their ability to give any single case their full attention, and as a result they simply sandbag every defendant during the grand jury arraignment with as big of a laundry list of charges as they think they can get away with, without being accused of prosecutorial misconduct. The "reality" where any rational defendant has by this point been completely disillusioned with any impression they had about receiving a fair trial, and is now faced with the prospect of taking a plea bargain for 1/10 of what they are threatened with, or facing down against a gang of lying sociopaths in uniform on the witness stand corroborating each other's stories.
http://youtu.be/O5eOknaXgYU
http://www.stopresisting.net/
The "reality" where "evidence" is rarely ever critically evaluated by anyone other than the prosecutor & public defender when negotiating a plea bargain deal. The same "evidence" which is usually more representative of law enforcement confirmation bias than of innocence or guilt. The same "evidence" which is usually based on un-sound assumptions and dubious conclusions. The same "evidence" which is frequently composed of "expert witnesses" of dubious credibility, and eye witnesses, the memory of whom is known to be unreliable and easily discredited?
http://www.ncids.com/forensic/fingerprints/fingerprints.shtml
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/westview/Hair-and-fibre-evidence-further-discredited-in-the-US--162726896.html
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/chi-010114roscetti,0,5511992.story
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_bullet-lead_analysis
http://www.propublica.org/article/no-forensic-background-no-problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials
The "reality" where where a "judge" is only involved in a small minority of cases except to rubber stamp a plea bargain and preemptively close the door on appeals by getting the accused to repeat the magic words & nod their heads? The "reality" where a "jury" is almost never involved at all, and is only allowed to be seated after being purged of critical thinkers. The "reality" where a jury trial is a popularity contest which allows for wealthy criminals to walk, and poor looking defendants to be used as punching bags for the jurors only frustration with Law Enforcement disfunction?
The "reality" where the "defense" available to the rich can intimidate a prosecutor's office in to a slap on the wrist, while the public defenders available to the poor provide the same quality of legal services as HMO's provide medical service?
"Accused" might as well be a synonym for "poor and fallen out of favor with the local political machine". The "law" has become nothing more than a crack in the foundation of "unalienable rights" which has been progressively wedged and split open by the war on drugs and war on terror, leaving nothing behind except a base and contemptible political power structure.
That's the "reality" but don't let that get in the way of your pithy sarcasm.
Re:Oritz "terribly upset" (about her career) (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a great article. I was particularly surprised to learn about the civil forfeiture procedure:
http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/01/17/carmen-ortizs-sordid-rap-sheet/ [whowhatwhy.com]
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That doesn't explain why WalMart, Home Depot, and Motel6 -- all of which have MORE crime than Caswell's property -- get no scrutiny. It comes down to the fact that the Feds will share the money they steal with the local government and that the aforementioned mega-corps have the resources to fight off the Feds.
So, a local government with some prejudice toward Caswell and the poor people he rents to, can basically hire the Feds to steal his property while ignoring bigger issues that go on with other "respect
Google could get this law changed (Score:3)
If Google put into their website terms that anyone in law enforcement or a member of congress was not allowed to use Google's services, how long would it be before breaking a site's terms was no longer a criminal act?
Actually, even if Google does not do this, how about a grassroots campaign to do it?
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"While he may have had issues, it's dangerous to characterize different opinions as mentally ill."
In this case, lethal. He wasn't mentally ill. There's evidence he weighed his choices and the outcomes. The behaviors of a rational individual. A law used outside of the corner case it was written to solve is often wrong but applied regardless. This abuse is what is being used as a defense by the prosecutors. When a lawyer can't use public opinion to defend themselves they hide behind the
In addition.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In addition.... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a lot of tax payer funded research that is inaccessible to the public despite their hand in its creation. I think that this aspect needs to be discussed, as well.
I don't even see anything to discuss. Seriously, how the hell is this acceptable?
And Swartz's super serious multi-felony crime was trying to fix this situation? Every time I look back at this case, it befuddles me. The only insane people here are the prosecution, and they need to be called out on it and punished along with everyone involved in this travesty of justice.
