Prosecution of Swartz Typical for the "Sick Culture" Pervading the DOJ 443
tukang writes "According to a report in the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, State prosecutors had planned to let Swartz off with a warning and Swartz would not have faced any criminal proceedings or prison time had it not been for the decision of Carmen Ortiz's office to intervene and take over the case."
Although the CNET article focuses on Aaron Swartz's particular case, the original article calls attention to general abuse of power within the DOJ: "It seems never to have occurred to Ortiz, nor to the career prosecutors in her office in charge of the prosecution, Stephen Heymann and Scott Garland, that there is something wrong with overcharging, and then raising the ante, merely to wring a guilty plea to a dubious statute. Nor does it occur generally to federal prosecutors that there’s something wrong with bringing prosecutions so complex that they are guaranteed to bankrupt all but the wealthiest. These tactics have become so normal within the Department of Justice that few who operate within the bowels of this increasingly corrupt system can even see why it is corrupt. Even most journalists, who are supposedly there to tell truth to power, no longer see what’s wrong and even play cheerleader."
An old saying. (Score:5, Insightful)
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I'm also very disappointed by MIT's treatment of the man. It makes me sick actually to think what his university did to him.
I know that this is MIT's management, and not necessarily academic staff, but to do this is disgusting.
Re:An old saying. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think he was a student at MIT. He just got in to one of their data closets.
Swartz was a research fellow at Harvard University, which provided him with a JSTOR account; additionally, visitors to MITâ(TM)s "open campus" were authorized to access JSTOR via the campus network.[47] The authorities say Swartz downloaded the documents through a laptop connected to a networking switch in a controlled-access wiring closet at MIT.[48][49][50][51] -wiki
Re:An old saying. (Score:4, Informative)
MIT has an intentionally open wifi setup, like everyone should.
We're having trouble with the fire Stephen Heymann petition [whitehouse.gov], only like 10k signature out of the needed 25k.
What do people think we should do? Start a second more well written and informative petition perhaps?
Re:An old saying. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:An old saying. (Score:5, Informative)
You do realize they do absolutely nothing about those petitions at all, even if you get the signatures. They're just a honey pot for gathering the names of political dissidents. I know a lot of you don't think this has started in this country but it has.
Re:An old saying. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm curious about what you say are successful? Has any new legislation actually been enacted? There are many petitions like the "Build the Death Star" petition that have been "successful" in terms of getting a response as in somebody at the White House actually sat down and typed up something, but in terms of getting things to happen like having Texas actually secede from the United States has not happened.
Petitions in general are pretty pointless and useless, and online petitions in particular are even more pointless in terms of getting something to happen. It is a good way to vent steam, and as was said it is a good way to find out who your political enemies might be as well. I agree with the GP post that in many ways the White House website is pretty much a honey pot to track down those people who might be political dissidents and cause problems in the future. Nixon had an "official enemies" list, why not Barack Obama?
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He did something clearly illegal and then had the book thrown at him. Perhaps the DOJ was heavy handed and perhaps his subsequent state of mind should have been a red flag to all parties to drop th
Re:An old saying. (Score:4, Insightful)
You are so right. People who disclose (already public) academic data should be thrown in jail for the rest of their lives! After dragging them through hellish court procedures. How dare they disobey the ruling class! That's your point, right?
Re:An old saying. (Score:5, Informative)
So copyright infringement without any possible commercial gain is just as bad as domestic terrorism and mass murder? There are thousands of convicted murderers that serve much less than 35 years. I think the OP has a point that a punishment should fit the crime. Otherwise, why not just take out all your personal adversaries with a modded AK47 if you're already committed to violating their copyright.
Re:An old saying. (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you joking? TOS violations are WAY worse than terrorism, at least to Holder, the DOJ, etc.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213 [rollingstone.com]
Re:An old saying. (Score:5, Insightful)
You just described the sick culture of the OP, without realizing it.
Which was also part of the OP's point. Which you also did not realize.
Re:An old saying. (Score:5, Insightful)
He didn't. He committed a misdemeanor. The prosecutor inflated it into multiple felonies.
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I wonder, did MIT disclose its terms of service with the users? I suspect not, as thats a contract between JSTOR and MIT.
Did his actions prevent anyone else from accessing JSTOR? As for as I read, JSTOR never went down, so in that case, not its not a DOS.
Re:An old saying. (Score:5, Insightful)
This wasn't "clearly illegal" and in fact was just a "terms of service" violation where most ordinary people doing the things that Swartz was doing would even think was perfectly legal or even expected for legitimate scholarship. Where he crossed the line was doing more of it than most people..... sort of like going to an all you can eat buffet and filling up a dozen plates with food that you can't possibly eat in one sitting.
