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Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

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Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#141

Post by alexqgb »

eitland wrote: post #65
alexqgb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Issa is corrupt as hell. I mean, he has a business empire that he runs from a different part of the floor on which he has his CA office. Even by the shady standards of Congress, this is pushing it. But he was on the right side of SOPA/PIPA, and he was there before it was the safe, obvious place to be. He's got brass and he's very aggressive. If I were Ortiz, I'd take him seriously.

Is corrupt the right word here? Doesn't corruption have to be linked to bribery in some form?

No.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#142

Post by mpyne »

temphn wrote: post #94
Vivtek wrote: post #6

I agree with the sentiment here, but some of the specific claims are certainly wince-worthy. College prank? Greatest prodigy of his generation? Little to no commercial value? All those claims are a lot more complicated than that! Not to mention it makes it sound like Ortiz was cooking this all up behind closed doors and everyone else was shocked! shocked! to realize how the "prosecutorial misconduct" had gotten out o…

The press will never get everything 100% accurate, but let's look on the bright side. A week ago, many lawyers (example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5052339 ) were assuring us that seeing any accountability for Ortiz and Heymann would be a "fantasy", that this wasn't the way things worked, that hackers had to wise up and embrace their impotence. That wasn't the way things played out. With this (as with the mo…

> This week, at least, the lawyers' worldview was proven wrong and the hackers' worldview was proven right, in both the empirical and moral senses of the terms. Let's hope that continues.

I've seen more prevaricating (and sometimes outright lying) this week from the hackers than from the lawyers so I, for one, hope that the lynch mob ceases immediately.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#143

Post by darkarmani »

MichaelSalib wrote: post #132
Natsu wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most here would prefer that they take home a lesson not to throw the book at people who are trying to make things better. I think it's been pointed out that he's popular (and thus, has "powerful friends") because they sided with him in trying to do good and improve things. This is a far cry from someone using their celebrity status to flout the law for personal gain, which is the sort of thing one usually condemns. >…

Most here would prefer that they take home a lesson not to throw the book at people who are trying to make things better. Swartz thought that JSTOR was an illegitimate institution and he thought that justified him doing whatever he wanted to them. Why should prosecutors respect his moral judgments in that regard? He thought the law was wrong...so you think prosecutors should assume that everyone who thinks the law is…

> I get that lots of people here agree with him: they think JSTOR is awful and they think they're entitled to do whatever they want to JSTOR, the laws be damned. But why should prosecutors believe that?

They might want to believe it because JSTOR declined to press charges. Isn't that a compelling reason?

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#144

Post by chris_wot »

aw3c2 wrote: post #123
thoughtcriminal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mother Theresa once said that when she looked upon the many she could do nothing, but when she focused on the one, she could do something. The same applies here. Someone needs to be held accountable. Change needs to start somewhere.

Mother Theresa let people die slow, horrible and unnecessary deaths. You should never use that person as a good example for anything really. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Criticism

Huh... That seems to have been removed!

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#145

Post by darkarmani »

MichaelSalib wrote: post #53
Natsu wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Little to no commercial value? Have you ever tried to sell a diamon, err, scholarly article?

JSTOR sells access to its archive for $50K/year. That seems pretty damn valuable. I think that if Swartz successfully released the JSTOR archive, their entire business would have withered and died. Once you can buy a DVD on the street for $3 that held the entire thing, it gets harder and harder for university libraries to justify paying $50K/year. Their customer base wouldn't dry up overnight but over a few years, yo…

> JSTOR sells access to its archive for $50K/year. That seems pretty damn valuable...I think that if Swartz successfully released the JSTOR archive, their entire business would have withered and died.

