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Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

bostonmagazine.com

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Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#41

Post by bsdetector »

Smerity wrote: post #23

I'm still more disturbed by the laws in play. Aaron was facing a cumulative maximum penalty of 35 years in prison. The roommates of one of the Boston bombers was only facing 25 years in prison[1] if found guilty of helping Dzhokhar Tsarnaev dispose of a laptop, fireworks, and a backpack in the aftermath of the bombings. I understand it's not a straight comparison, but no matter how I try to re-arrange those numbers i…

They also come down hard on arson. Why? Because it's really, really easy to get away with arson so they make the punishment really severe to alter the equation. If you got 3 months with probation for arson there would be fires all over the place -- at least that's the calculus.

Same thing with computer crimes. It could have been pretty easy to get away with the data if Swartz had been even slightly clever about it (like not physically returning to the scene of the crime...). It's not as easy to get away with as one might think (see Harvard bomb threat guy), but that's the perception of lawmakers.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#42

Post by benologist »

marincounty wrote: post #37
tomphoolery wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was Aaron's choice to kill himself. He wasn't a victim of anything but his own mind.

I can guarantee by your quip; you have never dealt with our legal system.

If it wasn't the legal system it would have been literally any other reason, big or small, that Aaron felt was terminally wrong with his life.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#43

Post by crag »

mentalhealth wrote: post #13
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

user: mentalhealth created: 17 minutes ago You're really not a very good troll.

I learned quite a long time ago that realistic discussion of mental health as it actually affects real people generally results in a lot of negative votes here on HN. But please, continue to dismiss my argument by attacking me and not the statement I made. More par for the course hereabouts.

"...it actually affects real people generally results in a lot of negative votes here on HN."

Then don't comment if you're so afraid of your rep. I mean, what's the point of this site? To me, it's to exchange various thoughts/ideas related to tech and otherwise.

Creating a new account to comment cause your afraid of being down-voted is cowardly. And insulting, frankly.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#44

Post by Moocat87 »

mentalhealth wrote: post #13
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

user: mentalhealth created: 17 minutes ago You're really not a very good troll.

I learned quite a long time ago that realistic discussion of mental health as it actually affects real people generally results in a lot of negative votes here on HN. But please, continue to dismiss my argument by attacking me and not the statement I made. More par for the course hereabouts.

I think you'll find that almost everywhere on the Internet, and most places in meatspace too... :(

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#45

Post by mpyne »

Smerity wrote: post #23

I'm still more disturbed by the laws in play. Aaron was facing a cumulative maximum penalty of 35 years in prison. The roommates of one of the Boston bombers was only facing 25 years in prison[1] if found guilty of helping Dzhokhar Tsarnaev dispose of a laptop, fireworks, and a backpack in the aftermath of the bombings. I understand it's not a straight comparison, but no matter how I try to re-arrange those numbers i…

> Aaron was facing a cumulative maximum penalty of 35 years in prison.

That's not true in any reasonable sense. And either way if you're just adding up cumulative values it was 50 years after the charges were amended, not 35.

From Jennifer Granick's post [1] decrying everything that the prosecutors did to Aaron:

> He would be looking at 15 to 21 months of incarceration. That number could get higher quickly. ... True, 35 years wasn't in the cards, despite the fact that's the sentence the government publicly waived over Aaron's head. Neither was a maximum of 50 years, which was what the government arrived at after its perplexing choice to get a superceding indictment. But Aaron could easily have come out to over a year in his guideline calculation.

Either way there were plea options on the table. Do you think there's any chance that Tsarnaev ends up with 6 months in jail for killing 3 people and wounding dozens more?

Don't muddle up the real need for CFAA reform with such shoddy logic and misleading statements, it only makes it easier for legislators to ignore you as a "mere extremist".

[1] http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/01/towards-learning-l... (you'll note she's not a fan of the Federal government on this)

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#46

Post by mpyne »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #7
vex wrote: post #2

Suicide is completely a personal choice. MIT had no reason to try and defend an outsider who hijacked part of their network, and trying to make them seem like they caused him to hang himself smacks of tunnel vision. It's a natural response to a suicide; we try and search for something to blame. But unless you argue that MIT should have known Aaron was mentally unstable, saying MIT "caused" him to kill himself is illo…

Oh, poor MIT, all they did was actively help the guy who wanted Aaron thrown in prison for three and half decades* while pretending to be neutral. Any of us might have done the same, right? Totally innocent! Like "a rape victim," to use Heymann's own words. If you punch a stranger in the face, you probably don't expect him to fall, crack his head on the corner of a table, and die; but you don't get to claim you're bl…

Unless you're trying to claim Aaron simply didn't have an attorney then the 35 year thing was never on the table for him.

P.S. it was actually 50 years, but thanks for paying attention...

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#47

Post by mpyne »

marincounty wrote: post #37
tomphoolery wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was Aaron's choice to kill himself. He wasn't a victim of anything but his own mind.

I can guarantee by your quip; you have never dealt with our legal system.

Are we referring to the same legal system that routinely has people cycle through it without killing themselves?

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#48

Post by freejack »

What makes me absolutely, terribly sick is the extent to which the USG waves its hands to dismiss the seriousness of the extent and reach of the NSA's domestic data gathering activities and at the same time deciding that Swartz's data gathering was worth going to the mat over.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#49

Post by mpyne »

sampo wrote: post #27
ericcumbee wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if someone broke into my Network Closet, I would not need a subpoena.

The closet was not locked, so there was no need to break into it. This is common knowledge about the case, also found in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#JSTOR

So is it your position that trespassing on other's property is now OK if they forget to lock the door?

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#50

Post by rayiner »

betterunix wrote: post #40
rayiner wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, all property is a government monopoly, unless you're one of those religious libertarians that believe God created rights in real and chattel property. But I meet lots of libertarians that reject the idea that adultery should be illegal, so maybe there's some other holy book they follow. Second, the root of the CFAA charge wasn't intellectual property, but physical property: MIT's network. Libertarians certainl…

The CFAA charges were dubious at best, and were only pursued because the copyright charges were looking pretty shaky. The prosecutor also tacked additional charges on when Aaron decided to exercise his civil rights. I do not know many libertarians who support that kind of abuse of prosecutor power.

The premise of the CFAA charge is entirely consistent with libertarian thinking: owners of private property, like computer networks, are entitled to exclude people from their use, or revoke a previously granted license of use, for any reason at all. This charge makes sense even if you don't believe in intellectual property: it doesn't matter what he was doing on the network, only that he had reasonable notice that his license to use it had been revoked when they banned his MAC, but then continued to use it, thus trespassing. That's "get off my lawn or I'll call the cops." That's as libertarian as it gets. If you're talking about classic libertarianism, prosecuting trespassers (I.e. Securing property rights) is one of the few legitimate functions of government.

Arguing that violation of property rights is justified by some greater social purpose is distinctly unlibertarian.

As for "abuse" of the process, that's orthogonal to libertarianism. Classic libertarians believe in limited government, but once the legitimate object of government is implicated, in this case protecting property rights, they do not have any tendency towards favoring more forgiving or lenient prosecution.

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