Perhaps Swartz should have used some better judgement, and had something like his account terminated and perhaps be sent a bill for the "extra resources" he consumed (sort of like the restaurant example charging an extra fee for all of the wasted food), but it certainly didn't cross into the realm of criminal behavior as most people would define the term. Frankly I don't even understand why the Department of Justice was even involved in what was just an ordinary contract violation and should have been handled by a civil court judge at worst.... and a state judge at that. It shouldn't have even been a criminal matter in the first place.
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The problem here is the presumption that these actions should be criminal. I disagree with that assumption which is the assumption that you are making here by saying that none of these counts are unreasonable. Furthermore, it is one real idiot of a computer security guy to possibly think that a single laptop logged into a "guest account" could possibly do as much damage as is claimed. If your security system is so screwed up that such an attack is of concern, I would say that the folks in charge of secur
Re: (Score:3)
I don't believe it was inappropriate to prosecute him for what he did regardless of what his intentions may have been at the time.
Strawman . No one is saying Swartz was completely innocent of any crime. Fuck off and stop trying to distort the argument, if that's what you're doing. If you're not trying to make a strawman argument, listen/read what people are actually saying before you jump to a response.
Re:An old saying. (Score:5, Insightful)
No really, you need to fuck off. Where do you get off saying it's OK to charge a person with crimes that could bring 50 years for what Swartz did? Especially in the context where the same DOJ rewards people who helped drug kingpins and terrorists launder money for a decade. Where do you get any moral authority at all to say that the government should be able to absolutely crush ordinary citizens for barely recognizable crimes, all the while letting massive rampant Wall Street fraud that practically brought down the world economy go not just unpunished, but rewarded with the hard earned tax dollars of millions of Americans. Why is it OK for AT&T to help the Feds do illegal wiretapping and then be grantied retroactive immunity for that crime? Yet downloading some articles at a rate higher than allowed is supposed to warrant a possible life sentence, or at least almost all of a life on average?
So yeah -- in all seriousness -- fuck off. You are part of the problem. Being silent is bad enough, but offering excuses for the oppressors -- that's beyond the pale. You are an enabler of this kind of corruption and slime, and you don't even get it. Wise up or fuck off.
Candlelight vigil tonight for DrXym! (Score:3)
So much for democracy then (Score:5, Insightful)
In a democracy, the power is supposed to lie with the voter. The voter has power, indeed absolute power to change the leadership every so many years and in the US even sooner because isn't that why you got so many guns... and therefor, the voter is corrupt. Nice.
The simple fact is that while a LOT of people claim outrage at this case, a LOT of people ALSO want a though stance by the justice system on OTHER peoples offenses. Hang'em all and let god sort them out is a significant voting group.
An even BIGGER group of voters is "hang em all" "oh my god, you slapped his wrist, how mean!". It is a lucrative market to serve as the media, write a story about how soft the system is on hardened criminals then a story about how hard the system is on misunderstood people and you got your readership nice and enraged and yet feeling like they are caring people after all.
The DOJ YOU got is the system your society wants. Don't believe me? Nothing has actually been changed with regards to JSTOR and its policies has it. MIT hasn't stopped working with them. Academia still submit their papers to it don't they? Everybody is having a good little cry and a nice outrage at the system and then all back on our hamster wheel part of the big machine just like before.
It reminds me of Munich. How many seconds was the collecting of wealth and fame halted after the slaughter? Did a single athlete say "no this isn't right, I won't continue". In the Tour de France at least if there is some event like a rider who died, the other riders do symbolic things like letting the affected team win or ride across the finish line as a group rather then in a race. Sometimes... if the stakes aren't to high.
How many people/organizations have declared to STOP using JSTOR or to keep themselves associated with MIT? Have many MIT students have stopped going?
People forget that oppression isn't just a person at the top going "send him down", it is an entire support system beneath it. If you want to be nice it is "good men doing nothing" but mostly it is "selfish people not doing anything unless it benefits them and even then only if it doesn't take to much effort". You might blame the Klan for segregation laws in the deep south (see how neatly I avoided mentioning the nazi's and a godwin?) but that doesn't explain how easily it was implemented and supported. Every bus driver, every shop owner, every person who went into a whites only area. Did you push YOUR granddad in the face for being part of it? No? So you think the DOJ should be punished for prosecuting a criminal but racism is okay?
Life is hard, fighting the good fight all the time is FUCKING hard. Lessig is one person who does it easily by doing the fighting through proxies and getting his proxies lumbered with million dollar punishments or until a depressed young man kills himself. How many cheered Swartz on and how many gave a depressed suicidal guy a shoulder to lean on? I sure as hell didn't. I am taking the easy way out. I know this of myself and just avoid looking at myself in the mirror. SAME AS YOU!
You can convince me differently if for instance there had been a "Spartacus" event where a lot of MIT students had copied the mass download. There wasn't. If students had left MIT. They didn't. If Academia had stopped using JSTOR. They didn't. If there had been ANY action beyond a few cheap speeches.
It is even more hilarious to read articles denouncing the DOJ on this subject matter when such sites are heavy supporters of copyright and have in the past attempted to restrict fair use of their own content.
