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Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

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Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#71

Post by monochromatic »

jordanb wrote: post #40
danso wrote: post #10

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…

Honestly I don't care if she spends her nights and weekends caring for orphans and war widows. She's a politician who treated Aaron Swartz as a pawn in the political game she is playing. 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 doll…

treated Aaron Swartz as a pawn in the political game she is playing

Well, maybe. It's also entirely possible that she was just doing her job, and didn't totally understand the technical aspects of what Swartz was accused of doing.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#72

Post by Kylekramer »

w1ntermute wrote: post #66
ChuckMcM wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I don't know if it would move the copyright reform question along. Copyright is very broken in a number of ways but there is broad consensus in people I've talked to that it is especially broken with regards to public records and science research. In the best of all possible worlds Aaron would have been acquitted with a landmark decision that said "this use of copyright in rent seeking behavior on documents…

All the good she's done doesn't matter, because when you're a prosecutor, all it takes is one mistake and you've could have blood on your hands. Firing her would send a message to other prosecutors that mistakes will not be tolerated.

Who decides whether this was a mistake or not? For all we know, the "blood" may be completely unrelated to the case.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#73

Post by justiceforaaron »

This destructive person needs to be removed from office. Her illegal prosecution and harassment of Aaron Swartz is disgusting. She and the goons at the Justice Department bear the guilt for his demise. Despite this, his memory and mission live on.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#74

Post by venus »

monochromatic wrote: post #71
jordanb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I don't care if she spends her nights and weekends caring for orphans and war widows. She's a politician who treated Aaron Swartz as a pawn in the political game she is playing. 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 doll…

treated Aaron Swartz as a pawn in the political game she is playing Well, maybe. It's also entirely possible that she was just doing her job, and didn't totally understand the technical aspects of what Swartz was accused of doing.

> she was just doing her job

> didn't totally understand the technical aspects of what Swartz was accused of doing

These are quite entirely contradictory. How can you charge someone for a so-called crime you do not even understand?

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#75

Post by SoftwareMaven »

danso wrote: post #34
olefoo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

FWIW I hope the petition succeeds. It won't result in a resignation but it'll at least force an answer and an examination, if nothing else

The response, "We don't comment on anything that matters to people."

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#76

Post by jowiar »

w1ntermute wrote: post #66
ChuckMcM wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I don't know if it would move the copyright reform question along. Copyright is very broken in a number of ways but there is broad consensus in people I've talked to that it is especially broken with regards to public records and science research. In the best of all possible worlds Aaron would have been acquitted with a landmark decision that said "this use of copyright in rent seeking behavior on documents…

All the good she's done doesn't matter, because when you're a prosecutor, all it takes is one mistake and you've could have blood on your hands. Firing her would send a message to other prosecutors that mistakes will not be tolerated.

Which is a useless message to send. People make mistakes. Period. A system which is not robust to people making mistakes is disastrously broken.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#77

Post by rprasad »

Zero percent chance of this happening:

- She did her job, which is to enforce the laws as they are written.

- She is very good at doing that job.

- You will not get her fired on the basis of enforcing a law on the books where the law has not been found unconstitutional nor even had its constitutionality seriously questioned.

You want a petition that might have some value? Petition the white house to change the laws or to direct the DOJ not to enforce the law. Until either of those happens, federal prosecutors are ethically bound to continue prosecuting these cases.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#78

Post by erichocean »

erichocean wrote: post #36
pliu wrote: post #31

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

Carmen Ortiz was the person in charge of either (a) not employing people like Stephen Heymann, or (b) overseeing their activities better. 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.

BTW, here's her position on the case (via the NYT)[1]:

  Carmen M. Ortiz, a United States attorney, pressed on, 
  saying that “stealing is stealing, whether you use a 
  computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take 
  documents, data or dollars.”
i.e. she was in full support of the trial against Aaron.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/technology/aaron-swartz-in...

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#79

Post by shawn-butler »

danso wrote: post #25
john_b wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree especially with your last sentence. The torches-and-pitchforks crowd is missing the main point here. However, whether or not she is "evil" is irrelevant. She clearly went after Swartz with a self-righteous zeal that was far divorced from the seriousness of the alleged crime. I don't know if someone in the US Justice Department had beef with Swartz they wanted to settle, or if they just wanted to make an examp…

Yes, it is possible she will have to be the proxy/figurehead towards which protest is directed...but if actual reform is the goal, then it's not a bad thing to examine fully what went wrong, if possible. Her office clearly has better things to do; who was the prime mover, if not her, in directing resources to this?

MIT, the state of Massachusetts, and Steve Heymann.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#80

Post by dylanrw »

venus wrote: post #74
monochromatic wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

treated Aaron Swartz as a pawn in the political game she is playing Well, maybe. It's also entirely possible that she was just doing her job, and didn't totally understand the technical aspects of what Swartz was accused of doing.

> she was just doing her job > didn't totally understand the technical aspects of what Swartz was accused of doing These are quite entirely contradictory. How can you charge someone for a so-called crime you do not even understand?

This hits the nail on the head. If the government can form legislation in a domain, and have the power to prosecute in a domain it should completely understand said domain. Ignorance on many levels is the reason for much of the discontent and injustice occurring where government and internet coalesce.
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