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Then comes your "appeal to authority". Because something is currently illegal, its automaticly above debate in MORAL standing. The argument here, is SHOULD what swartz did have been a felony under law. Thats what is up for debate. I am reading a book called "they though they where free", its about german non-resistance to nazi rule. In Ger
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Re:In addition.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultimately it comes down to money (and I don't mean that in a snide conspiracy way). It costs a fair bit of money to create and operate a system as expansive as JSTOR, not to mention the high cost of acquiring the journals themselves. Academia never completely got its act together, so the final solution was for a private entity to operate it, the non-profit Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Since then they've been rolled into the equally non-profit ITHAKA, which operates JSTOR to this day.
It should come as no surprise of course that even as a non-profit, JSTOR has to charge for access to journals for two reasons. First, they need to provide access control as per any content licensing agreements with journal publishers - most of whom are non-profits themselves and need to pull in enough revenue to publish their journals - as otherwise everyone would read JSTOR for free and not purchase journal subscriptions (and since JSTOR would not be bringing in any revenue, they could not pay the journals either). Second of course is that operating the JSTOR system costs money, and if journals could be freely copied out, everyone would take the good stuff (and admittedly probably take good care of it) but then cancel their JSTOR subscriptions. This would leave behind a number of smaller journals that are suddenly not getting digitized and archived. The whole academic journal system is one big case study in the tragedy of the commons: everyone wants it for free, but no one wants to pay to operate the journals or the storage systems.
Consequently, whether journal access is free or not is really up to Congress, as only government can solve the tragedy of the commons. If Congress were to task the LoC with creating an equivalent system and funded that mandate (i.e. made everyone pay for it) then an open system could be built or JSTOR acquired. Congress already provides a bit of funding for JSTOR in a roundabout way, as ITHAKA has received some small grants from various government departments over the years, including the Library of Congress. So this pretty much comes down to Congress increasing their funding for these projects.
Until then however, JSTOR will remain behind a paywall. Someone has to pay the costs of the journals and the systems, and if it isn't the public then it will be a private system.
TL;DR: JSTOR would be free if Congress would pay for it rather than leaving this up to private industry
Re:In addition.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't even see anything to discuss. Seriously, how the hell is this acceptable?
It basically works like this. Back in the day, there were no real open-access journals. (This was when things were actually printed and distributed, and the whole process was much less efficient.) So pay journals built up all of the good reputation. People paid to do research are expected to share their findings with the research community. Sharing with the public is nice, but it's not a key component of the research process. So now all the paid journals have the best reputations, the most visibility, the highest readership. So publishing in those is "better" than publishing elsewhere. As such, your funding agencies think that you're doing your job "better" if you're publishing in these journals, which happen to be paid. (The fact that their paid has nothing to do with it -- it's solely that higher-reputation journals are better.)
This all changes if your funding agency requires that you publish your paper in an open-access journal, which the NIH has started doing. (It does some other interesting things, too. It increases the reputation of the open-access journals, which helps, in the long term, make open-access journals a good choice for people whose funding agencies don't require this. Also, if the funding agency is big enough, it starts making the high-profile paid journals back down on their stance on exclusivity, which enables researchers to publish in both an open-access location and a paid, refereed, high-profile journal.)
Precedent (Score:5, Funny)
"On Thursday, Ortiz insisted Swartz â" who she now characterizes as 'mentally ill' â" "
Yeah, they used to say that about dissidents in the Soviet Union, too.
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Quite true, and quite extensive.
Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union [wikipedia.org]
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"On Thursday, Ortiz insisted Swartz -- who she now characterizes as 'mentally ill' --"
So how long has she been investigating him . . . ? And now his 'mentally ill' issue comes up . . . ?
Sorry, I don't buy that. That boy was investigated so thoroughly, she knew where every pimple on his ass was. She is trying to toss him into the 'mentally ill` tank with the current catch of shooters, hoping that 'mentally ill' now tags someone as a criminal, in the public eye.
She is just trying to save her political career. She had her eyes on Senator or Governor of Massachusetts.