I predict that NOTHING will change. The reason is simple, NOBODY cares. Well not enough. The next election will be about taxes and employment once again and the people will vote for the guy they think is best for them (or for Romney voters, better for that rich guy they never met and will never be) and copyright is just not a big enough issue to figure in election results yet. Hell, the US doesn't even have a green party of any note.
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Its so strange you should be having this conversation now. Apathy has this nation by the throat. It takes time to become this apathetic, spirit broken, cynical, resigned. It takes having your dreams squashed, beliefs shattered and dreams abandoned. And lie after lie after lie. On the way home I heard a public service announcement. To date 6,000,000 children have died from AIDs worldwide, all innocent victims of the epidemic. That is more children than in all the preschools and kindergartens and grade school
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We have 2 political parties. They both control the government. They both control the media. They both control who's allowed to be on the ballot. They both control the courts. They both control which businesses thrive and which businesses wither on the vine.
It's similar to a Hydraulic Empire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_empire [wikipedia.org]
They control information in this case, and control us all by it. If we disobey them, they cut off our access to it. Or use it to imprison us. If buisnesses disobey they seize
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We have 2 political parties. They both control the government. They both control the media. They both control who's allowed to be on the ballot. They both control the courts. They both control which businesses thrive and which businesses wither on the vine.
\
But they dont control the enforcement of the law!
All you have to do is sit on a jury and vote innocent on anyone that is brought up on a stupid law or on charges that are way over the top. They can pass all the laws they want it is up to we the people to enforce them. Sad that so many want to complain about the system but then work to get out of jury duty.
Laws are not limited to the courtroom (Score:4, Insightful)
All you have to do is sit on a jury and vote innocent on anyone that is brought up on a stupid law or on charges that are way over the top.
There are lots of aspects of law that have nothing to do with jury trials.
Re:So much for democracy then (Score:4, Informative)
They have a trap for nullification too. When I was in voir dire, we were asked to swear under oath that we would judge the facts and not the law.
So, tell the truth and get excused or perjure yourself.
Re: (Score:3)
.. sounds like a question for a lawyer. Is that particular oath legally binding?
Re: So much for democracy then (Score:2)
The Republican governor of my home state trying to make the electoral college votes if my home state proportional by voting district so 40% of the population get 80% of the vote is a bit more concerning and more if a threat to freedom, but disenfranchising half the population of a large number of swing states and rigging the presidential election for the foresee
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I hope and pray that you are being ironic, because if you are not, you are exactly what is wrong with the United States at the moment.
There is NEVER a more urgent, pressing, and immediate need than liberty. Without liberty, and the true freedoms it provides, everything else becomes meaningless.
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I get it, man does not live by bread alone, but man needs bread. The list is Life then Liberty. Being free to starve to death is not freedom. So true Liberty inherently demands that man be free of want for basic needs. Or perhaps that every man has free access to the essentials of life. I would assert our current society is broken precisely because a growing number of people have no access. When there are fewer jobs than workers, those remaining unemployed through no fault of their own, have been excluded f
Re:So much for democracy then (Score:5, Insightful)
The power doesnt lie with the voter. We only vote for the politicians, we dont get to vote for who is in power. The people in power are smart enough to not allow their position to rely on the whims of the population.
BUT, It didn't start OUT that way (Score:5, Insightful)
Government, especially the western style democracies didn't happen by magic. They were won by people who believed they could change the system and did. Once there were monarchs who rule, now they just collect a massive wage for not doing much at all. So our ancestors did not create a perfect society but they did improve society.
But now for everyone who cares, there are far more who want to keep the status quo. See the bitter hatred targetted at Julian Assange, Stallman, the whole wallstreet protests. The elite don't need to attack their enemies, the plebs will happily do it for them. Rock the boat and you will be thrown overboard by the slaves.
Oh we disguise our attacks behind claiming we want our heroes to be perfect. Oddly enough NOT something we demand of celebrities in other fields. Just that if you dare to suggest a small way in which the world could be made a better place, you better be holier then the pope and then you will be slammed for being to holy.
People REALLY do not like change, they can tolerate a LOT of badness if just it means they don't have to think, act or take a side.
And it is that way that tyrants rise to power. There is no need for a secret world government and such nonsense conspiracies. All it needs is for everyone to look away.
Trust me, I know. I am doing it myself. Just the daily drain of life has indeed made me give up. The little hamster wheel is all I want after all. Sad. BUT that is MY fault. Not the fault of anyone else. I gave up doesn't mean you should. But I can understand why people like Swartz buckle under the pressure and the people who claim his as their champion should ask whether they overloaded the guy or not. Let Lessig face a long jail time, maybe then his legal cases will actually be good and not wishful thinking.
Oh wait, accusing Lessig of not being perfect am I. Told you I had given up.
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A plan to "boil the frog" is still a conspiracy.
