Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

petitions.whitehouse.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 251 posts

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#211

Post by cheeseandbacon »

JPKab wrote: post #208
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…

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 t…

What was your crime?

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#212

Post by potatolicious »

shiven wrote: post #153
philwelch wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many software engineers or their professional peers have been nudged, pushed or shoved into committing suicide because of a broken build? It wasn't my shitty analogy to begin with. You're missing the point: getting one prosecutor fired won't change anything, because everyone above and below that prosecutor will continue operating the exact same way.

getting one prosecutor fired won't change anything Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. But de-throning that one prosecutor will, in her own words, serve as a message [0] to others of her kind that reckless, power-drunk actions have real-world repercussions. [0] http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/December/EremianVer...

> "But de-throning that one prosecutor will, in her own words, serve as a message"

No, it won't. People respond to risks and rewards, and we've shown amply over the years that the severity of punishment has little deterrent effect on future offenses if the odds of getting caught aren't high enough.

In other words, by throwing one prosecutor to the wolves, we have no inspired any behavioral change in other prosecutors, because we've shown that once every few decades we will punish one person - and that's stacked against the systemic pressures they face to prosecute as many people as vigorously as possible, every day.

This is the same reason why the death sentence, as severe as it is, has basically no effect on crime rates, because it's not handed out with enough regularity to be a deterrent (whether or not we should have the death sentence is another story altogether).

To achieve the "message sending" you want, we will have to regularly investigate many prosecutors, such that the odds of escaping their reckless prosecutorial actions are low. This is what most other people call "changing the system" ;)

Outlier one-offs is just compounding tragedy upon tragedy.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#213

Post by fleitz »

JPKab wrote: post #208
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…

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 t…

I'll second this, if you stand accused of a political crime just watch out. They will stop at nothing to convict you, and redouble their efforts once they find out they've been duped into prosecuting you to support someone's agenda.

She was exceptionally pissed to have to agree to stay the charges.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#215

Post by hippee-lee »

suchire wrote: post #111
hippee-lee wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very entirely possible. However I have a hard time believing that someone smart enought to make it through law school and pass the bar is not be able to learn enough about technology and motivations behind the actions in this case. As a tax payer I don't want a prosecutor who doesn't know who to go after or how far to go. From reading the thread(s) here and loosely following the case in the news I am not convinced th…

"However I have a hard time believing that someone smart enought to make it through law school and pass the bar is not be able to learn enough about technology and motivations behind the actions in this case." Much of law is a very technologically backwards field. Up until recently, some law schools (and not backwater ones, but major top-tier ones) only accepted hard-copy, type-written (as in, on a physical typewrite…

That does not mean that someone who goes to a law school like Harvard's is not smart enough to learn about the high level concepts driving things things outside legal education. This is especially true for someone who goes through said school and strives to become a prosecutor with political ambitions. For if they attain high level success as a prosecutor and in the political arena yet they cannot understand the fundamental difference between malicious intent and a prank rooted in activism then they are a scary person to be in a position of power. They will be making and implementing policy decisions with arbitrary and personal bias not hard facts.

Someone in a position of power is not strong unless they know when to apply the full amount of power entrusted to them and when to practice restraint; when and how to apply less so that the level of punishment is commiserate with the crime being prosecuted. It is bad for our society to give give someone a pass when they over prosecute a crime in both the short term and the long term.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#218

Post by pivitol_snacker »

shiven wrote: post #147
philwelch wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you did it every time, sure. That's called changing the system. Sacking one engineer for breaking one build and then going back to encouraging all the other engineers for making as many commits as possible, and giving raises and promotions to engineers who make the most commits, while sweeping all the other broken builds under the rug, would just be scapegoating. Just like this is, actually.

Just like this is, actually. No, so not like this, actually. How many software engineers or their professional peers have been nudged, pushed or shoved into committing suicide because of a broken build? No, really? When a person in position of authority is maliciously responsible for driving people to the brink of suicide and then some, they need to be held to a higher standard because of the very position they hold.…

It is important to note; we don't and should not punish citizens, civilian or government employed, for being vindictive. We punish/rehabilitate them so that they won't hurt another human again. Unfortunately the courtroom can be a vicious, painful environment--aggressive behavior is awarded there. I think many parties are to blame--a public Government apology of any kind and promises to do better would at least be a place to start. You can't break a few eggs when they are so valuable. And how can they not realize how sad this is? It makes me feel sick.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#219

Post by olefoo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #172
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…

" Ending her career is necessary to send a lesson to every other prosecutor " Messaging that violating proportionality in such crimes is electorally unacceptable is necessary. Villainising a messenger of the law is not. I do not doubt that Mme Ortiz believes, or at least believed, that what she did is right. Her sense of morality was reinforced by her institutional context and is not unique for a prosecutor. She simp…

As the author of the petition, the most I hope for is that it reaches the threshold to deserve a response. I do not expect Ms. Ortiz to lose her position, although I clearly do think that such an outcome would be salutary for the legal profession as a whole and the current DOJ in particular.

However, even if that came to pass, she would still be a top flight lawyer with a broad set of connections; at worst she would move on to another position.

Re: Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office

#220

Post by Nano2rad »

aw3c2 wrote: post #3

Don't blindly get the torches and pitchforks to treat a symtome, find the root problem and try to change the copyright/science/education/access system at the core.

JSTOR and friends ensured harsh charges are brought against him and then pretended they are not interested in prosecution.
Post reply on HN