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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

#201

Post by shiven »

rgbrenner wrote: post #198
btilly wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is that every prosecutor faces too many possible cases to actually pursue, and so has to choose which ones to focus on. A prosecutor may try to be neutral, but the basic act of triage forces you to show your biases. 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.…

"did absolutely nothing to hide his tracks" Rewriting history to fit your own narrative helps no one. He did plenty to hide his tracks: 1) when he connected the laptop to MITs network, he used a fake name (Gary Host/Grace Host) 2) when his MAC was banned by MIT, he changed it 3) he used his helmet to hide his face from a camera when he accessed MITs networking closet 4) he hid the laptop in the closet underneath a ca…

... and just how or why does all of that justify 35 yrs in jail and 10^6 USD in fines?

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#202

Post by chalst »

shiven wrote: post #112
lutze wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the point vis a vis "fix the machine, not the person". The tactics described in the petition are ingrained in the US justice system. Getting rid of a single prosecutor isn't going to change a damn thing because the injustices are systemic, not the product of a vindictive individual. Like Aaron said, shouting at the gears isn't going to fix the machine.

Like Aaron said, shouting at the gears isn't going to fix the machine. But excising the broken, unfit, insidiously malicious gear from the machine will make said machine one gear short of harming the innocent-until-proven-guilty.

broken, unfit, insidiously malicious gear

Ortiz comes across to me as a better than average human being who did something evil because she seems to have been morally confused about something. I don't think Ortiz is, say, as bad as Kissinger.

Maybe the evil justifies the revenge of removing Ortiz. But this petition striking me as an exercise in nastiness. Wouldn't an official, public reprimand be better?

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#203

Post by PrudenceYuris »

rprasad wrote: post #77

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 o…

Her political ambitions, professional contact network, and post-DoJ employment prospects could be destroyed, costing her millions of dollars in income. Same for Heymann.

Knowing that hundreds of thousands of people in an industry they interface with would fuck them over given a chance must be a bit depressing.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#204

Post by ThinkAboutIt »

All of you who want to minimize what Aaron Schwartz did and lead a pitchfork mob against a prosecutor are misguided little spinsters. Lest you forget that he was caught on security cameras breaking into the a server room with a bike helmet covering his face. He knew he was breaking the law. He was caught. The heroic part of his action was the very fact that he knew he was breaking the law and still did it in the name of free access to knowledge. Anybody who says that he killed himself because of prosecutorial overreach it taking away from the significance of his action. No, he was being prosecuted because he committed a crime. He committed a crime because he did not agree with the law. The problem is the law, not the person enforcing the law. And if any of you had the capability to have an independent thought not shaped by emotion or group-think you would realize this.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#206

Post by dantheman »

edouard1234567 wrote: post #97
dantheman wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree, when people realize the risk is personal they'll take care to make sure what they're doing is right. Just following orders is never a valid excuse. Of course we should stop with the prosecutor we should continue on to try and fix the machine, but at the very least if prosecutors know they're responsible for their actions it'll add an additional check to the system.

I think you meant -> "we SHOULDN'T" stop with the prosecutor.

yep, my mistake.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#207

Post by rgbrenner »

shiven wrote: post #201
rgbrenner wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"did absolutely nothing to hide his tracks" Rewriting history to fit your own narrative helps no one. He did plenty to hide his tracks: 1) when he connected the laptop to MITs network, he used a fake name (Gary Host/Grace Host) 2) when his MAC was banned by MIT, he changed it 3) he used his helmet to hide his face from a camera when he accessed MITs networking closet 4) he hid the laptop in the closet underneath a ca…

... and just how or why does all of that justify 35 yrs in jail and 10^6 USD in fines?

I never said it did. We can debate about whether he's innocent or not; what sentence he deserves (if he's guilty); what tactics are ok by the justice dept; whether his activities should be illegal at all; etc, etc, etc.

But the things we do know about what happened, that are not an individuals opinion... we don't get to change those just to make it more convenient to create the narrative we want.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#208

Post by JPKab »

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…

I had the misfortune of having a wannabe-politician as prosecutor going after me. She didn't care that I was a first time offender, and she could care less about the destruction to my profession and my ability to support my family. I was lucky enough to have a judge who had the sense to realize what was going on, and a lawyer who, due to the simplicity of the case, didn't bankrupt me. I'll never forget looking into the prosecutors eyes as she treated me like anything but a human being, and tried to needlessly destroy my life. Had she succeeded in her stated goals, I would have lost my job at a time when I couldn't possibly afford to. My consequences for my infant son and stay-at-home wife gave her zero pause, but thankfully the judge saw me as a human being, and was intelligent enough to conduct an instant cost/benefit analysis for society in her head.

I seriously doubt that any of this is unique to a few prosecutors. At the end of the day, their incentives are not for the social good. Individually, they want a flawless record as a victor, costs to their victims be damned.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#209

Post by Phidias »

Her draconian bullying of Aaron Swartz led to his death. He positive contributions to the world vastly outweigh hers. Her actions are morally unacceptable. Her actions are unworthy of America and the State of Massachusetts. She is a monument to the suppression of freedom. She is a monster. She must step down or be fired.
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