We have conspiracies all the time and all over the place. Businesses conspire to lower wages of workers with much cooperation from government who support laws written by such businesses after receiving contributions, donations and the like. This is an open truth. You might say this is "a general and natural erosion" but our government was initially set up to prevent the very things we are experiencing today. If it's not various parties conspiring, then how
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"That is why we vote for representatives who work on our behalf."
Now if they just did that.
Power is not the issue, mentality is (Score:5, Insightful)
The key issue (that I see) can lead to abuse is the widespread phenomenon of 'plea bargaining'.
It is this mechanism that provides an incentive for the DOJ to heap unreasonable amounts of far-fetched charges on a single suspect. The sole objective is to render it unattractive for the suspect to let the case come to court and thereby pressure the suspect into copping to specific charges.
There are two reasons to do this. The first is based solely on cost reasons (as with most decisions in the US), as in: it's costly to prosecute and it's cheap to file charges. If you can get suspects to plead guilty and accept the penalties, you've handled a case cost-effectively.
The second reason is that people have sought for means to make things sufficient hot for extreme cases (like e.g. mafia bosses) who are likely to shrug off most charges that can be proven against them beyond reasonable doubt. For such cases people saw fit to impose totally disproportionate penalties for relatively innocuous offenses.
Unfortunately this practice has been adopted for general use, specifically for serving as a deterrent against law-breaking by increasing the perceived risk of law-breaking. As in :
perceived risk = probability of capture x potential penalty
In the Middle Ages they used torture, mutilation, branding and suchlike to up the potential penalty to "deterrent values". Nowadays we use disproportional (and crippling) fines and equally disproportionate (and equally crippling) prison sentences for the same purpose.
People who complain ought to realise that this setup is very 'American' in nature and that it continues to exist only because a majority doesn't think it worth changing this aspect of the system.
Of course the whole thing can be changed: simply lower maximum penalties to proportionate values and invest (much) more money in increasing the probability of getting caught in order to keep the perceived risk of lawbreaking constant. It's completely feasible, but expensive.
Only people here don't want to hear that: they (collectively) prefer to destroy the odd individual in order to maintain the balance of terror on part of the law by the cheapest means available.
It's a choice (if a callous one), and it has nothing whatsoever to do with awarding the DOJ "too much power", let alone with the DOJ being ''corrupted by power". The DOJ simply does what it's told to do ... by the outcomes of a democratic process. If you don't like it, then have it changed.
Re:Power is not the issue, mentality is (Score:5, Insightful)
The key issue (that I see) can lead to abuse is the widespread phenomenon of 'plea bargaining'.
Bingo, been saying that for years. I'm also assuming they are judged by the quantity of convictions, not the quality of the charges. Other western nations seem to be able to get guilty pleas without turning the whole thing into a Turkish bazaar, so it's certainly possible that it could be improved by democratic oversight. The fact that someone in the US is 7X as likely as someone in the EU to be locked up is a pretty strong signal that there is a systemic problem within the US justice system.
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Good luck with that. You probably commit three federal crimes per day (as of 2009 -- they add more crimes every year) without even knowing it and your intent to be a good citizen is of no relevance.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842.html [wsj.com]
This is about pure oppressive power. When the laws are so vague and vast that anyone can be imprisoned in the largest prison system in the world for virtually their entire life for totally random acts -- the government has absolute co
Dual justice systems (Score:5, Insightful)
How else can you hold up the charade of a dual track justice system, if some people are hunted down by the authorities with extreme prejudice, and at the same time others are too powerful to fail, you create an illusion of order and safety and create bogeymen to keep people in fear.
what (Score:5, Insightful)
Even most journalists, who are supposedly there to tell truth to power,
I just want a journalist to tell me what happened. Do some research, so I can read it, because I don't have time to do it all myself. I don't want reporters to shove their ideology and viewpoint at me. That's what editorial pages are for.
Re:what (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't happen so much any more. Journalists are under far greater time pressure than they once were - editors expect them to write more in less time, to satisfy our new 24-hour news culture. Investigative journalism is a very time-consuming process and can take weeks or months to produce a story. So it has been largely abandoned in favor of a form of 'production line' news which focuses on just collecting quotes and getting them broadcast as quickly as possible.
Re:what (Score:5, Interesting)
journal - Noun
1. A newspaper or magazine that deals with a particular subject or professional activity.
2. A personal record of occurrences, experiences, and reflections kept on a regular basis; a diary.
report - Noun
1. An account presented usually in detail.
2. A formal account of the proceedings or transactions of a group.
Journalists give personal opinions Reporters give detailed facts
Um, no (Score:5, Informative)
What happened? He downloaded some papers from the public library in an automated fashion and shared them for his colleagues.
Sure, if by "some" you mean "4+ million", by "public library" you mean "a private datastore" and by "in an automated fashion" you mean "by sneaking into a computer room and illicitly connecting to the network".