JSTOR who declined to press charges is probably in the best position to value the damages Swartz inflicted.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#146

Post by mpyne »

vacri wrote: post #140
MichaelSalib wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most here would prefer that they take home a lesson not to throw the book at people who are trying to make things better. Swartz thought that JSTOR was an illegitimate institution and he thought that justified him doing whatever he wanted to them. Why should prosecutors respect his moral judgments in that regard? He thought the law was wrong...so you think prosecutors should assume that everyone who thinks the law is…

A relative of mine embezzled money from her family business, to the tune of high five-figures. If you don't take motivation into account, how should she be sentenced? She was found guilty and sentenced, but before reading further, what do you think should have happened to her? If we take motivation into account (as the court did), does it change how you think she should have been treated by the court to know that she…

> Motivation is an important aspect of any crime, and prosecutors should be looking for appropriate sentences, not the harshest one they can make stick.

I don't think the prosecutors here would disagree. That's why sentences are pushed for (on both sides) based on what the motive behind the crime was.

There was a plea bargain on the table for no jail time, which MIT rejected, and then later some number of months in jail. Given that "Swartz faces up to 50 years in prison if convicted on all charges" was the latest maximum sentence it is very hard indeed to argue that the prosecutors were trying to get the harshest sentence.

The thing they were really trying to do was not have the trial, which is something I would expect them to do given the structure of the legal system.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#147

Post by alexqgb »

malandrew wrote: post #19
Vivtek wrote: post #6

I agree with the sentiment here, but some of the specific claims are certainly wince-worthy. College prank? Greatest prodigy of his generation? Little to no commercial value? All those claims are a lot more complicated than that! Not to mention it makes it sound like Ortiz was cooking this all up behind closed doors and everyone else was shocked! shocked! to realize how the "prosecutorial misconduct" had gotten out o…

This is probably the most worrying issue with this article. It places the blame on two individuals who are characterized as out of control instead of a system that is out of control. The entire system needs to be held accountable and corrected and those highlighted as having benefited their careers through this widespread misconduct should be individually held accountable just like individuals were held accountable a…

Really not getting the impression that Ortiz was a good soul trappend in a bad system. To the contrary, she seems to be the embodiment of the bad system. To the good souls who are actually trapped alongside her, she's a prime example of the problem they're facing, in that monsters like her are what gets promoted, leaving people who are better than her no choices beyond going along quietly or exiting altogether. I mean, just consider her deputy. When people talk about the bad driving out the good, this is what they mean.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#148

Post by mpyne »

TDL wrote: post #139
tptacek wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful here. Any time you read a story like "government attempts to liquidate real property to fund police department", your first thought should be "that's not the whole story", because (for the most part) that's not how the federal government operates. So, some issues with this story: * This case is Sonya Rao, not Carmen Ortiz (though once again Ortiz oversees all the cases in her office). * The hotel is, let's no…

You might want to look into how civil forfeiture laws are used in the U.S. Furthermore, if you have such a problem with this property why don't you make an offer to the property owner and buy it? Shutting down someone's business & stealing their property because you don't like it is deeply immoral.

> Furthermore, if you have such a problem with this property why don't you make an offer to the property owner and buy it?

Maybe he pays taxes exactly because he expects that the government would do their job? No one person can buy up every piece-of-shit property and clean it up, that's the whole point of foisting that shit job (and it's certainly a shit job) on the government

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#149

Post by mpyne »

tedunangst wrote: post #40
thoughtcriminal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mother Theresa once said that when she looked upon the many she could do nothing, but when she focused on the one, she could do something. The same applies here. Someone needs to be held accountable. Change needs to start somewhere.

Someone needs to be held accountable. Ortiz is someone. Therefore...

Accountable for what exactly?

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#150

Post by chris_wot »

ucee054 wrote: post #92
anonymouz wrote: post #79

I've rarely read a more sensational and one-sided piece. At this point, the bending of facts to serve the idealization of Swartz and the demonization of Ortiz starts to seem like nothing more than throwing gasoline into the fire of an enraged lynch mob.

Enraged lynch mobs are why you have democracy and justice systems and human rights rather than the Diktat of the King, which is what we used to have before enraged lynch mobs.

Not many lynch mobs care about human rights. Sheesh.
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