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Steve Heymann Should Be Fired

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Re: Steve Heymann Should Be Fired

#81

Post by chasing »

gyardley wrote: post #61
ScottBurson wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Chasing's response does sound a bit prickly, but there's no ad hominem in it, and I can see why he/she took some offense at being told what to do.

It was edited after the fact but before your comment, which makes the conversation moot.

It was, that's true. I edited because I thought it read too harshly and, to be honest, I realized that we'd met in the past, gyardley, and that I liked you and you don't deserve to be the target of cranky responses on HN. For that, I apologize.

But I still disagree with your original comment. ;-)

Re: Steve Heymann Should Be Fired

#82

Post by rada »

qschneier wrote: post #34

FYI the petition link is here https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-... To me signing the petition is simply to let others know my attitude, and to let those who hold the same stand know that they are not alone.

When you are signing a petition titled "Fire Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Heymann", it is not to "simply let others know my attitude". You are, quite literally, petitioning to get the guy fired.

Re: Steve Heymann Should Be Fired

#84

Post by tptacek »

analog wrote: post #78
tzs wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Losing your job versus facing decades in prison are orders of magnitude apart Swartz was not facing decades in prison. He faced charges whose maximum sentences added together reached several decades, but it was all but impossible to actually receive that kind of sentence. First, the Federal sentencing guidelines scale the sentence based on the severity of the particular instance of the crime. Swartz's was low on th…

Your beliefs on the length of Swartz's possible jail term are contradicted by the US Department of Justice themselves. "AARON SWARTZ, 24, was charged in an indictment with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a protected computer. If convicted on these charges, SWARTZ faces up to 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised…

The DOJ lied in the press release. They have a habit of doing that. There was no possibility that Swartz would face 35 years in prison. You can be upset about that, and that's reasonable, but you cannot synthesize from that upset the idea that Swartz actually could have spent 35 years in prison.

The consensus among former prosecutors and defense attorneys writing about this case is that if Swartz had been convicted on all counts, he might have faced as many as 2 years, but that he also might have avoided a custodial sentence even if he was convicted.

Re: Steve Heymann Should Be Fired

#85

Post by gyardley »

chasing wrote: post #81
gyardley wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was edited after the fact but before your comment, which makes the conversation moot.

It was, that's true. I edited because I thought it read too harshly and, to be honest, I realized that we'd met in the past, gyardley, and that I liked you and you don't deserve to be the target of cranky responses on HN. For that, I apologize. But I still disagree with your original comment. ;-)

Hey, it's good when people disagree with me - keeps me from believing my own bullshit. Cheers.

Re: Steve Heymann Should Be Fired

#86

Post by analog »

tptacek wrote: post #84
analog wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your beliefs on the length of Swartz's possible jail term are contradicted by the US Department of Justice themselves. "AARON SWARTZ, 24, was charged in an indictment with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a protected computer. If convicted on these charges, SWARTZ faces up to 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised…

The DOJ lied in the press release. They have a habit of doing that. There was no possibility that Swartz would face 35 years in prison. You can be upset about that, and that's reasonable, but you cannot synthesize from that upset the idea that Swartz actually could have spent 35 years in prison. The consensus among former prosecutors and defense attorneys writing about this case is that if Swartz had been convicted o…

Did anybody write this before Aaron's suicide?

And based upon what evidence?

Re: Steve Heymann Should Be Fired

#87

Post by tptacek »

analog wrote: post #86
tptacek wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DOJ lied in the press release. They have a habit of doing that. There was no possibility that Swartz would face 35 years in prison. You can be upset about that, and that's reasonable, but you cannot synthesize from that upset the idea that Swartz actually could have spent 35 years in prison. The consensus among former prosecutors and defense attorneys writing about this case is that if Swartz had been convicted o…

Did anybody write this before Aaron's suicide? And based upon what evidence?

Go look it up yourself.