Blame Both (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Blame Both (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. THAT.
If you had your life savings swindled from you, you would see just how quickly these prosecutors would be willing to ignore the perpetrators. The feds and their state equivalents will likely just blame you for being the victim and just ignore you and the crime you just reported.
"But they are just enforcing the law" rings hollow when you have been on the other side of the scales and have been ignored.
Justice is a sham and these people are just "career minded opportunists".
Perk of an elite education (Score:3)
Rather than a crime, it would be considered their entitlement, a perk of an elite education that's paid for by their alma maters.
The list that is linked to does not include Stanford...but that is where Swartz started college. The suggestion that he did not have access to an elite education is rediculous under the circumstances. So not only is the premise of the idea that people as alums of certain schools would not be prosecuted for pulling every journal off JSTOR and putting it out on the web laughable but the particulars not really compelling. Stanford is a pretty good school.
Re:Perk of an elite education (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, this is hate mongering. JSTOR dropped the charges and is putting out an olive branch (granted it's a tiny one). Now if this were about pushing publicly funded articles and papers to the Library of Congress or otherwise opening that up to the public, then that is a discussion worth having. Trying to paint the prosecutors as part of a privileged "elite" evil is unproductive. The issue is getting the public access to public information, not the perceived hypocrisy of who currently has access.
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The issue is getting the public access to public information, not the perceived hypocrisy of who currently has access.
Is it? That was Swartz's issue, but I think this debacle has devolved into shining a light on the US' corrupt practice of plea bargaining, and that's a far bigger issue than access to public information. "We'll let you off on the 35 years of prison if you'll cop a guilty plea, pay a million dollar fine, and accept a criminal record. We don't much care whether you're actually guilty or not, because we don't have to care. So, which bung hole do you want to be pushed into, kid?"
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The suggestion that he did not have access to an elite education is rediculous under the circumstances.
Yes, it would be ridiculous, that's why no one is making it.
The point of bring up this policy is that Swartz was not working for the benefit of Stanford alumni. He was working to benefit EVERYONE, including people who can't even afford community college.
... for which they paid heavily (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't understand the point of this article. Holder and Ortiz (or somebody, if they were on scholarship) paid for those college educations. If one of the perks of that payment is lifetime journal access, what on earth does it have to do with this case?
If this was an overzealous prosecution, then it should be investigated, and possibly procedures changed to prevent it in the future. And I certainly agree that journal access has become utterly disproportionate.
But most of what I read about this case is a rush to judgment that makes no more sense than the prosecution is being accused of. And articles like this bolster that impression, jumping to conclusions and engaging in character assassination because we liked one guy and therefore hate the other guys.
Things need to be fixed, but that's best achieved with clarity, not more obfuscation.
Re:... for which they paid heavily (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact that the fruits of scientific research are available only to people who "paid heavily" is precisely the objection.
Re:... for which they paid heavily (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it? Or is this article an attempt to paint and shame the prosecutors as privileged? I suspect it's the latter.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit and dropped the charges against him. They offer some articles to individuals for free, and now have opened more articles via the Alumni Access program. What they do isn't evil. Rather, they could do more, provide more access. So why are we sitting debating about what access the prosecutors had to JSTOR? It's irrelevant to the larger conversation.
The discussion we should be having:
1) Should all scientific studies be public domain?
2) If so, how should access be provided? Who pays to maintain upkeep?
3) Should all publicly funded science be made public? (probably and obvious yes here)
4) If so, how should access be provided? Who pays to maintain upkeep?
I'd like to think Scwartz's goal was bigger than these small-minded, egotistical prosecutors. Lets talk about how we can open up the data, not how to engage in a witch hunt. Prosecutorial overreach, to me, is a separate conversation.
Re:... for which they paid heavily (Score:5, Insightful)
The meme that the public does not have access to this stuff is just wrong.
There are large public libraries that offer public access to JSTOR. For example the Boston Public Library.
JSTORs fees are graduated based on the size of the library, so even a small library can afford access.
