From the LA Times
Aaron Swartz suicide has U.S. lawmakers scrutinizing prosecutors

Gary, you stated " If they broke the law I expect them to receive the punishment that the law states." Sure just like the bankers at HBSC who by their money laundering were helping to finance wars against your govt. The height of hypocrisy from the prosecutors.

Care to look up the specific of that law? Cite should be in the form of Title ## Sec #### United States Code, or ## Part ## Code of Federal Regulations. Then look for the part that states the punishment. You may be surprised.

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Gary, you stated " If they broke the law I expect them to receive the punishment that the law states." Sure just like the bankers at HBSC who by their money laundering were helping to finance wars against your govt. The height of hypocrisy from the prosecutors.

Money talks, Truth walks!

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Gary, you stated " If they broke the law I expect them to receive the punishment that the law states." Sure just like the bankers at HBSC who by their money laundering were helping to finance wars against your govt. The height of hypocrisy from the prosecutors.

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is not understood?

... Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Even when the prosecution is taken to such ridiculous excess as to become persecution and victimization for something so trivial?...

That is what jury nullification is for.

So, you advocate chopping the hands off all shoplifters?

That is the penalty under sharia law. If I did that crime where that law applied, yes I would expect it.

To be consistent, what do you advocate for the bankers that recently profited grandly from gaming the system whilst betraying hard working lay people to an impoverished pension?...

Are the games they played illegal or just immoral? Immoral is punished by god if you believe in one. Illegal is punished by law. If they broke the law I expect them to receive the punishment that the law states.

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is not understood?

... Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Even when the prosecution is taken to such ridiculous excess as to become persecution and victimization for something so trivial?...


So, you advocate chopping the hands off all shoplifters? To be consistent, what do you advocate for the bankers that recently profited grandly from gaming the system whilst betraying hard working lay people to an impoverished pension?...


Only in the USA? And Canada?

Disgusted!
Martin

---

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is not understood?

Ah, so if you call the cops for a B&E but when they arrive they find a dead body you are saying they shouldn't be able to do anything about the dead body. Makes perfect sense.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

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So, for all the trolling on this, which bit of:

Obama's Justice Department is Cruel and Vindictive.

Here in Boston, the news is more disturbing. This was originally a local matter for MIT security and Boston police. It was a simple illegal entry violation for breaking and entering into an MIT storage closet where he had his laptop stashed, ...

Swartz would have gotten off with a slap on the wrist, maybe a fine. But then...

... Six months later, Obama's Justice Department tripled the intimidation with a 13-count indictment. The Boston Globe reported that the DOJ was pushing for the full 35-year sentence.

These journals were paid for by Federal grants, and BY LAW must be freely available. ...

is not understood?

So, you are all advocating chopping off someone's ears for the felony of 'ripping' a music cd so that you can listen to the music via mp3?


If any would care to look a little further: JSTOR is given all the academic material for 'free'. It is a charity to offer easier access and search facilities to the academic papers. That search service is paid for by the universities themselves. There's a little murkiness in how some publications outside of JSTOR insist on draconian 'copyright' restrictions on the academic papers they have been given!

Regardless of the tangential arguments, the bare facts are that we have a victim who was intimidated with charges totaling 50+ years in jail and a multimillion dollar fine, and had already been bankrupted by months of legal persecution, for a 'crime' that wasn't even theft. He was traumatized enough to kill himself.

The only apparent crime appears to be that of "breaking and entry" into closet!


So... In the USA you must chop your hands off lest you dare type anything? Rip out your tongue also lest you speak out of turn?


All just my own random personal opinions as must be the case...

Disgusted,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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Isn't this a case of differing meanings of the same word.

Academic papers should be freely (or openly) available, but that does not mean they should be free (as in $0.00).

edit] Cause if they were not available, how would you know I had already discovered the cure for Stupidity, several years ago. And you cannot find a cure it is like flu an ever moving target, they just keep making "better" idiots.

In our system even if one is acquitted you have lost. The cost of defense is quite impressive even if no crime is found.

You have the right to an attorney if you can not afford one

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

More correctly, don't be accused as the adversarial system of justice will do it's best to ensure you can't afford it. That explains many plea deals. AS for public defenders, most have a case load that precludes any competent defense.

Which is why said cases should automaticaly be appealed.

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[/quote]

Old James

In our system even if one is acquitted you have lost. The cost of defense is quite impressive even if no crime is found.

You have the right to an attorney if you can not afford one

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

More correctly, don't be accused as the adversarial system of justice will do it's best to ensure you can't afford it. That explains many plea deals. AS for public defenders, most have a case load that precludes any competent defense.

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Which led me to ask right up front ^ if the stuff was copyrighted. It seems it was.

No matter how you stack it, The man did wrong!. What he deemed free access was not.

So lets say I was working on a privately funded reasearch project for finding a cure for stupidity. Ive found the cure and have copyrighted and or patented my material. And Joe Shumck rips open my filing cabinet and or breaks into my computer and copys the files. YOU DONT THINK THATS A CRIME?

