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Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

falkvinge.net

11–20 of 172 posts

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#11
post #5

Am I the only one that finds these petitions pointless? They marginalize any real activism down to just some signatures by loosely-connected individuals and really just provide a forum for speaking to your elected officials - something they're supposed to be there for anyway - in a format that has none of the financial "umph" that lobbyists bring.

They aren't inherently totally pointless. If they reach the 25,000 "signatures" required to trigger a response, that becomes somewhat of a news item more likely to spill into the mainstream news, thus drawing some attention to whatever the issue is, which is always somewhat helpful.

But certainly they are less effective than real protest, or real physical letters sent to lawmakers, so if done in lieu of those things then that's a problem.

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#12
post #4

> Overall, there is a feeling that Aaron Swartz’ death has to mark the beginning of a change. This petition could be a ticket and an opportunity for the administration to begin such a change, if nothing else, just by firing an overreaching prosecutor. That would be a symbolic action that would still send a message, albeit a weak one, but it would go a long way for many. In contrast, a nonaction from the administratio…

In Lawrence Lessig's essay titled "Prosecutor as Bully", he writes the following in his last paragraph:

Somehow, we need to get beyond the "I'm right so I'm right to nuke you" ethics that dominates our time.

If that's the case, threatening "vigilante justice" based on 25,000 signatures would seem to indicate those who want to see action against the prosecutors have failed to learn that lesson and are only interested in continuing the downward spiral.

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#13
post #5

Am I the only one that finds these petitions pointless? They marginalize any real activism down to just some signatures by loosely-connected individuals and really just provide a forum for speaking to your elected officials - something they're supposed to be there for anyway - in a format that has none of the financial "umph" that lobbyists bring.

I think these are actually one of the few things that can be done, showing the government, that there are many people unhappy about this case out there, and that something has to be changed.

It's true, that these petitions are not big deals, but usually things don't change rapidly, it's a process, and cutting the arms that hurt us is it's first step. Obviously, most probably they won't get cut, but at least they won't get promoted, for God's sake.

Unless you have another ideas of what to do?

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#14

Am I the only one embarrassed by the blatant errors in that petition? The first sentence is a run-on grammatical non sequitor. The rest of the petition conveys a muddled thought process that seems blinded by outrage. Did the author even bother to proofread that thing before submitting it? There are plenty of other reasons to pass on this petition. That said, this displays less polish and thought than an email I typic…

As the author of the petition; I take responsibility for hitting the submit button, halfway through an edit.

Sorry.

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#15
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main point is that action in government is slow. And for good reason. If people want to hold onto the fantasy that when a bunch of people get angry, the government will take drastic action...then fine... Sandy Hook was one month ago and the President is having a big news conference tomorrow about the administrations response re: gun violence. Is that "slow"? "drastic action"? something else?

It's 25 dead children who were completely innocent of any crime. It's an incident in a long line of incidents over many decades in which many innocent people were killed. I think you need to calibrate your moral barometer a bit better.

I'm not trying to equivocate.

GGP commment made an unqualified statement "action in government is slow" adding that the idea of "drastic action" was a "fantasy". I countered by noting that in the present day the government is moving very fast on at least one particular issue. We will know tomorrow whether the action is drastic. Full stop.

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#16
post #8

We need another one: "To return all taxpayer's money wasted on prolonged witch hunt fueled by personal egoic ambitions"

Only if it's followed up with a petition to "return all taxpayer money wasted on egoic pranks".

There was always a way forward to achieving Aaron's goals that didn't involve sneaking around. Whether he was right or wrong, he knew on some level that what he was doing was, at the very least, inappropriate and potentially harmful. If not, then why attempt to hide his face? If not, why even do it at all?

It's a sad and unfortunate fact that Aaron didn't found Demand Progress before he decided to do what he did. It's a sad and unfortunate fact that he will never have his day in court, or the opportunity to plead for mercy by showing that he'd learned his lesson and founded Demand Progress in an effort to take a better, more rational path to achieving his goals.

