31–40 of 251 posts
"It wasn't Carmen Ortiz that hounded Aaron to death, it was Steve Heymann. And the system that helped him do it: that was all of us." https://twitter.com/quinnnorton/status/290204205124304896
And Tim Carmody:
"FWIW, Carmen Ortiz just runs the US Attorney's office in MA. Stephen Heymann is the Assistant US Attorney going hard after Aaron Swartz." https://twitter.com/tcarmody/status/290192055488094209
Some more context about the prosecutor: She was named "Bostonian of the Year" for her successful cases against mob bosses and drug companies: http://www.mainjustice.com/2012/01/03/massachusetts-u-s-atto... Out of the 94 U.S. DA offices, her office alone collected ~67% of the total criminal and civil fines in 2012, mostly owing to the successful prosecution of drug companies. Her success led to speculation that she wo…
Thanks for posting this. The rest of this thread is ready to throw someone under the bus that they know nothing about.
Suicide is a terrible short term solution. There are better solutions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not the argument here. The argument is that there may be some other specific point to apply activism towards. She is the head of her office but this is clearly not the most important case at the top of her caseload. It could've been a subordinate who made the calls and had the delegated authority. Technically, President Obama has the power to install and remove U.S. attorneys at his discretion. Should we start…
I'm the author of the petition, so allow me to explain my thinking; and why I don't expect Ms. Ortiz to lose her job over this. 1. Obama appointed her, and by many metrics she is doing a good job. 2. The DOJ under Holder is anything but Liberal in it's outlook, a DOJ that's onboard with killing civilians who are American citizens without requiring even a closed hearing from a judge does not care what you think about…
Some more context about the prosecutor: She was named "Bostonian of the Year" for her successful cases against mob bosses and drug companies: http://www.mainjustice.com/2012/01/03/massachusetts-u-s-atto... Out of the 94 U.S. DA offices, her office alone collected ~67% of the total criminal and civil fines in 2012, mostly owing to the successful prosecution of drug companies. Her success led to speculation that she wo…
I see a lot of parallels between his struggle to enforce pornography laws with the current struggle to enforce copyright laws. These situations seem to arise when there is a fundamental disconnect between what "the people" think and what "the system" thinks. "The system" is represented by a codified set of strictures that are put in place by a variety of people representing what they assert are the best interests of "the people." Whereas the people themselves, act in what they consider a rational way given their understanding of or perhaps agreement to, the laws of the land. Finally our system of laws are a combination of written text, and argued cases, and the sum of those is an emergent thing thought of as public policy. When the rational acting people don't consent to the public policy, there is a rash of disobedience, and whether it is alcohol, porn, or copyright, the process of emerging to a consensus is challenging at best.
One possible explanation for the zeal in which this case was pursued may be the lack of confounding factors with respect to copyright infringement, as codified by law. I don't know of course so this is just speculation. Having a clear, published, decision on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of what Aaron was doing might have been seen as a way to clear up a confusing pile of statutes and other decisions. An unambiguous marker between fair use and infringement, or perhaps a litmus test for intent. We'll probably never know.
Quinn Norton: "It wasn't Carmen Ortiz that hounded Aaron to death, it was Steve Heymann. And the system that helped him do it: that was all of us." https://twitter.com/quinnnorton/status/290204205124304896 And Tim Carmody: "FWIW, Carmen Ortiz just runs the US Attorney's office in MA. Stephen Heymann is the Assistant US Attorney going hard after Aaron Swartz." https://twitter.com/tcarmody/status/290192055488094209
Of course, Stephen Heymann should also bear the blame. But we don't help society when we refuse to find those in charge responsible for the things they actually are responsible for.
Some more context about the prosecutor: She was named "Bostonian of the Year" for her successful cases against mob bosses and drug companies: http://www.mainjustice.com/2012/01/03/massachusetts-u-s-atto... Out of the 94 U.S. DA offices, her office alone collected ~67% of the total criminal and civil fines in 2012, mostly owing to the successful prosecution of drug companies. Her success led to speculation that she wo…
While Cameron Ortiz' actions towards Aaron Swartz were unjust, I think that she is receiving an unduly large share of the ire, and as a result, several other agents and factors in this scenario are receiving an unduly small share. While I don't particularly want to defend her, I believe that a) justice is never served well by a lynch mob b) other actors are more deserving of blame , and by focusing on Ortiz we give t…
In this case Aaron stuck a laptop in an unlocked closet, used curl to download lots of links, and did absolutely nothing to hide his tracks because he did not think he was doing anything wrong.
She looked at the facts, and decided to press forward with charges regardless when she had more important things she could have focused on instead, and when the company whose documents were "stolen" (and never distributed) wanted to drop charges. Why?
Some more context about the prosecutor: She was named "Bostonian of the Year" for her successful cases against mob bosses and drug companies: http://www.mainjustice.com/2012/01/03/massachusetts-u-s-atto... Out of the 94 U.S. DA offices, her office alone collected ~67% of the total criminal and civil fines in 2012, mostly owing to the successful prosecution of drug companies. Her success led to speculation that she wo…
My Grandfather, who was the US Attorney for west Memphis, once explained that prosecuting the law was messy. It was messy because there was rarely a case which hinged on exactly one part of the law or that had circumstances that nicely isolated the principle at stake. He was talking about pornography, and the difficulty of a general consensus that pornography was "bad" and should be outlawed, with the challenge of de…
Some more context about the prosecutor: She was named "Bostonian of the Year" for her successful cases against mob bosses and drug companies: http://www.mainjustice.com/2012/01/03/massachusetts-u-s-atto... Out of the 94 U.S. DA offices, her office alone collected ~67% of the total criminal and civil fines in 2012, mostly owing to the successful prosecution of drug companies. Her success led to speculation that she wo…
No doubt she intended for her campaign for governor to describe her as a "staunch defender of intellectual property rights" who, as prosecutor, put a "dangerous hacker behind bars" for "breaking into MIT and stealing millions of dollars of federally funded research."
The Obama administration has thrown better people than her out the airlock because they became political liabilities. We need to add a new rule to the political rulebook that she's playing by. Ending her career is necessary to send a lesson to every other prosecutor who sees a guy like Aaron the way a housecat sees a cornered rat.