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

MIT President on Aaron Swartz

pastebin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 223 posts

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#71

Post by tptacek »

jacquesm wrote: post #22
kristenlee wrote: post #7

Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker Ne…

Yes, and if you looked carefully you'll notice that he didn't actually do anything until he was threatened with spending a life in jail and being bankrupted , without the option to get off without pleading guilty. And all that for trying to do something good. You describe yourself as a 'public interest lawyer'. I suggest you try to live up to that title and have the public interest at heart. The subject of your littl…

This place needs more public interest lawyers. It does not need more questions about whether its participants deserve to call themselves that. Please stop doing this.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#72

Post by doktrin »

olefoo wrote: post #68
potatolicious wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The witch hunt angle has been bothering me a lot, and should be ample evidence that the people of Hacker News are no better than the reactionaries of Reddit or even 4chan. No sooner had the man's death hit the news that people started foaming at the mouth, writing long manifestos and diatribes, and calling for the head of everyone and anyone related to the prosecution. We are better than this. Actually, evidently, no…

That is a fine display of histrionics; but, the specifics of this case DO merit removing Ms. Ortiz and her assistant Mr. Heymann from office. Those of us who were following the case before Aaron's tragic episode knew that a great injustice was being perpetrated, but that it could not realistically be undone until after the damage had happened. Ms. Ortiz and Mr. Heymann should be held accountable for their decision to…

I intended to up vote this (downvoted by accident as I am reading on my phone)

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#73

Post by temphn »

potatolicious wrote: post #18
kristenlee wrote: post #7

Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker Ne…

The witch hunt angle has been bothering me a lot, and should be ample evidence that the people of Hacker News are no better than the reactionaries of Reddit or even 4chan. No sooner had the man's death hit the news that people started foaming at the mouth, writing long manifestos and diatribes, and calling for the head of everyone and anyone related to the prosecution. We are better than this. Actually, evidently, no…

True or False: a federal prosecutor decided to charge Aaron Swartz with 35 years in federal prison for downloading pdfs from JSTOR [1].

True or False: Lawrence Lessig, Alex Stamos (an expert witness) and Swartz's own family said that the overzealous and vastly disproportionate prosecution was the principal factor in his suicide.

The real witch-hunt was led by Carmen Ortiz and Steve Heymann and ended in Swartz's death. Witches don't exist, and the evil hacker of their imagination did not exist. Your proposal to be "better than this" seems to mean remaining silent, averting our eyes, and pretending that this was some act of nature like a mudslide. As for whether we should have done something beforehand: how could we have? Lessig himself said that the government had effectively muzzled Swartz to prevent him from defending himself online or alerting others to the severity of his situation.

There were specific people here to blame. If you believe the US Attorney's charges were merited, that they should not face discipline, that seeing a sitting US prosecutor forced to resign would not have the requisite "deterrent effect", or that we should all remain silent and accept this -- just say so. Otherwise your critique is contentless, and a recommendation for Aaron's death to be meaningless.

[1] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120917/17393320412/us-gov...

EDIT:

  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5052033

  And a court would have no choice but to find him guilty, as 
  that is the purpose of the judiciary. A court cannot let 
  someone walk after a crime simply because the law itself is 
  unjust.
OK, pretty clear where you stand. You are not really arguing against "overreaction", you actually think he should have been found guilty. What you are not taking into account is the direct personal responsibility of the prosecutor for the disproportionality of the charges.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#74

Post by vidarh »

kenko wrote: post #27
kristenlee wrote: post #7

Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker Ne…

"Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened." But he didn't do it then, did he? It's absurd to think that these things are completely unconnected. (Look at the timing, for one thing.) A severely depressed person is perhaps more likely to commit suicide than a person who is not severely depress…

> It's furthermore frankly insulting to think that (a) anyone is glorifying his suicide (or did you miss the many suicide hotline links, links to posts saying "don't do what Aaron did", etc., on the front page yesterday?), or that (b) someone who is already depressed/suicidal hasn't already engaged in some suicidal ideation.

While I fully agree with you that this is not glorifying suicide, it does normalize suicide and create social proof that may make it easier for others to carry out theirs. The specific application of this to suicide is sometimes called the Werther effect (after Goethe's character), after an alleged "wave" of suicides across Europe after the publication of The Sorrows of Young Werther in 1774.

For a more modern take, according to Cialdini's book "Influence" (I have read the book but not chased down the refenced paper), Phillips, D.P.'s "Airplane Accidents, Murder and the Mass Media: Towards a Theory of Imitation and Suggestion" estimates almost 50 excess deaths due to airplane and car crashes alone in the US in the few months following a highly publicized suicide.

Of course it is hard to prove a direct causal link here, but a particularly chilling part of this research that makes the causation likely showed that there was a strong correlation between the type of "accidents" and the type of suicide: If the publicized suicide was "just" a suicide, the largest increase in car accidents was lone drivers driving into obstacles etc. If it was a murder-suicide, the largest increase in "accidents" were drivers with passengers and/or drivers hitting other cars.

The "Werther effect" is well known enough that in many places, journalists self-censor reporting of them. E.g. in Norway it was until very recently considered ethically dubious for newspapers to report a suicide (the death would be reported, but the cause would be left out or obscured), and while that's loosened up somewhat, media is still generally very cautious about it.

