U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz Issues Statement on Aaron Swartz Case • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz Issues Statement on Aaron Swartz Case

#161

Post by waps » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 2:39 PM UTC

pseingatl wrote: post #84

forrestthewoods wrote: post #49

"...we would recommend to the judge of six months in a low security setting. ...his defense counsel would have been free to recommend a sentence of probation. Ultimately, any sentence imposed would have been up to the judge" Little known fact here. When you accept a plea bargain you do not accept a sentence as part of that. Often times you agree to plea to lesser chargers which have a lower maximum penalty but you st…

The plea bargain could have been capped at six months. US Attorneys do this all the time. There is much more that the office can do than just recommend a sentence to the judge. The defense attorneys may not have wanted to run the risk of consecutive sentencing. The probation office could easily have reached the conclusion that the property taken was valued at $5 million based on the FBI affidavit and at that point pr…

However in this case there were damages involved to outside parties - which meant they had to agree to any plea bargain if the US attorney wanted to present that to the judge.

Re: U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz Issues Statement on Aaron Swartz Case

#162

Post by peteretep » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 2:54 PM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #124

BrokenPipe wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. The point is that you shouldn't submit to 6 months of federal prison without trial or appeal, all the money loss for the two years in the case and your life ruined by the felony counts records for using a script to download files you already have legal access to. At worst all there is to this is trespassing, on an open campus on an open network etc etc.

You're probably right, you shouldn't , but unless you offer up a better suggestion for a law system, it is it what it is.

How about the one the rest of the civilized world uses? Which is: not mixing politics and prosecution.

Check out the British version of government prosecutions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Prosecution_Service

Where "controversial" is "oooh, should we change the name?!?".

Re: U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz Issues Statement on Aaron Swartz Case

#163

Post by rayiner » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 2:55 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #110

temphn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ortiz today: and they recognized that his conduct – while a violation of the law – did not warrant the severe punishments authorized by Congress and called for by the Sentencing Guidelines in appropriate cases. Ortiz on 9/2012, adding 9 counts to the conduct that we learn "did not warrant...severe punishment": http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/aaron-swartz-felony... Federal prosectors added nine new felony cou…

Do you take a guarantee of 6 months in federal prison and permanent felon status? This was never a guarantee. As she said, the judge makes the final determination. The DA's suggestion has a lot of pull with a judge, but the DA can't promise anything.

You can make the plea contingent on the sentencing.

Re: U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz Issues Statement on Aaron Swartz Case

#164

Post by rolux » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 2:57 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #156

rolux wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Doing her job and obeying the law" is not an excuse. "Doing her job" would have been to tell MIT (or whoever was responsible for this affair to end up on her desk) to go away. Even though I am aware that's not how becoming a "career prosecutor" in the US justice system works. Remains the fact that none of the bright minds that congregate under news.ycombinator.com seems to have the slightest idea how "attacking the…

It's essentially a problem of corruption. If you want to 'beat the system from within', for instance by joining the political stage or by becoming insanely wealthy through some corporate scheme so you can use your power to lobby you will end up being such an integrated part of the system that arguing against it will argue to a large extent against your own interest. That's why the situation persists. If you could con…

So if that was the venture you wanted me to support ("convince voters to vote their interest, and thus for a very different type of president" - seems to be a venture with a "media" or "campaign funding" angle, and I agree, it's a hard problem), then my question would be:

How do you assure that president will not be corrupted or compromised as well? How will he be able to tell every single person who is invested in the laws you're trying to attack (from corporate interests that are so huge that they're usually awarded cabinet posts to the sheer drag of gigantic bureaucracies invested in existing career paths) to go away? How can he practically reach the most powerful political position without sacrificing this very ability?

Plus: Imagine what would be the smartest, most malicious attacks on your plan. How would you counter them?

(Edit: None of these are rhetorical questions, of course. I do believe these laws have to be attacked. But if you asked me, maybe I'd rather invest in something like the study of political tectonics, earthquakes. Why do they happen so rarely, what makes them so destructive, and how can one provoke them?)

Re: U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz Issues Statement on Aaron Swartz Case

#165

Post by e40 » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 3:02 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #123

sp332 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you take a guarantee of 6 months in federal prison and permanent felon status? This was never a guarantee. As she said, the judge makes the final determination. The DA's suggestion has a lot of pull with a judge, but the DA can't promise anything.

How often does a judge overturn a plea bargain? That's what temphn is referring to when talking about a guarantee of 6 months.

Almost never does a plea get overturned by a judge.

Re: U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz Issues Statement on Aaron Swartz Case

#166

Post by fnordfnordfnord » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 3:03 PM UTC

rolux wrote: post #146

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Attacking a single prosecutor who was doing her job and obeying the law won't change anything. I disagree, if Ortiz was looking for a future in politics, she's finished. At the very least, she'll have to change her party affiliation. This is a good thing. Otherwise she could've possibly carried on at a higher level. Although the various public reactions have yet to make any change in law; recent events may discourag…

I agree with your last point. But just putting a temporary cap on Ortiz' career doesn't seem like a big win to me, in the grand scheme of things. I know nothing about Massachusetts politics. Who knows she's not the "good cop", compared to the person whose career, as a result, will advance faster?