I'm disgusted by the DOJ charges too, but people like you who try and gloss over the facts of what he was doing are just making the rest of us look bad. The DOJ response was ridiculous even given what he actually did. No need to pretend he was just innocently downloading a couple of papers from Gizmodo...
Re:Um, no (Score:4, Insightful)
But he did not "crack" any security other than hiding the laptop in a closet. He didn't fake credentials, he didn't use any more access to the journal than MIT granted him.
A good comparison would be if he was refilling hundreds of water bottles from a public water fountain. Yes, he was misusing the resource... But the resource was not secured to begin with... Nobody at MIT was performing basic WATCHING to simply ask him to stop. In fact they had a policy of "ignoring" minor indiscretions.
If I lent my neighbor my water hose to water his garden.. But never checked for tree days he was filling his pool instead, the problem is between me and the water service people to cover that bill. It's not LEGALLY my neighbor's fault I didn't check at the end of the day my hose was turned off... Even if he "selectively forgot" to tell me it's still my job to remember to turn my hose off... Or pay the bill.
Re:Um, no (Score:5, Insightful)
This argument absolutely reeks of entitlement. Just because you are physically able to do something doesn't mean that you have the right to. The resource was not secured to begin with, that is correct, and it's MIT's fault.
BUT, to use a comparison, it's like walking into your neighbor's house and taking his stuff simply because he forgot to lock his doors, then saying, "If he wanted to keep his stuff, he should have locked it up." That may be, but you shouldn't take the shit in the first place.
Believe it or not, you're not entitled to do whatever you want until someone stops you. That's not how it's supposed to work, and that's not how healthy people are supposed to operate in a social system. We are supposed to cooperate, do what's right, and be decent people. Arguments like yours, and I assume people like you, are the reason that everyone has to lock their doors at night, lock their cars in their own driveways, and watch their kids when they play in the park. You are not entitled to break the law, no matter how easy it is to do.
Oh, and if your neighbor used your hose to fill his pool, you have every right to sue for repayment under current laws.
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_planned_ to share them to colleagues.
What about... (Score:5, Interesting)
...making Carmen Ortiz an "example" of this kind of abusive behavior from the prosecution?
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck
US-citizens, your future is in your hands.
We, as in "foreigners", can only look at all this mess and shake our heads, which we do alarmingly and increasingly often...
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...making Carmen Ortiz an "example" of this kind of abusive behavior from the prosecution?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Laws don't apply to our *rulers*, and in particular, not for our rulers in the criminal "justice" system.
Equally important petition (Score:3)
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/require-free-access-over-internet-scientific-journal-articles-arising-taxpayer-funded-research/wDX82FLQ [whitehouse.gov]
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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JCR I don't agree with many of your comments which I've read on /. over the years but this one gains you my respect.
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When there is no doubt that a defendant has broken a law there is no incentive to that defendant to plead guilty. In the best case there could be a procedural error and the defendant will walk free. In the worst case the defendant will get what was offered in the plea deal. Do you really want every minor infraction that would put someone away for less than a year to have to go to court? Do you realize how clogged the courts already are and what a mess they would be if that happened? The reason the prosecuto
Re:Reform plea bargaining. (Score:5, Insightful)
Then maybe the problem is there are two many minor infractions. If we are not willing to give someone their day in court over a matter than we probably should not be regulating it in the first place
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Thank you. Saved me the trouble.
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Do we stop regulating speeding, theft under $500, trespassing, etc? The issue is not how minor the offense is but how often they are committed and that the offenses clog the courts with needless procedures on the off chance that something will go wrong and the defendant will get off. It is no longer a quest for justice but a crap shoot.
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Speeding, theft, trespassing, are all things that should take a properly function court no more than an hour to hear and settle unless there are really interesting legal questions to deal with. There evidence is there or its not for the vast majority of those cases. Many states and localities actually REQUIRE minors to go to court for those infractions; they can't skip the trial.
Court costs are often part of the punishment for those crime if you are convicted and I think that is perfectly fair. I am not
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It's worse than you might think.
All of those minor infractions are already just bench trials, unless you lose and appeal. At least around these parts, however, you end up with around a year of continuances because the prosecution is never ready to go to trial, forcing you to appear six or more times (for up to the full court session... you can't leave until they get around to telling you they aren't ready for you, and they will purposefully make you wait there until the very end) before having your 15 minut
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Court time are extremely variable. How long do you think it would take to explain to non technical people all the technical aspects of a case like Swartz's? Definately more than an hour.
Assuming you are talking about the Jury, this should not be a problem if it really was a Jury of one's peers.
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If it's not worth investing in a trial, it's not worth putting someone in jail for. Period.
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Do you really want every minor infraction that would put someone away for less than a year to have to go to court?
If it means that innocent people stop being punished by the 'justice' system? Absolutely.
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That implies that Swartz was innocent
No, it doesn't. I never mentioned anything about Swartz. All it implies is that certain innocent people might be taking plea bargains, and the system completely allows for this.
which he obviously was not.