Many universities offer library cards to the public; for example my employer paid for my Princeton University Library card for about 10 years. Not cheap but in fact it gave me access to pretty much the sum total of all human knowledge. And maintaining a collection like that is clearly not free.
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I visited the Boston Public Library once to catch up on my journals. Nice place.
In New York City, there is basically no public access to basic scientific and medical journals. A few years ago, I couldn't find a public library with the New England Journal of Medicine, so I subscribed myself. That's a pretty basic journal. Last time I looked, there was one public library with the NEJM in the entire borough of Manhattan. And they only subscribed to the paper edition, because the online edition (which has lots
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One of the tangental problems is that this country has shrunk government services and we no longer have free libraries the way we used to. Or free education.
There's never been "free" libraries or education. Someone pays for it. That money goes to other things now.
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I agree we should talk about something bigger than specific people, but Swartz was extremely interested in injustice in addition to information freedom, so I don't see it as an either-or. We can talk about how to open data, and we can also talk about how to reform the American c
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How could JSTOR provide more access without raising fees? They are already non-profit.
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A Princeton university access library card costs $275/year.
The Boston Public Library has JSTOR.
I don't think this is having to "pay heavily".
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I needed a medical library in New York. The Columbia University library would have charged me $2,000 a year, as I recall. If I could get access to a library like Princeton for $275/year, I'd sure as hell get it.
Makes me wonder, though -- what am I paying taxes for? I thought that was supposed to go to the library.
Re:... for which they paid heavily (Score:5, Insightful)
Moreover, if either Holder or Ortiz had hacked systems and exceeded their authorized access as Swatz did, playing a cat&mouse game with sysadmins at their home institutions and JSTOR, they'd have likely faced the same consequences as Aaron. The article is FUD.
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You are apparently unaware of FISA and the TOS agreement between Americans and their government, specifically, Amendment 4 of the Bill of Rights.
Here are some links to help get you up to speed:
FISA: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/01/16/redacted-fisa/ [sophos.com]
AT&T and NSA's laptop in a closet on everyone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A [wikipedia.org]
Retroactive immunity for Telecoms: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111230/00522317232/retroactive-immunity-govt-warrantless-wiretapping-deemed-constitutional-su [techdirt.com]
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If what you're saying is that they would have been shielded by their positions at Justice, that's another argument. The post argues that as alums of JSTOR institutions, they would not have faced consequences. Guess what? Aaron was an alum of Stanford and a visiting scholar at Harvard, both JSTOR institutions-- a face conveniently erased in the linked documents. He went over to MIT because his "unlimited access" at Stanford and Harvard was restricted enough to prevent this kind of exploit at either in
Let's nip this FUD in the bud (Score:3)
Volokh analysis of what Swatz actually did, with detailed history:
http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/ [volokh.com]
I assure you, an MIT enrollee or grad would have gotten the same treatment.
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My big objection to the Volokh article is that he claims the laws were passed democratically.
Given the lobbying that goes on to give each special interest special favors in the copyright laws, democracy has very little to do with it.
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My point is that the post claims that Swartz did not have the same access as Holder and Ortiz, when in fact, as a Stanford alum and a visiting scholar at Harvard, he had pretty much the same access. I did not endorse Justice's action. I am pointing out that the article is based on a factual misrepresentation, which is evidently intentional, given that Stanford has been removed from its list of JSTOR institutions.
FWIW, I tried the same thing Aaron did while at Berkeley, and had the sense to stop whe
Not interested in excuses (Score:3, Insightful)
Hang 'em all.
35-50 years (Score:4, Insightful)
From the second Kerr link [volokh.com]:
Why are you hearing that Swartz faced 35 or 50 years if it was not true? First, government press releases like to trumpet the maximum theoretical numbers. Authors of the press releases will just count up the crimes and the add up the theoretical maximum punishments while largely or completely ignoring the reality of the likely much lower sentence. The practice is generally justified by its possible general deterrent value: perhaps word of the high punishment faced in theory will get to others who might commit the crime and will scare them away. And unfortunately, uninformed reporters who are new to the crime beat sometimes pick up that number and report it as truth. A lot of people repeat it, as they figure it must be right if it was in the news. And some people who know better but want you to have a particular view of the case repeat it, too. But don’t be fooled. Actual sentences are usually way way off of the cumulative maximum punishments.