I'm not saying people should not discuss this suicide. But on the other hand, downplaying the effect it is likely to have on other people who may be on the cusp of making the decision, is not great either.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#75

Post by sampo »

jacquesm wrote: post #36
[deleted] wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

> I am a state level prosecutor who specializes in domestic violence. I prosecute individuals for crimes and see myself as an advocate for victims, particularly victims of domestic violence. Public interest as it relates to the legal field includes prosecutors, public defenders, ACLU lawyers, and lawyers for causes similar to Aaron's. So, how do you feel about a prosecutor that throws the book at a guy that wants not…

> I have to admit that I have no idea how I would react to being pushed by the system to this extent.

What about trying to apply for a political asylum in some other country?

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#76

Post by arrrg »

Illychnosis wrote: post #52
potatolicious wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except he was guilty, and didn't stand a chance in an actual trial. This part's not even controversial - Aaron was evidently fighting laws that he believed were unjust. The fact that he violated them is not in question. And a court would have no choice but to find him guilty, as that is the purpose of the judiciary. A court cannot let someone walk after a crime simply because the law itself is unjust.

> A court cannot let someone walk after a crime simply because the law itself is unjust. Incorrect. That's what the power of jury nullification is for. It's been ensconced in Western law for centuries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lilburne Aaron only committed a crime worthy of severe punishment if one takes the point of view of the Crown...I mean, of the government.

That’s not what jury nullification is for – not in the sense you are talking about it.

The possibility of jury nullification is an inevitable consequence of how the US justice system is set up. There is no way around it. It’s a property of the system, not a intentionally designed feature.

Put another way: For juries to have meaningful power, jury nullification has to be a possibility.

I also think it’s illusory to believe that jury nullification is in any kind of way a meaningful escape. It’s a fluke, nothing more.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#77

Post by jacquesm »

tptacek wrote: post #71
jacquesm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and if you looked carefully you'll notice that he didn't actually do anything until he was threatened with spending a life in jail and being bankrupted , without the option to get off without pleading guilty. And all that for trying to do something good. You describe yourself as a 'public interest lawyer'. I suggest you try to live up to that title and have the public interest at heart. The subject of your littl…

This place needs more public interest lawyers. It does not need more questions about whether its participants deserve to call themselves that. Please stop doing this.

I agree that this place needs more public interest lawyers.

Informed ones, rather than state level prosecutors that try to wash their professions hands clean without some introspection on cause and effect.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#78

Post by glesica »

potatolicious wrote: post #38
objclxt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"he was threatened with spending a life in jail and being bankrupted, without the option to get off without pleading guilty." ...I don't quite understand this. Surely he did have an option to "get off without pleading guilty" - to be found not guilty by a jury of his peers.

Except he was guilty, and didn't stand a chance in an actual trial. This part's not even controversial - Aaron was evidently fighting laws that he believed were unjust. The fact that he violated them is not in question. And a court would have no choice but to find him guilty, as that is the purpose of the judiciary. A court cannot let someone walk after a crime simply because the law itself is unjust.

Not necessarily, and it is controversial. I read the indictment and have followed the case and, though I'm not a lawyer, it seems to me that most of the charges were dubious, at best. They seem to have over-charged him, perhaps to extract a plea deal. In other words, the prosecutors may not have even expected to be able to convict him on all counts.

You cited nothing, and your claims are impossible to back with reasonable facts. I suspect you haven't even read about the case (though I see in some of your other comments that you claim to be familiar with the facts).

You want us to be "better", and I agree that anger after the fact is less ideal than anger beforehand. But making ridiculous statements about guilt or innocence is just as bad as condemning the prosecutors for murder.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#79

Post by toast0 »

kennywinker wrote: post #37
potatolicious wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The witch hunt angle has been bothering me a lot, and should be ample evidence that the people of Hacker News are no better than the reactionaries of Reddit or even 4chan. No sooner had the man's death hit the news that people started foaming at the mouth, writing long manifestos and diatribes, and calling for the head of everyone and anyone related to the prosecution. We are better than this. Actually, evidently, no…

Better in what way? Less caring? More apathetic? I think we should have been better than this too... I think we should have been up in arms while Aaron was still alive . It was wrong then too, but easier to dismiss because it was someone else' fight.

There was plenty of outrage (and lack of it) on other sites (and I assume here too), when the charges were made known.

It's really hard to say if punishment fits the crime when the evidence isn't available (so we can't really say what the crimes were) and what the punishment is; we only know the statutory maximums. Without a trial, verdict and sentencing we don't what the punishment is aside from the conditions of release which I don't think were unreasonable http://ia600504.us.archive.org/29/items/gov.uscourts.mad.137... )

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#80

Post by hamai »

potatolicious wrote: post #18
kristenlee wrote: post #7

Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker Ne…

The witch hunt angle has been bothering me a lot, and should be ample evidence that the people of Hacker News are no better than the reactionaries of Reddit or even 4chan. No sooner had the man's death hit the news that people started foaming at the mouth, writing long manifestos and diatribes, and calling for the head of everyone and anyone related to the prosecution. We are better than this. Actually, evidently, no…

Indeed there's a lot of emotions involved, but that's because people know Aaron well and what he did wasn't worth 35 year jail intimidation. I think you inverted the meaning of reactionaries, this is not a conservative movement, it's actually about changing the state of justice.

Hate to repeat myself but this information is important:

Aaron's "crime" - http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartz...

Strategies to disable legal defense - http://www.forbes.com/sites/harveysilverglate/2013/01/03/bla... Whithey's case seems to be related the same attorney(Ortiz)

Post reply on HN