As far as I know, he was never convicted.
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The only thing a prosecutor should be allowed to offer is a recommendation to the judge for a lower sentence. The crime charged should never change.
Not the real problem (Score:2)
The article points to the prosecutors, but these are not the real problem. The real problem are the laws. Democratic principles of rule of law do not only concern rights of due process but also the laws themselves. Laws that allow sentences ranging from a fine up to 35 years in prison for the same crime at the discretion of the prosecutors and judge are inherently injust. That should be obvious to anyone.
As for plea bargaining itself, I personally have always considered that injust, too, because it mostly w
Sometimes... (Score:3)
Hey, she did make an example out of Swartz, just not the kind of example she was hoping for.
He became an example of the result of the tyranny of the modern American State. (Honestly? He's not even the best example, but he's very prominent. Which is exactly why Ortiz and Heymann chose him. )
Incidentally, Shirly Sherrod lasted how long when that deceptively edited video of her was released, compared to how long Ortiz has lasted after an egregious miscarriage of Justice that she was responsible for was shown?
Seems the Obama administration has its priorities...
Re: (Score:3)
Your Sig: "MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
You can't betray your basic principles. What MIT have done is revealed that they have been lying about what their basic principles are.
ironic (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, it is "sickening" that federal prosecutors overcharge, that they have so much power, and that so many cases end up in federal court to begin with. But it's Congress that is responsible for this development; you can't blame the prosecutors (for many years, they were required to charge everything they reasonably could).
It's ironic that Swartz is becoming a poster boy for this, given how linked to progressive causes he was. A large reason for the huge transfer of power to the federal government is due to progressive causes. You want less of this kind of heavy-handed federal government action? Stop handing more power to the federal government and take it back to the states. Of course, you the have to live with the fact that people in Tennessee may not share your views on gay marriage, abortion, weed, evolution, guns, or welfare. But then, you don't have to live there (and fortunately neither do I).
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I do get tired in these threads of people who: (Score:4, Insightful)
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/ [firedoglake.com]
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 [google.com] (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 [japantimes.co.jp]
http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-Arrested/dp/1556526377 [amazon.com]
http://www.volokh.com/posts/1227896387.shtml [volokh.com]
Unless you work on Wall Street... (Score:4, Interesting)
The DOJ criminal division hasn't done a thing to prosecute any of the heads of Wall Street firms that have destroyed the lives of millions by engaging in fraud but is willing to destroy the life of a promising young men for a victimless crime.
See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/untouchables/ [pbs.org]
Thankfully, Lanny Breuer resigned after this documentary came out but it seems like the DOJ is rotten to the core. Eric Holder needs to go next. Obama should get someone in there to clean out the stables.
And what about "no one is above the law"? (Score:3)
But the DoJ is as political as anything else.
Otherwise... well, Tom DeLay, former Speaker of the House, was convicted in Texas of money laundering for campaigns...*THROUGH THE RNC*. Laundering money requires at least two guilty parties... so why hasn't the DoJ RICO'd the RNC, instead of going after small, easy fish?
mark
Nationalized Legal Representation (Score:3)
We should nationalize the legal profession. If you get charged with a crime, the government pays your lawyers the same amount it pays prosecutors.
Re:The United States has it's own propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
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Showing cause isn't the same things as proving guilt though, and if you stack the charges you're massively loading the consequences if the person actually tries to prove their innocence. Like the summary points out, the issue here is that many "prosecutions (are) so complex that they are guaranteed to bankrupt all but the wealthiest". This is
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Re:Double Standard (Score:5, Insightful)
The catch is that you only get a public defender if you are indigent. If you have means, they'll be sucked dry first, then you can have a public defender. So you are finally found not guilty, but you have effectively paid a ruinous fine anyway.
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You can't blame others, for the choice of an individual to take their life. If you do, where does the blame end? It wouldn't...
Just because a lot of people would be blamed doesn't mean you can't blame them.
Just because a lot of people are guilty doesn't make them all innocent.
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It is only subjective to a point. The problem is, there is no neutral ground... just the extremes of "you fucking pathetic, weak, filthy criminal, die by my hand!" and "meh... you're a corporation with a lot of money and good lawyers, we'll let it slide if you pay us ten grand."
They use their power to crush the weak (poor) to gain publicity, and the money talks for rich and famous fucks. There is no fucking "justice" in the current so-called United States "justice system." None at all.
With your view of g
Ortiz created that problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Zippo01, there's no confusion here, a person charged with WIRE FRAUD who committed WIRE FRAUD should be prosecuted for WIRE FRAUD face the evidence in court and and serve a penalty for WIRE FRAUD.
Whereas, a person guilty of COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, should NOT be charged with WIRE FRAUD, prosecuted for WIRE FRAUD, and lots more extreme laws with the intention of denying them the court hearing by mudslinging.
