Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners
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Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners
#2No. If he did commit suicide then he definitely is the one who killed himself.
Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners
#3Going from being rich to poor (due to legal costs), facing years in prison, and becoming a convicted felon for life? For running what amounted to "wget -r http://jstor.mit.edu/ " to download publicly funded academic papers?
I think even someone who had never suffered from depression might contemplate suicide. His father's words may be a little too strong, but they're not entirely off-base either.
Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners
#4Once again, Steve Heymann appears to be the bad guy here. Here's the wh.gov petition to have him fired, too:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-...
Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners
#5Once again, Steve Heymann appears to be the bad guy here. Here's the wh.gov petition to have him fired, too: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-...
I don't know that firing people is necessarily the best way to approach the problem. It might make us feel better but it won't solve the actual problem, which is the overly prosecutorial society we have.
Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners
#6Anonymous is planning a protest at the DoJ in Washington:
Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners
#7His father is justifiably enraged at the US Govt. Ms Ortiz and Steve Heymann are certainly the primary culprits here - However MIT is equally if not more responsible for this mess that ended in a horrible and needless tragedy.
MIT has a higher duty than the Govt. It is in their charter to foster open access - and not only did they NOT stand up for Aaron, they actually made the prosecution malicious by refusing to ask for anything less than JAIL TIME http://gothamist.com/2013/01/15/aaron_swartzs_lawyer_mit_ref...
So MIT as good as killed Aaron along with the Govt.. for shame!
Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners
#8He may feel differently in time. My little brother committed suicide 5 years ago when he was like 22. His wife was cheating on him and despite having three sons, he still did it.
I know for years I hated her and blamed her fiercely. In time though, I looked at it differently. While I still don't have much love for her, I really can't place the blame for my brother's actions solely at her feet.
The thing is, it isn't natural or normal to kill yourself when your wife cheats on you, if it's ever normal, especially when you have three sons to watch out for. My brother had problems. He wasn't right in the head and I don't think he ever really was.
If it wasn't his wife, I think he just would have found another reason, because I think he wanted to go.
Aaron Swartz may have hated what the government was doing to him and he may have even stated that was the reason for his suicide, I really don't know. But that wasn't the reason, in my opinion.
If the threat of a prison sentence was reason enough to hang yourself, it would only make sense to at least see if you're convicted first.
My heart goes out to the family, I know firsthand how much it hurts when a family member commits suicide. And I really can't blame the father for reacting that way, I would've (and did) react the same way. Just thought it would be useful to offer some perspective.
Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners
#9Going from being rich to poor (due to legal costs), facing years in prison, and becoming a convicted felon for life? For running what amounted to "wget -r http://jstor.mit.edu/ " to download publicly funded academic papers? I think even someone who had never suffered from depression might contemplate suicide. His father's words may be a little too strong, but they're not entirely off-base either.
His father's words may be a little too strong, but they're not entirely off-base either.
Yes, they are off base. He deserves leeway due to the untold grief he is enduring, but a statement like that is ridiculous. Thousands of people a day go to jail a day, many of them for breaking unjust laws, and very few of them kill themselves. He was killed by depression/mental illness not by the government. The charges likely exasperated his condition, but without that underlining fragile mental state, he would almost assuredly still be alive today.
Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners
#10Once again, Steve Heymann appears to be the bad guy here. Here's the wh.gov petition to have him fired, too: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-...
I don't know that firing people is necessarily the best way to approach the problem. It might make us feel better but it won't solve the actual problem, which is the overly prosecutorial society we have.
I don't know if it's the best solution either, but the fact that the petition calling for Carmen Ortiz's sacking reached 25k signatures in three days, alone, suggests that distaste for our "overly prosecutorial society" isn't exactly "rare".
Having multiple hops in the chain of command behind Aaron's prosecution publicly called out like that can't hurt, and makes it seem less of a "backlash" and more of a "this isn't right."