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1/13 noon at MIT: Protest wrongful prosecution of Aaron Swartz

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Re: 1/13 noon at MIT: Protest wrongful prosecution of Aaron Swartz

#11

Post by doktrin »

adamnemecek wrote: post #8
arcatek wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is not saying that it is useless. He is just saying that it would have probably been far more useful to do it while he was still alive, which is sadly true. Being said, I agree that's it's a nice move.

Yeah, that is what I was trying to say. Nice gesture, sure. At the same time, I can't help but feel that it is a bit reactionary. As if it was only Aaron's suicide that made people realize that it was a gross injustice and had he not killed himself, no one would have cared.

In fairness, a lot of fairly important details did not surface until today. It was an active case, after all. It is true that a lot of the will to act has come from the catalyst of Aaron's death, but the facts were not as clearly available before (IMO).

Edit : I should add that I believe there would have been a meaningful backlash had he for some reason lost his criminal case and been sentenced to (n > 3) years in federal prison.

In hindsight, there was a great deal of empathy to be shown to an individual who was being financially and emotionally drained by the legal system. However, that's the sort of stuff that doesn't readily occur to most people (myself included).

Re: 1/13 noon at MIT: Protest wrongful prosecution of Aaron Swartz

#13

Post by AnthonyMouse »

nerdfiles wrote: post #9

I don't understand. I've downloaded articles from JSTOR, Project Muse, books on top of books, and am publicly re-hosting them through my own Dropbox, which I publicly link to on my own Website. Maybe I'm missing something here. Was he made an example? Is this the fundamental nature of the protest and the outrage, that we perceive that he was made an example of, that we are aware, and that it is unfair, in some essent…

If I had to name the cause of the outrage, it is that the charges were so disproportional to the alleged offense that it drove a good man to suicide. If he had been charged with an offense for which the penalty was proportionate to what he is alleged to have done, e.g. a misdemeanor with a $500 fine or a fortnight in jail, I have to imagine that there would be very little protesting going on, and for that matter that he would still be alive. But they decided they had to break him, and they did, so here we are.

Re: 1/13 noon at MIT: Protest wrongful prosecution of Aaron Swartz

#15

Post by untog »

[deleted] wrote: post #12

[deleted]

I want to take this opportunity to talk about myself. And to those who might say that I'm using Aaron's death to further my self promotion, show me a post where he says I'm not awesome.

..you need to look up the definition of "burden of proof", possibly in conjunction with "social norms".

Re: 1/13 noon at MIT: Protest wrongful prosecution of Aaron Swartz

#16

Post by nerdfiles »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #13
nerdfiles wrote: post #9

I don't understand. I've downloaded articles from JSTOR, Project Muse, books on top of books, and am publicly re-hosting them through my own Dropbox, which I publicly link to on my own Website. Maybe I'm missing something here. Was he made an example? Is this the fundamental nature of the protest and the outrage, that we perceive that he was made an example of, that we are aware, and that it is unfair, in some essent…

If I had to name the cause of the outrage, it is that the charges were so disproportional to the alleged offense that it drove a good man to suicide. If he had been charged with an offense for which the penalty was proportionate to what he is alleged to have done, e.g. a misdemeanor with a $500 fine or a fortnight in jail, I have to imagine that there would be very little protesting going on, and for that matter that…

I'm just going to state this, as statefully as I can, without trying to be sensationalist. Everyone I come across these days insist on calling me "schizophrenic" or "paranoid" or what have you:

But "Marshall Law", as I understand it, is _more or less_ in effect, and a lot of people are talking about Obama's UAVs and whatever it is they do. (I know it was repealed. But you get what I mean. We're all consuming roughly the same information; so can we just bootstrap past the facts, please? I don't want to play semantics, pedantics, or any kind of fact-checking game.)

So I must ask: Is this a civil war? When do we call it that? 100 years ago, it meant having a militia or something of that order. Now we all play slapstick at our keyboards and write "modules" and pentests. Is it possible to call a spade a spade?

I'm asking seriously here. Every week I have to stop and ask myself, "Should I read the news? Will there be another episode or thread of death that I'll have to keep track of on account of something our government did?"

I really do appreciate Mr. Schwartz efforts and work. But this country is taking heavy demoralizing blows every week.

Beating someone down who isn't trained or prepared to fight is a different matter from beating down leaders, ideologues, activitists, and fighters. It seems like this country, our communities, are being served heavy blows, in much the same way the U.S. demoralizes the "Middle East" with its extended arm of Social/Big Media.

Re: 1/13 noon at MIT: Protest wrongful prosecution of Aaron Swartz

#17

Post by [deleted] »

untog wrote: post #15
[deleted] wrote: post #12

[deleted]

I want to take this opportunity to talk about myself. And to those who might say that I'm using Aaron's death to further my self promotion, show me a post where he says I'm not awesome. ..you need to look up the definition of "burden of proof", possibly in conjunction with "social norms".

[deleted]

Re: 1/13 noon at MIT: Protest wrongful prosecution of Aaron Swartz

#19

Post by AnthonyMouse »

nerdfiles wrote: post #16
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had to name the cause of the outrage, it is that the charges were so disproportional to the alleged offense that it drove a good man to suicide. If he had been charged with an offense for which the penalty was proportionate to what he is alleged to have done, e.g. a misdemeanor with a $500 fine or a fortnight in jail, I have to imagine that there would be very little protesting going on, and for that matter that…

I'm just going to state this, as statefully as I can, without trying to be sensationalist. Everyone I come across these days insist on calling me "schizophrenic" or "paranoid" or what have you: But "Marshall Law", as I understand it, is _more or less_ in effect, and a lot of people are talking about Obama's UAVs and whatever it is they do. (I know it was repealed. But you get what I mean. We're all consuming roughly…

I don't know if you can call it a civil war when only one side has a military. There are no defined "sides" even. Not everyone in government or politics is a bad guy -- look at Sen. Wyden or Rep. Lofgren, for example.

It's almost like the internal struggle we all face in our own lives. Doing the right thing is hard, doing the wrong thing is convenient. So the people we have running our government are human, they pick the wrong thing sometimes. Most of the time they probably don't even realize they're acting like the bad guys. People can rationalize anything.

What we have to do is to stop them when they do wrong. The check on the common criminal is law enforcement. The check on law enforcement is Congress. The check on Congress is the people.

We the people need to do our job.

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