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Prosecutor as bully

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Re: Prosecutor as bully

#71
post #18

From the article: For in the 18 months of negotiations, that was what he was not willing to accept, and so that was the reason he was facing a million dollar trial in April — his wealth bled dry, yet unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his defense, at least without risking the ire of a district court judge. Remember, this was on HN just a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?…

> Edited to add: many people in this thread want to name and shame the individual prosecutor in this case. That is seriously misdirected effort that is not going to solve the systemic problems

Disagree. Ostracizing and shaming everyone who supports such tactics is the reasonable way to mitigate this crap. Ostracizing and shaming worked for the civil rights movement, it can work here too.

Re: Prosecutor as bully

#72
post #54
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naming and shaming Carmen M. Ortiz for destroying the life of a young man is exactly what is necessary. She brought 13 felony counts against him for downloading articles that should be freely available, after JSTOR itself had dropped the charges. Destroying her career and seeing her fired in disgrace will send a message to all other overzealous prosecutors, in the same way that she surely thought her prosecution of S…

How do we go about getting this message across to her and other key people (legally)? I'm interested in helping.

It's obviously very important to stay on the bright white side of legal here, as we are dealing with a prosecutorial bully. Emailing her directly is unlikely to produce results and likely to get your name on some kind of terrorist watch list. But going to her superiors and the Boston media to call for her resignation in disgrace over an overzealous prosecution is the right tactic.

0) Start with background: http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/meetattorney.html

Looks pretty senior. Runs the federal government's DOJ office in Massachussetts, with an office of 200 people. By no means the SecDef or anything, but senior enough that serious pressure will need to be brought to bear.

How to do this?

1) Research her past cases and start blogging them/analyzing them. Almost certainly she has a history of extremely aggressive prosecutions. Find any statements from her on this or past cases that are factually inaccurate; highly likely as we are talking about a technical matter where "series of tubes" comments are likely. By the end of this you will have a profile. Perhaps you can show that she disproportionately pursues excessive sentences, or perhaps you can show that she makes technical mistakes about the internet. There are few records that will stand up to deep critical scrutiny. Maybe a bit of statistics to see if she is an outlier relative to other US Attorneys or to her immediate predecessor.

2) Go to LinkedIn. Find your closest contact at the Boston Globe. Work with them to write a story on Ortiz. Tell them they are the only ones that can do it. It is important to actually get a reporter to get Youtube video of Ortiz either answering questions or running from them, as they have much more license to get in the face of a US Attorney. A guy on the street who tries Michael Moore-ing Ortiz with an ambush interview on her way to work is likely to get cuffed for harassing a peace officer or something.

3) Repeat the above step for anyone in Boston with a media credential. A good step is to find anyone who has gotten Ortiz on the record before, e.g. Elizabeth Murphy from the Boston Herald (http://www.mainjustice.com/2013/01/07/mass-u-s-attorney-carm...). Tell them the truth, which is that only the press can hold a prosecutor like this accountable. They need to push for quotes on the record and press conferences, and ask over and over whether she believes her actions were right and her conduct was justified.

4) Determine who her technical superiors are. These are the people in DOJ who are above her on the org chart:

http://www.justice.gov/agencies/index-org.html

Looks like US Attorneys report to the Deputy Attorney General (James Cole), who reports to the Attorney General (Holder), who reports to Obama. A direct top-down attack is going to be tough as these are national figures.

5) Determine who her political superiors are. This is a much broader list. Everyone from the mayor of Boston to the governor of Massachusetts to both MA Senators to the chair of the MA Democratic party can take a swing here. Those are all players within the MA political establishment that she needs to listen to. Might be obvious, but it's critical (and easy) to make the case to other Democrats, as Swartz was a Democratic activist and this was truly blue-on-blue violence (though Ortiz is hardly a "Democrat" in the sense of mercy and fairness). Undercutting her political support and making her realize she has no more political friends in the world will cause her big problems.

6) Relatedly, go through the press and make a list of everyone who has ever endorsed her in public for anything, from the local Latino/a groups to the people who got her on Obama's shortlist to the local Democratic politicians. Call them up, explain that her overzealous prosecution led to the suicide of a 26 year old computer wizard (and Obama activist!), and ask them on the record whether they will support her for higher office. Ask them whether Ortiz shoudl resign. Blog this, with SEO for the headline: "X declines to support Carmen M. Ortiz for further office." or "Y calls on Carmen M. Ortiz to resign for spurious prosecution of Aaron Swartz."