Re: Steve Heymann Should Be Fired

#88

Post by n3rdy »

saraid216 wrote: post #79
ScottBurson wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We, the citizens, have set up a system that rewards this kind of behavior. It would be odd if Heymann didn't respond to the incentives we have placed before him. Taren's quote portrays him as ruthless. I concede that we don't know exactly what went through his mind, but based on the facts in evidence, I think that that appears to be an accurate characterization. I, at least, cannot imagine how anyone with any compass…

Hooray for a cultural environment that supports and condones the dehumanization and demonization of entities designated as enemies.

Are you talking about the prosecutors or their victims?

Re: Steve Heymann Should Be Fired

#89

Post by corporalagumbo »

jlgreco wrote: post #54
corporalagumbo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. First of all, I am not afraid of effective collective action. It's right there in what I wrote: I gave what I consider a shining example of powerful, positive effective collective action: the American Civil Rights Movement. (This documentary is excellent: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/ - I use it as point of reference to reflect on modern political activism.) Secondly, I am actually n…

> "Again, I should be clear: I'm not imagining some cartoonish image of crowds marching through the streets with pitchforks." If that is really the case, then maybe think next time before you start off by making comparisons to lynching . Yeah yeah, I know. "Why not LOIC him?" doesn't carry the same juicy emotional punch...

I'm surprised I need to explain this.

I made the comparison to lynching for two reasons. Firstly, because I think the basic social DNA is the same, though the phenotype is different. To whit: an angry crowd jumps to a snap decision and demands rapid, extra-legal retribution. In the case of lynching, the crowd is a group of people in a single place whose only mechanism of demanding this retribution is face-to-face and physical. In our situation, the crowd is a dispersed group of people who can interact in relatively anonymous digital channels, and do not have as clear a mechanism to gather together physically and demand retribution in that fashion. (Luckily - this practical difficulty hampers the groupthink tendencies of the internet.)

Secondly, I made the comparison to lynching because it is an effective rhetorical point. Lynching is something which most people today would find shocking and unacceptable. By drawing and defending a comparison between lynching and this current behaviour, I am attempting to reframe and destabilise this modern trend of calling for blood. People that find lynching shocking might eagerly support calls for the firing of Ortiz or Heymann, but if they are confronted with a logical link between the two activities, they may reconsider their motives and actions.

And broadly I am doing all this, as I have explained, because I think while this behaviour is relatively innocuous now, it's growing teeth, and could turn ugly.

Re: Steve Heymann Should Be Fired

#90

Post by corporalagumbo »

ScottBurson wrote: post #63
corporalagumbo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, so the reason why we know this assertion is true is because everyone knows that such assertions are always true?

We, the citizens, have set up a system that rewards this kind of behavior. It would be odd if Heymann didn't respond to the incentives we have placed before him. Taren's quote portrays him as ruthless. I concede that we don't know exactly what went through his mind, but based on the facts in evidence, I think that that appears to be an accurate characterization. I, at least, cannot imagine how anyone with any compass…

So basically, you have never met Heymann, have no idea what sort of person he is, how he behaves, how he thinks, what values drive him, etc. etc., but you are comfortable portraying him as a moral caricature and confident that there is little to no need for you to inquire further - because you're proooobably right anyway. Wonderful.

I, at least, cannot imagine

Try harder. Yeah, maybe they should have sent Aaron off for counselling. He sounds like he was becoming steadily more and more unhinged. Anyway, Aaron was pretty tenacious in his illegal behaviour at MIT. He wouldn't back down, and he got his hand slapped. That happens when you don't back off.

Aaron fits into a class of young men who believe that, because they have lofty principles which they are sure are correct, and because they are exercising their skill in a novel domain in which they are experts (computers) they are or should be above the law, and society should bend to their desires. Heymann was a critic of this trend - he wrote legal papers on it - and I assume he saw Aaron as an important case in proving a principle - that headstrong young white men with lofty ideas are subject to the same laws as the rest of us. So, his prosecution would have been primarily driven by the deterrence rationale.

Deterrence eh? Seems to be fairly well-established as a prudent rationale for prosecution in law. Lol. Nah, forget that, Heymann was an ego-driven careerist monster! Off with his head!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterrence_%28legal%29

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