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How and why the US Justice Department over-prosecutes

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Re: How and why the US Justice Department over-prosecutes

#81

Post by nitrogen »

MichaelSalib wrote: post #38
finnw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "the CFAA is wrong and should be abolished" > "There should be no criminal penalty at all for unauthorized access to a computer system" These are not equivalent.

Without the CFAA, what criminal penalty would there be for unauthorized access to a computer system?

At the least, there would still be criminal penalties for fraud, identity theft, misappropriation of trade secrets, blackmail, espionage, sabotage, etc.

When practically everything is a computer, having laws that specifically target computers seems unnecessary.

Re: How and why the US Justice Department over-prosecutes

#82

Post by enraged_camel »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #52
andreyf wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was accused of committing a felony. There's quite a difference.

There's not always so much of a difference between those two things. If he did the things he was accused of doing that is a felony. There's little doubt that he did those things (the downloading and such) so he, in all likelihood , did commit a felony. Let's not focus too much on technicalities and semantics.

Thank the maker the justice system does not work the way you think it does.

Re: How and why the US Justice Department over-prosecutes

#83

Post by wissler »

DavidSJ wrote: post #73
wissler wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's uncertainty about the right values that permits the false ones to prevail.

Certainty about the wrong values has caused its share of bad values prevailing.

So? You can't claim certainty is per se evil without lapsing into hypocritical contradiction. Those who zealously preach anti-certainty are hypocrites, intrinsically.

Re: How and why the US Justice Department over-prosecutes

#84

Post by csense »

michaelfeathers wrote: post #4

How can it be fixed?

Remove draconian sentences from copyright criminal law and computer hacking law.

This is difficult because the copyright lobby has some of the finest politicians money can buy, and because both legislators and the general public don't understand computers and are firmly convinced that anyone who understands computers has godlike powers.

Require federally funded research to be public domain.

This might actually be politically feasible. On or near the front page of this writing is a White House petition to do it.

Re: How and why the US Justice Department over-prosecutes

#85

Post by intended »

nitrogen wrote: post #81
MichaelSalib wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without the CFAA, what criminal penalty would there be for unauthorized access to a computer system?

At the least, there would still be criminal penalties for fraud, identity theft, misappropriation of trade secrets, blackmail, espionage, sabotage, etc. When practically everything is a computer, having laws that specifically target computers seems unnecessary.

From what the trend has been, it looks like there are going to be 2 different lines of jurisprudence, one dealing with non digital works, actors and actions, vs one for the digital world.

It is increasingly clear that many situations online bear superficial similarity to real world analogues, and their edge cases make massive deviations from their r/l counterparts.

So laws will have to include cases for digital/computer based actions, at the very least as special cases.

Re: How and why the US Justice Department over-prosecutes

#86

Post by dinkumthinkum »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #25
temphn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Lessig reported, the plea bargain would have meant pleading guilty to a felony. http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bull... In that world, the question this government needs to answer is why it was so necessary that Aaron Swartz be labeled a “felon.” For in the 18 months of negotiations, that was what he was not willing to accept, and so that was the reason he was facing a million dollar trial…

From what I understand, he committed a felony and would most probably have been labelled a felon either way. I don't see this as a reason to tie up government resources in a trial whose outcome is basically a foregone conclusion. I do not endorse what he did being a felony . But that issue is only marginally relevant to the discussion of the prosecutor's behavior.

Not to be mean about it but it doesn't seem like you know what the word "felon" means. If you are never convicted of a felony, you are not a felon. There are real legal implications beyond your sentence if you are convicted as a felon. I think you should look into the information, possibly on Wikipedia regarding this; it is very relevant and the fact that you think it's not is confusing to me.

Re: How and why the US Justice Department over-prosecutes

#87

Post by dinkumthinkum »

MichaelSalib wrote: post #58
jlgreco wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah, I guess a felony is no big deal then. How foolish of Aaron.

With respect, was there any problem with the felony besides his ego? I mean, I know people whose lifelong dream is to be a defense attorney. For those folks, a felony would be a huge problem since it would keep them from gaining admission to the bar. Did Swartz have a similar issue? Or was he unable to bear the thought of being called names by that paragon of moral legitimacy known as the US government?

You think being a felon is little more than being called a schoolyard name by the US government? Wow, this is a pretty childish understanding of the world. ... :(

Re: How and why the US Justice Department over-prosecutes

#88

Post by dinkumthinkum »

wissler wrote: post #5
michaelfeathers wrote: post #4

How can it be fixed?

At root this is a philosophical problem. The professional philosophers have created a disarray in the field of values, claiming that they are subjective and arbitrary, and that's resulted in the inability of people to rally around common, objective values of right and wrong. And when you say something like this, you generally just get what these philosophers have said repeated back to you, and some weak-kneed alterna…

What are you talking about? I have training in philosophy but I have no idea what you're talking about; I'm not sure what professional philosophers have to do with this situation at all.

Re: How and why the US Justice Department over-prosecutes

#89

Post by dinkumthinkum »

wissler wrote: post #83
DavidSJ wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainty about the wrong values has caused its share of bad values prevailing.

So? You can't claim certainty is per se evil without lapsing into hypocritical contradiction. Those who zealously preach anti-certainty are hypocrites, intrinsically.

OK, so relativism has self-referential problems. Fine. But what does this have to do with the price of tea in China?

Re: How and why the US Justice Department over-prosecutes

#90

Post by dinkumthinkum »

wissler wrote: post #30
Yaa101 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem lies in Democracy, it is not for nothing that it is called the least worst ruling system. The difference between most democracies and dictatorships is that a dictatorship is despotism by minority and most democracies despotism by majority, not often are democracies systems of fairness.

No, it's not with democracy, it's with the values of the populace. If you have a predominately good people, then many political systems can work; if you have a predominately duped and corrupt people, no system can work.

If you think that the problem with the U.S. is that everyone is hopelessly enamored with Rorty or other postmodernists, then, I think maybe you are out of touch with "reality" just a little bit. :) I don't think the NRA is going to start quoting Derrida any time soon.
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