Anonymous Warhead Targets US Sentencing Commission 252
theodp writes "Late Friday, Violet Blue reports, the U.S. Sentencing Commission website was hacked and government files distributed by Anonymous in 'Operation Last Resort.' The U.S. Sentencing Commission sets guidelines for sentencing in United States Federal courts, and on the defaced ussc.gov website Anonymous cited the recent suicide of Aaron Swartz as 'a line that has been crossed.' Calling the launch of its new campaign a "warhead," Anonymous vowed, 'This time there will be change, or there will be chaos.'"
Adds reader emil: "Anonymous has not specified exactly what files they have obtained. The various files were named after Supreme Court judges. At a regular interval commencing today, Anonymous will choose one media outlet and supply them with heavily redacted partial contents."
Re:at the most they can shed light.. (Score:5, Informative)
What I understood is that the redacted versions will be sent out piecemeal to news outlets, while the full reveal will happen later "if demands are not met."
Re:Let's kowtow! (Score:5, Informative)
Watch the video or read the text ... It is very easy to comprehend. Enact reforms that "respectable" people suggest. Anonymous does not expect nor wish to be part of the negotiations,
Re:at the most they can shed light.. (Score:5, Informative)
States? States have nothing to do with this. Believe it or not, states are not some all powerful entity bravely feuding with the federal government over peculiar institutions.
The US Sentencing Commission was intended to standardize federal prison sentences, so that persons who committed similar federal crimes ended serving similar sentences, regardless of which district judge or parole board they appeared before.
Stith, Kate and Koh, Steve Y., "The Politics of Sentencing Reform: The Legislative History of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines" (1993). Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 1273. [yale.edu]
it's fair in that it's consistent, but it's unfair in that it may not be wise. Like most Bureacracies, it's a triumph of mediocrity over the capriciousness of individual persons.
Re:Let's kowtow! (Score:4, Informative)
He didn't steal anyones work, at best he deprived publishers of profit, which is debatable since not many people who don't already have free access to journals actually want to read those articles.
The journal publishing industry is a huge racket. Editors, assistant editors, peer reviewers, etc are all unpaid volunteer positions. Authors are unpaid and in many cases have to pay money to submit an article (some flat fee, some per page, some extra for color). The guys who get paid are the guys who take your LaTeX submission document and change the style file to the 'journal format' style from the 'journal draft' style and put in the page numbers, doi info, etc. That guy and the executives who run the publishing house. In return for essentially 95% volunteer work to get an article to print they charge exorbitant fees to libraries and universities to get the journals (and some like Elsevier wont even offer you a subscription to the 1 journal you want unless you buy the package that includes 19 others that you don't want).
On top of that, the vast majority of published research out there is paid for by public funds, that you as a taxpayer are helping pay for. If the public pays for it, the public should have access to it. You shouldnt have to pay for the research and then pay to see the results. Sure, there is a real cost associated with printing and distributing publications and with storage and bandwidth for articles available online. The price charges is not inline with those costs though.
Re:Let's kowtow! (Score:4, Informative)
Except that's not how plea deals work. You don't sign off on the agreement and then get 6 mos. It's not that kind of contract. The judge can ignore the prosecutor's suggestion totally. Note the use of the word "blithey" in the following explanation.
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/01/towards-learning-losing-aaron-swartz-part-2 [stanford.edu]