Is it really so hard?
" The court system is already backed up, could you imagine if every charge when to trial."
MIT & JSTOR didn't want it prosecuted, it was ORTIZ that wanted it prosecuted. SHE created the burden on the court system! The original prosecutor thought it wasn't worth a judicial penalty FFS. Not only did she create the burden on the court, she then misuses the plea bargain to try to prevent the court ever hearing the case. Too risky to let it go to trial due to her mudslinging. All very very unprofessional of her.
Very unprofessional.
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Zippo01, there's no confusion here, a person charged with WIRE FRAUD who committed WIRE FRAUD should be prosecuted for WIRE FRAUD face the evidence in court and and serve a penalty for WIRE FRAUD.
Well done, AC, well done. You nailed it.
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You really need to read what wire fraud is;
18 USC 1343 - Fraud by wire, radio, or television
Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
When Swartz attempted to access the MIT network after being kicked off he used a fictitious name which is considered a "false or fraudulent pretense". His purpose was to obtain copyright material which is also considered "writings". So according to this law, pretending to be someone else on the internet to obtain documents you are not authorized to have is "Fraud by wire, radio or television" and the maximum penalty is 20 years in prison. Copyright infringement wa
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I honestly WANT every charge to go to trial. Of course judges, DA's, and lawyers don't want that because it would mean they lose their power. But the key here should be a jury of peers deciding the following.
1. Is the law just? If so
2. Is the person guilty? If so
3. What should be the punishment.
That's it.
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We have such a double standard in this country. We scream when a person who is charged with a crime, makes a choice and takes their life because they where charged with a crime, that we are to tough. The next day we scream when another person charged with the same or a different crime gets off or only gets a light sentence.
The "we" in those two cases aren't necessarily the same people. People tend to shout the loudest about the things they're unhappy about; thus in the first case you'll hear mostly from those who think the justice system is too harsh, while in the second case you'll hear mostly from those who think it's too lenient.
Re:Double Standard (Score:5, Insightful)
"could you imagine if every charge when to trial"
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The court system is already backed up, could you imagine if every charge when to trial. Nothing would ever get done, and most important people would complain (louder then ever before) about being called for jury duty all the time
Abso-fucking-lutely. Maybe then the courts would spend their time productively, prosecuting actual criminals, rather than for breaking one of the constant stream of bullshit laws we're buried under because of bad business models, idiotic ideologies, and someone's magic sky daddy shaking his finger.
It would be an improvement the courts actually had to weigh the choice of holding a trial for an axe murderer, or the guy with peculiar dietary tastes because dipping your fries in your Frosty is an abomination un
Re:Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
He Stole:- Well no he didn't. If anything it was IP Infringement - and because of the way a law was made in 1984 it means it was a felony and he was going to spend 5+ years in Jail For. The DOJ took the case over from the state. The State was going to let him go with a warning, the DOJ took the case, and started stacking up the charges - 9 of them the i read - which was going to be 25+ years in jail.
Lets make this clear - if he *STOLE* a hard drive with the files on it, it would of been a slap on the wrist.
The law basically means if you break the T&C of a website or service, it's a federal crime which is what happened here.
He tried to do a plea bargain - but the DOJ said you have to plead guilty to all of them. He had a choice - fight and go bankrupt, then to jail. Plead guilty and goto jail, Or take his own life. He chose to take his own life.
Seriously, The People in the DOJ of the case should either be charged with some type of assisted suicide charges, or involuntary manslaughter.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
He actually had a fourth choice, which Americans have increasingly taken up over the last couple of decades - go postal and shoot a bunch of people. I'm sort of surprised he didn't try and take the prosecutors with him. If you want to look at reasons for those sort of things, maybe you need to pay attention to the pressure corrupt systems like these place on individuals.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
That is a really, REALLY unfair claim to make.
And I say that as someone with multiple suicide attempts behind me (yes, I'm a failure, I know), so allow me to rephrase that.
That is a really, REALLY stupid and ignorant claim to make. There - much better.
People do not commit suicide because of a single thing. It's not the rape alone that makes rape victims suicidal, it's the associated shame, social isolatio
Strange argument (Score:3)
People do not commit suicide because of a single thing. It's not the rape alone that makes rape victims suicidal, it's the associated shame, social isolation, finger pointing and blame (it's never the victim's fault) as well, and those come from society - not the rapist, no matter how despicable the crime is.
So what are you saying here - if someone is raped, were previously fine, but then kill themselves because of shame that it is not the rapists fault? If not when is anything totally anyone's fault - if I beat you and left you in constant pain and paralysed then it would be your perception of pain and societies's provision and reaction to disabled that did it!
Pinning Swartz' suicide on overzealous prosecutors is as fair as pinning Jacintha Saldanha's suicide [dailymail.co.uk] on the radio hosts.