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[/quote]

Old James

In our system even if one is acquitted you have lost. The cost of defense is quite impressive even if no crime is found.

You have the right to an attorney if you can not afford one

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

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For the sake of academic papers that are supposed to be publicly available in the first place!

Says Martin and Swartz. US Copyright Office certified they were not publicly available. Penal code says you don't use someone's computer without permission. Martin, do you want unauthorized use on your computer?

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Is JStor free?

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

the Publisher Sales Service

Not so free.

Authorized Users' use of JSTOR implies no rights to Intellectual Property ...
JSTOR is relying on fair use under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act, educational exceptions

Very copyrighted.


Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

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For the sake of academic papers that are supposed to be publicly available in the first place!

Says Martin and Swartz. US Copyright Office certified they were not publicly available. Penal code says you don't use someone's computer without permission. Martin, do you want unauthorized use on your computer?

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Is JStor free?

In our system even if one is acquitted you have lost. The cost of defense is quite impressive even if no crime is found.

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http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz

we must be careful stewards of the information entrusted to us by the owners and creators of that content.

Sounds to me like the material is covered by copyright and not freely available!

Some fail to understand what a jury trial is. Perhaps in their country the prosecutor's word is the final say. Not so in the USA. Here the prosecutor has to prove the case to the jury and juries are free to nullify. If the prosecutor overcharges they run the risk the jury will nullify in disgust. If they undercharge they are doing the people a disservice.

Martin says he broke and entered a cabinet. Under most state penal codes that is FELONY burglary and will net you around a five year sentence.

Contrast that with the six month MISDEMEANOR sentence that he was offered in a plea agreement.

BTW a misdemeanor conviction doesn't automatically bar you from professional status jobs such as corporate boards or professional licenses.

Ask any con if they would rather serve time in a state pen or a federal pen.

When you go out and do an act of civil disobedience there may be consequences. They government may set the dogs lose on you. (Ask about Selma.) Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.


I more wonder if there is a malpractice case in this against his lawyer for not explaining how the system works and allowing him to become overly concerned with the big numbers which always get lower. Either the judge throws stuff out of the prosecution does because it realizes as it preps its case for the jury it doesn't have the evidence.

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Petition on the White House's website to fire Ortiz


Similar petition aimed at Heymann



A shamefully sorry affair.


Only in the usa? (Not deserving of uppercase letters for this one.)

Disgusted,
Martin


All merely my own person opinions as always.

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Ferociously damning and Damned?


Carmen Ortiz and Stephen Heymann: accountability for prosecutorial abuse

... The Wall Street Journal reported this week that - two days before the 26-year-old activist killed himself on Friday - federal prosecutors again rejected a plea bargain offer from Swartz's lawyers that would have kept him out of prison. They instead demanded that he "would need to plead guilty to every count" and made clear that "the government would insist on prison time". That made a trial on all 15 felony counts - with the threat of a lengthy prison sentence if convicted - a virtual inevitability. ...

... meaning "the sentence could conceivably total 50+ years and [a] fine in the area of $4 million." That meant, as Think Progress documented, that Swartz faced "a more severe prison term than killers, slave dealers and bank robbers".

Swartz's girlfriend, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, told the WSJ that the case had drained all of his money and he could not afford to pay for a trial. At Swartz's funeral in Chicago on Tuesday, his father flatly stated that his son "was killed by the government".

Ortiz and Heymann continue to refuse to speak publicly about what they did in this case...

... Clearly, the politically ambitious Ortiz - who was touted just last month by the Boston Globe as a possible Democratic candidate for governor...


To my mind, this is starting to look like a murder inquiry over trumped up charges for the sake of a petty politics career jump by fatal victimization.

A shamefully sorry affair.


Only in the usa? (Not deserving of uppercase letters for this one.)

Disgusted,
Martin


All merely my own person opinions as always.

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

... Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

So let's see past your Hang 'em Judge Jeffreys rhetoric:


Fans of dead data 'liberator' Swartz press Obama to sack prosecutor

A new online petition has called for the firing of US attorney Carmen Ortiz for pursuing Aaron Swartz with charges that could have put him in prison for at least three decades.

Meanwhile, Democrat congresswoman Zoe Lofgren has drawn up a new bill called "Aaron's Law" to amend the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act used to prosecute Swartz until his death last week.

Internet prodigy Swartz, 26, took his life on Friday in the midst of a lengthy computer fraud case against him. The charges were brought after he copied 4.8 million scientific articles from the nonprofit journal archive JSTOR to allegedly redistribute online.

In the days after he was found dead at his New York home on Friday, Swartz's family said their son's suicide was "the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach".

Now Lofgren has announced on Reddit, the immensely popular discussion website Swartz helped build, her intention to put forward Aaron's Law. The bill aims to tighten up the Act's definition of fraud.

"There’s no way to reverse the tragedy of Aaron’s death, but we can work to prevent a repeat of the abuses of power he experienced," she wrote.

"The government was able to bring such disproportionate charges against Aaron because of the broad scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the wire fraud statute. ...