So if it serves as a deterrent we should be fooled, but if it applies to ourselves we shouldn't be? Personally I would be scared shitless if I saw the DOJ itself [justice.gov] make statements like that about me. Just be truthful. The US already is highly punitive [civitas.org.uk] [pdf, see page 11-12] compared to other western countries (27 times as high as where I live). If that by itself doesn't work as a deterrent then exaggerations probably won't do much either, apart from increasing the likelihood of people killing themselves.
If bullying is part of the system, then yes, the system should be targeted. But not just by outsiders, the prosecuters themselves should have opposed the system instead of participating in the bullying. And as they did participate they should be targeted as part of the system.
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I believe part of the subtext of the article is that that whole approach is stupid. (Of course, I'm biased. I think publishing a number like that that has no basis in reality is stupid.)
To be fair, a person who is being intimidated by a prosecutor should have a lawyer handy, and the lawyer should explain all this. The press is free to report pretty much any crazy numbers they want, and the articles they write will largely be read by people without any legal knowledge and no lawyers hand. Stupid? Sure. But a
Carmen Ortiz, Psychologist? (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess she should know a thing or two about mental illness since she is, herself, a sociopath.
A bit disingenuous (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a bit disingenuous to drive someone to suicide and then claim that the fact that they did so means they were mentally ill. It's kind of like throwing someone in the East River wearing concrete shoes and blaming them for being unable to swim.
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Nuance exists for a reason, you know. People do *not* normally commit suicide, even if they're in a confrontation with the DoJ. People however, *do* normally drown when their feet are cast in concrete.
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I've been reading through here and waiting for someone to make this point. So Ortiz thought Swartz was mentally ill. Doesn't that make Ortiz even more culpable for his death through her actions?
heard this one before... (Score:2)
"...blame the system and aim to reform the system; don’t think that this was just two or three prosecutors that were doing something unusual. It wasn’t."
Soooooo, if I understand correctly, she was just following orders...
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No, you're deliberately misinterpreting it in order to make a pass at scoring some Godwin points.
The point is that the prosecutor's behavior is not "as ordered", but rather is simply the norm for how prosecution is done. If you find that unacceptable, the appropriate path is to try to fix the use of these tactics in general, rather than singling this out as a specific case with a particular problem.
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No, I couldn't care less about Godwin. Not all of us give a shit about mod points. In this particular instance, nothing about it was normal. They went out of their way to go after the guy, even after being asked to drop it. There are actual crimes that they could be prosecuting, but this is the crap they go for instead.
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No, I couldn't care less about Godwin. Not all of us give a shit about mod points.
Not mod points, Godwin points. You're baiting a comparison to Nazis.
In this particular instance, nothing about it was normal. They went out of their way to go after the guy, even after being asked to drop it.
Asked to drop it by whom? JSTOR? This isn't a civil case, it's criminal. JSTOR is only one of the injured parties, and the state doesn't need any injured party's permission to bring charges.
They didn't go out of their way to go after him, they just went after him. It's their job, it's how prosecution is done, and it's normal. You can think it's unfair, but you shouldn't think that it's unusual just because it got media attention. It's not.
There are actual crimes that they could be prosecuting, but this is the crap they go for instead.
T
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"Just following orders" is wrong not because someone higher up gave the order. It's wrong because despite the government condoning the action, the person doing it should know better. Therefore "everyone does it" is pretty much the same thing as "just following orders".
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If you find that unacceptable, the appropriate path is to try to fix the use of these tactics in general, rather than singling this out as a specific case with a particular problem.
Why not single out the evil doers like Oritz? Why should they get a free pass just because some other people are evil as well. If scum like these prosecutors had to actually face consequences for their actions, you can be sure that the "system" would change pretty quickly.