And it's a sad and unfortunate fact that we are wasting time on silly petitions that single out individuals rather than investing all that time and effort into changing the laws they were using against Aaron so that this kind of abuse never happens again. Instead, a bunch of young people are going to go out and do rash and ill considered things in the defense of someone who did a rash and ill considered thing and likely end up facing a similar, if not worse fate than he did.

It's a sad and unfortunate thing that, despite all of the collective intelligence on this and many other forums, there are very few adults willing to stand up and say "don't do rash and ill considered things unless you are willing to deal with the consequences".

Young people are prone to making bad choices, we should neither encourage them, nor seek to punish them disproportionately.

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#17

Am I the only one embarrassed by the blatant errors in that petition? The first sentence is a run-on grammatical non sequitor. The rest of the petition conveys a muddled thought process that seems blinded by outrage. Did the author even bother to proofread that thing before submitting it? There are plenty of other reasons to pass on this petition. That said, this displays less polish and thought than an email I typic…

Participation in democracy is not limited by literacy.

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#18
post #4

> Overall, there is a feeling that Aaron Swartz’ death has to mark the beginning of a change. This petition could be a ticket and an opportunity for the administration to begin such a change, if nothing else, just by firing an overreaching prosecutor. That would be a symbolic action that would still send a message, albeit a weak one, but it would go a long way for many. In contrast, a nonaction from the administratio…

"There are actually steps that happen before the firing of an official, most notably an investigation."

Actually, if she's a political appointee, she can be fired at any time.

My recollection is the head prosecutors of each office are considered political appointees, but the assistant prosecutors are not. This has come up before. I could be completely wrong in this recollection, however :)

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#19
Though I'd like to see Oritz fired, and think she's deserving of it, the effort to get her fired is blinding us to a bigger problem and a proper solution. The system was broken long before Oritz and Swartz, but it wasn't until it affected someone we like that we noticed. But we're in a bubble, and the vast majority of Americans do not care who Aaron Swartz is, will not be affected by this tragedy like we were, and in general think that prosecutors need all the tools they can get to put "bad" people in prison.

The American people love tough-on-crime policies, and it's not possible to publicly shame a public official, or get her fired, for doing something that most of the public supports. If we want to make change, we need to move the needle on the public's perception of crime. That's a hard problem, and it's not as easy as signing a petition, but it's a problem we'll never be able to solve if we're blinded by trying to exact vengeance on a prosecutor.

Edited to add: if Oritz were likely to be fired, then I agree it would be a great starting point for a larger movement. But my point is that changing public opinion of tough-on-crime policies is a prerequisite for getting Oritz fired. A prosecutor is not going to be fired for engaging in normal conduct that is loved by the public, even if the outcome in this case was tragic.

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#20
post #4

> Overall, there is a feeling that Aaron Swartz’ death has to mark the beginning of a change. This petition could be a ticket and an opportunity for the administration to begin such a change, if nothing else, just by firing an overreaching prosecutor. That would be a symbolic action that would still send a message, albeit a weak one, but it would go a long way for many. In contrast, a nonaction from the administratio…

In Lawrence Lessig's essay titled "Prosecutor as Bully", he writes the following in his last paragraph: Somehow, we need to get beyond the "I'm right so I'm right to nuke you" ethics that dominates our time. If that's the case, threatening "vigilante justice" based on 25,000 signatures would seem to indicate those who want to see action against the prosecutors have failed to learn that lesson and are only interested…

I would suggest that asking that someone be removed from a position of power that they are to all appearances misusing; is not vigilante justice.

In point of fact, it is the proper procedure to ask that someone who has abused the public trust and shown a lack of judgment be removed from a position that requires trustworthiness and judgment.

Vigilante justice would be hacking into her personal files and threatening her life; asking her boss to fire her is the furthest you can get from that.

Speaking of which; if anyone is thinking about acting directly against Ms. Ortiz or Mr. Heymann, I would discourage that as strongly as possible; it would be counterproductive as well as criminal.

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