"Using the law in this way could criminalise many everyday activities and allow for outlandishly severe penalties." ...


Various of the comments to that article make for interesting reading:

what I find bizzare

is that JSTOR (the aggrieved party) actually urged the prosecutor to drop the charges. I understand why the state has the right to prosecute without the consent of the aggrieved but cases such as this make me wonder for a moment if that shouldn't be changed.


Re: what I find bizzare

That prosecutor must have thought that "making an example" of somebody famous, in a Corporate America friendly sort of way, would make for a cracking career move.


Re: Time to get real

"10-30 years in prison and fines/legal fees that would bankrupt J.R. Eweing is utterly disproportionate. Aaron Swartz wasn't a serial rapist, murderer or child molester - any of whch might deserve such punishment. He was a misguided guy who broke the law."

But hacking and/or copyright infringment is a far more serious crime than rape, murder or child molestation...


So...

It had to take Swartz offing himself for someone to actually propose limiting the CFAA so that something exaggerated like this doesn't happen. I hope it doesn't take, say, Jammie Thomas suiciding as well for copyright maddness to be fixed as well!

Something's wrong when distributing files earns 30 in the slammer + millions in fines, and songs cost $10k each.


More info and opinions here on Aaron Swartz case

Folks,

In order to hear some more valid viewpoints on Aaron's so called crime, you should probably read some of the articles here: http://boingboing.net/tag/aaronsw particularly those written by Cory Doctorow and here: http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartzs-crime/

That page is by Alex Stamos who is well known in the cybersecurity business and who was going to testify on Aaron Swartz behalf in his trial.

In his considered opinion, there was no crime of trespass, nothing was "stolen" and Aaron even returned the documents he had downloaded back to JSTOR who dropped the charges and the Fed's continued the prosecution even though without Jstor pressing charges there can be no further prosecution.

MIT's network (wired or wireless) was open to all just like free wifi so there was no trespass.

The Fed's wanted a guilty verdict and the piled on the charges threatening him with sentencing up to 35 years in prison if he did not accept a "guilty" plea of 33 charges but only 6 months in jail.

This is a common tactic in the US justice system where the cost (both mental and monetary) of fighting such a case will take a toll on the plaintiff to the point where they usually capitulate and take a guilty plea just to be rid of the problem.

The trouble is that people of principles like Aaron usually don't want to be tagged as guilty when they believe they are not guilty. This wore him down financially and mentally until something broke and he committed suicide.



Meanwhile, a little sooth saying and backtracking by the prosecutors now accused?

"us_attorney_defends_swartz_prosecution":
Swartz prosecutor: We only pushed for six months in the cooler

US attorney Carmen Ortiz, who led the fraud case against Aaron Swartz until his suicide last week, has defended her prosecution of the internet prodigy. ...

... Swartz faced 13 felony charges including counts of wire fraud, computer fraud and recklessly damaging a protected computer, which could cumulatively carry a sentence of more than 30 years.

The federal attorney's statement, the first time she's been drawn to comment on Swartz's death, also offered her sympathies to his family and friends.

"I know that there is little I can say to abate the anger felt by those who believe that this office’s prosecution of Mr Swartz was unwarranted and somehow led to the tragic result of him taking his own life," she said.


And a few comments from that article for what to me appear to be career damage limitation crocodile tears:

They can say what they want and try to defend themselves over the case.

You take your victim as you find them, Swartz became the victim in this, but these prosecutors have skin thicker than battleship armour.

Sadly it is unlikely they will be tormented by this.


Obama's Justice Department is Cruel and Vindictive.

Here in Boston, the news is more disturbing. This was originally a local matter for MIT security and Boston police. It was a simple illegal entry violation for breaking and entering into an MIT storage closet where he had his laptop stashed,.

Swartz would have gotten off with a slap on the wrist, maybe a fine. But then...

... Six months later, Obama's Justice Department tripled the intimidation with a 13-count indictment. The Boston Globe reported that the DOJ was pushing for the full 35-year sentence.

These journals were paid for by Federal grants, and BY LAW must be freely available. ...


Re: @AC 16:49

How can it be fair when innocent people are effectively forced into pleading guilty as the between the cost of defending yourself (forget the public defenders) and the sentences being so ridiculous. ...


@Fibbles - Re: Prosecutor not to blame

What crime ? We was entitled to download those articles but he did it too fast instead of downloading one at the time. MIT has a liberal access policy allowing anyone free access to these documents without any authentication all you need is to walk on their campus and plug your laptop into their network. Is this a crime which deserves 30 years in prison ? This is exactly what prosecution did, they ignored all this evidence and went for the harshest punishments. ...


Some words

US Attorney Ortiz "makes clear" that she decides what is reasonable and appropriate for her office and staff to do. Not you. So take your public outcry about injustice and stuff it. "I've looked into it and found that, after further review, I did the right thing."



So... In the USA you must chop your hands off lest you dare type anything? Rip out your tongue also lest you speak out of turn?


All just my own random personal opinions as must be the case...

Disgusted,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)