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No, she was just following her career and financial incentives.
Of course, so many from Wall St have gone to jail (Score:2)
I will repeat, so I can be labeled as flamebait again, that the real culprit here is Mr. Unequal Justice himself, the POTUS and his slimy DoJ, of which the Boston prosecutors are just cogs in a smoke manufacturing machine.
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And the international bankers that are bankrolling this POTUS.
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International bankers donated far more to the last Republican presidential candidate than they did the current POTUS.
JSTOR (Score:5, Informative)
I am an alumnus of one to the members of the JSTOR alumni program (Yale).
This article is VERY misleading.
JSTOR is a non-profit company founded by an ex-president of Princeton University aimed at reducing costs associated with maintaining large archives of journals at universities.
The alumni access to JSTOR described was part of a PILOT PROGRAM. This has been extended to all institutions that participate in JSTOR.
In addition JSTOR had nothing to do with the criminal charges brought against Aaron Shwartz. JSTOR asked that no charges be brought.
This was solely the result of actions taken by MIT and the DOJ.
JSTOR in fact is very inclusive. They have programs that provide access to secondary schools, public libraries and so forth.
http://about.jstor.org/fees/13006#tab-fees [jstor.org]
Also JSTOR hosts significant public domain content that is available free to anyone.
JSTOR Alumni Access Fee (Score:2)
How to Subscribe [jstor.org]: "The Alumni Access participation fee for subscribing institutions is 10% of the institution's total AAF. Subscribing institutions must support the bifurcation of alumni from their main JSTOR account via IP based access methods."
The whole outrage over this makes me angry (Score:2)
...it's not like there haven't been young people committing suicide after being railroaded on charges for things they absolutely didn't do, in this country, for years.
But they're minorities and poor and must have been guilty, right?
Let a tech-elite white kid run afoul of the legal mechanisms, though...
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Yeah, it reminds me of Missing white woman syndrome [wikipedia.org], a strange media bias that over-represents attractive, young, upper-middle class woman, in cases of abduction. Swartz obviously wasn't a missing white woman, but a similar medias bias comes into play. People cast him as an innocent martyr, squashed under the boot of an authoritarian system, ignoring all of the victims that weren't upper-middle class, professional males.
You can look at it as media bias, racism, classism, tribalism, or a combination of all
Prosecutorial Discretion (Score:4, Insightful)
Following Orders (Score:5, Insightful)
"It's not my fault, I was just following orders."
I thought as a society we had long ago decided that was not an excuse. I thought all lawyers on whatever side were agents of the judicial system and were looking for justice.
It seems our society has forgotten something. If you are doing wrong you are responsible, no matter the chain of command, it is an individuals responsibility to not do wrong and to reject a bad system. This should go doubly so for any agents of the justice system.
Shame on the system. Shame on the individual.
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"It's not my fault, I was just following orders."
I thought as a society we had long ago decided that was not an excuse.
Haven't you heard ? In this century, the US only prosecutes those who are following orders. Those giving the orders are apparently totally immune. This started with Abu Graib and continues, literally, to this Friday [salon.com].
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You are confusing justice with the judicial system. The former is an ideal, the latter the naive attempt at delivering it. Give it some time, and every judicial system (both the judiciary and legislative branch) will inevitably turn justice upside down and morph into an instrument of power and oppression. We're human, that's the way i
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We had long ago decided on lots of things, but government and society changes their minds. The principles upheld in the Nuremberg Trials are one of those things that time and again it's been demonstrated that we as a society have changed our minds about. We have become the enemy.
next steps? Sue Ortiz, JSTOR, and MIT. (Score:5, Insightful)
What should happen next?
If any of this seems over the top, consider how over the top the accusations and threats against Swartz were.
I'm wondering about Senator Cornyn. Could he actually be in support greater intellectual freedom? It seems 99% of politicians and judges are crusty old fools who blindly swallow publisher propaganda, and their knee jerk reaction to any alleged copyright violation is to believe the accusers and join the pack screaming that it's "theft" and howling for the blood of the accused. A demonstration of this is Ortiz's profound words of wisdom: "Stealing is stealing". But perhaps Cornyn, who sponsored PIPA, is having a change of heart?