In both cases they started a course of events that lead to someone committing suicide. Their degree of blame depends on to what degree they could have f
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Re:Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
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which completely discounts the fact that he broke into a storage closet, Setup the laptop hooked without authorization to their network to run the scripts that violated the TOS.
Look, he knew what he was doing was wrong and that there would be consequences or he wouldn't have gone to the elaborate route he did to gain access to that closet and network. That, IMO is what caused the wire fraud charge.
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Re:Borrowing money (Score:5, Interesting)
It's how the plea bargaining system is.
The US has decided that the 6th Amendment was a bad idea. That jury trials just aren't worth it. The only way to strip criminals of their rights is by "rewarding" them, by dropping some of the charges. And since dropping reasonable charges will be too soft on criminals, you have to keep increasing sentencing guidelines.
Re:Borrowing money (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, no. It's not quite that simple. The US (the vox populi) doesn't like it's justice system to appear "soft on crime" - and the justice system doesn't like defendants going free on appeals because the court dockets are too full and they couldn't get a speedy trail because that too gives the appearance of being "soft on crime" (and not doing their jobs). Hence, the plea bargain system evolved to unclog the pipeline, save the taxpayer's money, and send the defendants to jail (all wildly popular with the vox populi).
Not to mention the increasing reluctance of the vox populi to actually serve on juries when called...
Plea bargains and accumulation of sentences (Score:4, Interesting)
it should be illegal via sentencing the prosecutor to the maximum sentence of the charged crime for charging someone with a crime only to inflate charges.
Yes, that'll keep prosecutors from charging anybody with anything serious... how is that good?
Lessig said it "proportionality", I think that should apply both ways.
That said plea bargains are absurd.
Either you did the crime and you do the time, or you didn't.
Maybe countries don't have plea bargains, and usually only for minor offences.
Another bug, in you system is the idea that if you're guilty of two crimes, you the sentences will be accumulated.
In many other countries, the judge must make an overall sentence based on what is fair.
Accumulated sentences is just about throwing away the key.
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While it doesn't get as absurd as you speeding for 5 minutes and getting 300 speeding tickets for each second you were over the limit (and thus your license revoked), it's still unfair.
Re:Plea bargains and accumulation of sentences (Score:5, Interesting)
I was threatened years ago by the ATF. They had nothing on me, and we both knew it, but once the feds are knocking on your door, you are in big trouble. My crime was knowing someone who was playing with small black powder pipe bombs. They tried to threaten me with ten charges at ten years a piece, for each explosion that I could be linked to. This included an accessory charge that the actual person doing the mayhem wasnt going to get, because you cant be an accessory to yourself. This is when I knew they were just playing to scare me ( it worked however , tough to play chicken with that much of your life). These 10 sentences would have been served concurrently, so my max time would have been ten years. The volume of charges would have just looked bad on my resume.
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I held tight. They wanted me to know more, and thought I knew more, but I didnt. I gave no names, and only spoke without miranda rights ( which REALLY pissed them off, as they knew I called a lawyer). They tried to play the game of "you arent a suspect and have nothing to hide". Eventually they figured out that I wasnt the guy helping the guy, I was just a guy in the dorm. I was scared as hell in front of the grand jury though.
A fun little bit that would be stupid in a hollywood script... I fell asleep in
And what are you? (Score:2)
And Internet Tough Guys sling mud on them afterwards, thinging this makes them something besides vultures. Except that real-life vultures serve a necessary function, so the comparison is unfair to the buzzards. Sorry, janitor birds.
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Lets get off the "he was innocent" kick. Swartz broke into a server closet, installed his own hardware behind MIT's firewall so he could download files he was told he was not authorized.
How many of those things was he actually indicted for?
A six month jail term was reasonable for the crimes committed.
Which crimes do you think he was charged with?
I already know the answers to these questions. You apparently do not.
Re:What he really did deserved jail time. (Score:5, Insightful)
Swartz broke into a server closet,
You're making it sound like he broke in, which is untrue. The closet was unlocked. Since you're talking semantics, this is important. That would reduce it from breaking and entering and criminal damage to trespass which carries a much smaller penalty.
so he could download files he was told he was
Irrelevant. JSTOR dropped charges.
The Swarts case was not an example of how the system is broken because the process was cut short. A six month jail term was reasonable for the crimes committed.
Isimply cannot believe the level of obtuseness displayed by your post. If you believe that threatening a man with 50 years in gaol so that he capitulates to a 6 month sentance without trial is not broken then I simply do not know how to even beginning to explain the basic concepts of justice and fairness to you.
And if you thing that 50 years is reasonable for trespass, then there is no hope.
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Excellent cop out. You can not explain it because you have no basis for your explanation. I think it is completely reasonable to tell a defendant" Look, you can plead out to charges we all know you are guilty of or we can go to court on the off chance that we make a mistake. If we go to court we will charge you with what ever we can under the law and you may be up for a lot more time. Your choice, plea to what you did or role the dice." The reason it is not broken is that no system in the world could surviv