7) Asymmetric warfare. This one is not illegal, but you would want one of your law school friends who worked in the US Attorney's office or in the press to do it (especially the latter as they will have some immunity). The concept is to interview as many of the 200 people in the MA Attorney's office as possible to determine how many of them feel good about these events, think Ortiz was in the right, or feel like Ortiz has been a good leader. It is quite possible that someone will describe a political or even personal scandal known only to subordinates or immediate associates. An Eliot-Spitzer-Client-9 level scandal uncovered in this fashion would absolutely knock her out of the ring, though it wouldn't be as satisfying as seeing her forced to step down for pursuing this case. But getting Capone for tax evasion is still getting Capone.

8) Swartz's friends. Anyone who has blogged or written about this case is someone who can likely be counted on to amplify the messages above and keep the pressure on.

EDIT: Aha. Looks like this same person went after online gambling under UIGEA to "send a message".

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Editorial-comment-UIGEA-last-...

Re: Prosecutor as bully

#73
But anyone who says that there is money to be made in a stash of ACADEMIC ARTICLES is either an idiot or a liar.

Elsevier, Springer, Pearson et al. beg to differ. Which is probably the basis for the overdiligent prosecution.

Re: Prosecutor as bully

#74
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree naming and shaming is a good idea. It puts a name and a face to the story... not just some nebulous "the system is broken." People need a narrative to humanize the situation and it can serve as a warning to other prosecutors.

Yes...as much as hacker-minded people want to think that it's about the data (which I won't argue that it isn't ), things happen because of individual stories. Rosa Parks was not the first person to be denied a seat on a bus. The mishandling of rape cases has been a problem in India for a long time and it took the tragic case of the (so far, anonymous) woman who was brutally gang-raped to spur international furor. An…

I was actually thinking about Rosa Parks when I made that comment. The reason that Rosa Parks became a well known civil rights figure was because she was well known and liked, not because she was the first... Just like Aaron

Re: Prosecutor as bully

#75
post #3

if what the government alleged was true — and I say “if” because I am not revealing what Aaron said to me then — then what he did was wrong. And if not legally wrong, then at least morally wrong. Morally wrong to download taxpayer-funded research? I'm sorry Larry, you lost me. More on the academic publishing "industry": http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/22/academic-pu...

The research might be paid for by tax-payers money but journals aren't, they cost significant amounts of money to run (it typically takes a decade before a journal builds enough of a reputation to break even).

You could argue publicly funded researchers shouldn't submit to non-open journals, but that's not an argument for depriving publishers renumeration for the work they've done. The profit margin for both closed and open-access journals is typically around 20% (for some of the top-tier journals it goes upto 30%) - except with open-access journals it really is the taxpayer who is paying for the publication as the author's institution typically picks up the cost (as opposed to non-open journal where the cost is distributed among customers of the journal).

Re: Prosecutor as bully

#76
post #46
post #18

From the article: For in the 18 months of negotiations, that was what he was not willing to accept, and so that was the reason he was facing a million dollar trial in April — his wealth bled dry, yet unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his defense, at least without risking the ire of a district court judge. Remember, this was on HN just a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?…

Naming and shaming Carmen M. Ortiz for destroying the life of a young man is exactly what is necessary. She brought 13 felony counts against him for downloading articles that should be freely available, after JSTOR itself had dropped the charges. Destroying her career and seeing her fired in disgrace will send a message to all other overzealous prosecutors, in the same way that she surely thought her prosecution of S…

> Naming and shaming Carmen M. Ortiz for destroying the life of a young man is exactly what is necessary

Agreed. She should lose her friends and family too, if they are good people. They should drop her out of their lives.

Re: Prosecutor as bully

#78
post #70
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naming and shaming Carmen M. Ortiz for destroying the life of a young man is exactly what is necessary. She brought 13 felony counts against him for downloading articles that should be freely available, after JSTOR itself had dropped the charges. Destroying her career and seeing her fired in disgrace will send a message to all other overzealous prosecutors, in the same way that she surely thought her prosecution of S…

Or, you know, you could just call your local Congressperson and complain. This is far more likely to have a direct impact on her job (performance of, or continued employment) than some random internet "naming and shaming." It is also far more likely to bring about the structural changes necessary to prevent this from happening again. ...as they have disabled the voice of the people by routing around jury trials. Aaro…

> Or, you know, you could just call your local Congressperson and complain.

Almost certainly zero impact for this. Easily ignored. The prosecutor in this case, however, probably could not easily ignore her friends and family dumping her.

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