I also know nothing about Massachusetts politics; and you're right, it is a small win. Perhaps she would have made a future in national politics. Now she probably won't.

How she compares to the next guy (who won't make the same mistakes) I can't say. There are an infinite number of possible outcomes.

Re: U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz Issues Statement on Aaron Swartz Case

#167

Post by BrokenPipe » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 3:11 PM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #162

mbesto wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably right, you shouldn't , but unless you offer up a better suggestion for a law system, it is it what it is.

How about the one the rest of the civilized world uses? Which is: not mixing politics and prosecution. Check out the British version of government prosecutions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Prosecution_Service Where "controversial" is "oooh, should we change the name?!?".

The american system is one of the worst in western society, granted, but the British one is not that much better at all. Some claim is worst. I never had the misfortune of having to try that on my skin but heard from friends and family.

How's the system in Iceland ? Or Norway ?

Re: U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz Issues Statement on Aaron Swartz Case

#168

Post by roc » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 3:23 PM UTC

rolux wrote: post #120

jacquesm wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> outright termination. Can we change that to 'being fired'.

Does anyone here seriously believe that she's going to be fired? And that Carmen Ortiz is such an exceptional case? There are hundreds of prosecutors in the US who routinely - even though against predominantly non-white and non-prominent defendants - seek much harsher sentences for much lesser "crimes", often with much more dubious evidence, and much lower chances for defendants to ever have their personal situation…

Charles Pierce wrote an exceptional blog post on the issue of Aaron Swartz along those lines:

"Which brings me to my second conclusion — Aaron Swartz ran facefirst into a law-enforcement and prosecutorial culture that we have allowed to run amok for far too long. It began with drugs. It intensified with the "war on terror." Preventive detention — though they don't call it that — has been mainstreamed, due process sacrificed to efficiency. Investigation without cause has been normalized in our daily lives, through mandatory drug testing and roadblocks and a dozen other ways we barely think about any more. Personal privacy has been rendered less important than official secrecy in the general scheme of things. We want — nay, demand convictions, and all barriers to them be damned."

"Back when rogue prosecutor Mike Nifong went crazy and ginned up a rape prosecution against several members of the Duke lacrosse team, there was a great deal of horror at how "the system" could have gone so horribly wrong. But it didn't. It just got aimed for once at people with the financial and social wherewithal to fight back. There are minor-league Mike Nifongs in every precinct house and every federal law-enforcement operation and every DA's office and all throughout the branch offices of the Department Of Justice. There are "Duke rape cases" happening every day in alleys and on streetcorners of every city, and on the dusty backroads on the outskirts of nowhere."

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Case_Of_Aaron_Swar...

Re: U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz Issues Statement on Aaron Swartz Case

#169

Post by roc » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 3:28 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #156

rolux wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Doing her job and obeying the law" is not an excuse. "Doing her job" would have been to tell MIT (or whoever was responsible for this affair to end up on her desk) to go away. Even though I am aware that's not how becoming a "career prosecutor" in the US justice system works. Remains the fact that none of the bright minds that congregate under news.ycombinator.com seems to have the slightest idea how "attacking the…

It's essentially a problem of corruption. If you want to 'beat the system from within', for instance by joining the political stage or by becoming insanely wealthy through some corporate scheme so you can use your power to lobby you will end up being such an integrated part of the system that arguing against it will argue to a large extent against your own interest. That's why the situation persists. If you could con…

It's not so much corruption as an inevitable extension of the incentive structure.

If you tried to change a DA's office from the inside, you'd get about as far as if you tried to change an investment bank from the inside: you'd be fired, because your moral approach would have a definite negative impact on the number they use to measure your productivity.

You'd never get past making copies unless you assimilated. And even if you went 'deep undercover' and didn't assert your morality until you reached a position of influence, you'd simply be bounced from that spot, as you (and now your entire office or division) continued to deliver 'worse' numbers than those who would replace you.

Re: U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz Issues Statement on Aaron Swartz Case

#170

Post by chernevik » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 3:32 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #128

chernevik wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One. It is a very serious mistake to deny someone the right to believe the correctness of their own opinions. Two. People use leverage. They may or may not use it rightly but they do use it. Anyone who cannot set their opinion of the justice of that to one side, and get on to the business of the contest at hand, is not cut out for politics. Such people enter these contests at a great disadvantage and risk getting hur…

So might makes right?

No.

You cannot overcome Might by convincing it to be Right. Not reliably.

You overcome Might with Might. If you are Right, that actually increases your strength. But you still have to win. You still have to fight. That means strategy and preparation and readiness for loss.

Anyone thinking anything else isn't thinking, they're dreaming. They're going lose, and the higher the stakes the more they'll get hurt.