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Here is the petition to fire Ortiz:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck [whitehouse.gov]
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Here is the equivalent petition for Steve Heymann:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-attorney-steve-heymann/RJKSY2nb [whitehouse.gov]
Heymann's still needs more signatures to get over the minimum required for a mandatory response.
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Sue them for theft, and perhaps racketeering. Also sue them under the anti trust laws for price fixing.
I get the suspicion you have no idea what JSTOR is or what it does.
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Is that you, Tom Dolan?
Can't have it both ways. (Score:5, Insightful)
" Kerr says that, as the law stands, the charges against Swartz were "pretty much legit," and that the law itself should be the target of the internet community's angst,"
No, BOTH should be the target of the "internet community's angst" and societies in general. One can't happen without the other, prosecutors continually demand more harsh and less restrictive laws "to catch the bad people". And when it is proven beyond all doubt that they targeted the wrong people with their near unlimited "proprietorial discretion" they demand complete indemnification from criminal/civil responsibility because prosecution of the "bad guys" would be imperiled if they had to worry about their freedom & livelihood. They can't have it both ways, at least not in a free & just society. They can either have extensive powers with severe penalties if they mess up, or they can have very limited powers with limited liability. To do otherwise breeds nothing but corruption & imprisonment of the innocent.
I'm surprised Cornyl doesn't autoignite (Score:4, Insightful)
Outstanding blog posting, Soulskill (Score:2)
Naturally, one would expect AG Holder, who made his big bucks at Covington & Burling, defending Chiquita (formerly United Fruit) and Coca Cola and the oil companies, for their hiring of assassins to murder labor organizers, protesters and pro-democracy activists in South America and West Africa. And please don't neglect the record of Ortiz:
http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/01/17/carmen-ortizs-sordid-rap-sheet/ [whowhatwhy.com]
And please let us never forget the ultimate e
Suicide works! (sometimes) (Score:2)
I believe, I have to bring to everyone's attention one uncomfortable fact -- a suicide of a person was sufficient to bring important issues to the attention of public and institutions when everything else utterly and completely failed.
Now, everyone who ever repeated anti-suicide formulas about suiide being inherently cowardly, selfish, pointless, etc. act, is welcome to kiss his dead ass. While it's true that most suicides result in nothing remarkable, so do most lives.
On a lighter note, Aaron Swartz is now
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"On a lighter note, Aaron Swartz is now both a hero and an hero [encyclopediadramatica.se]."
He's also a martyr.
Remember Aaron!!
Remember Aaron!!
"Blame The Sysetm"? NO. Blame the Jurors First. (Score:2)
The one check that the founders of the US government gave the people is the power for a jury to refuse a law be upheld. That is the only protection we have against the rule of unjust law. In today's legal climate however, juries are instructed to behave precisely the way a Judge says, and jury findings can be ignored if it's found by the judge to oppose a matter of law.
Every trial should necessarily put the law on trial as well. We have plenty of law making bodies, but THERE IS NO LAW UNMAKING BODY.
ambition (Score:2)
"don’t think that this was just two or three prosecutors that were doing something unusual."
I'm reminded of "If everyone jumped off a bridge...". The prosecutors decision making power based on the facts of the case got short circuited in the name of career building. Somehow I don't think anything good could've come of this anyway. That's besides the opposite ramifications of trying to shut someone up pointing out failures in proper government behavior in a tortuous way.(where's
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"Nice to read Kerr's nuanced read of the situation, good antidote to the shrill, half-witted shrieking of the chronically ignorant slashdotters."
Doesn't matter what is right under the law, what matters is what is right period. Bad law is meant to be broken and bad prosecutors enforcing said laws broken harder. Prosecutors are in a position to decide right from wrong, but do they if they remember how? Laws are guidelines, at least if you believe the Supreme Court that has been bouncing
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Didn't Abe Lincoln say something about the best way to change a bad law is to enforce it strictly?