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Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal
151–160 of 172 posts
Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal
#152Are non-citizens residents allowed to vote on these petitions?
Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is a curious argument. The point of this petition, and everything else done to remove Ortiz, Heymann, and Garland is that it is a repeatable process. Making a spectacular example of Ortiz et. al. is a first step, but it's a fine first step. Or put it this way, would we have as many lawyers willing to shield torture had John Yoo ended up delivering pizza for a living?
I'm not seeing much to remove Heymann or Garland. There's another petition for Heymann, but that's not getting near as much traction as the Ortiz one, even when I've seen numerous commenters claim he was the one behind the case. What's going on with these petitions is exactly the tactic politicians use to calm the populace down when they're screaming for something to be done after a scandal or catastrophe. Removing O…
That's a good point regarding the petition, which is why direct action against these people should not be limited to signing the petition.
Indeed, they should be harried out of their professional and private lives as thoroughly and relentlessly as they drove Swartz to suicide. Their lives should be made not worth living.
Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal
#154This witch hunt is incredibly disturbing. Not only do these petitions blatantly exclude some fundamental principles of government and society, but they distracts greatly from where our focus should lie.
Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> He could only get the 6 month (rather than 35 years) prison sentence by waiving his right to a fair trial. If he willingly engaged in a jury trial and somehow still got convicted, with a strict judge, and a jury that hates him, and an incompetent defense, he still wouldn't get anything approaching a 35-year sentence. Is it really too much to ask to not use hyperbole for matters as serious as this? You could just as…
> he still wouldn't get anything approaching a 35-year sentence. You don't know that. As tptacek and an actual computer criminal defense lawyer points out: Granick: Important to remember much lower burden on prosecution at sentencing; “reasonable” loss claims on “preponderance of evidence”. Net-net: If charged with 13 felonies, you can’t lose on ANY, because even if acquitted on 12, they strike back at sentencing. Fr…
You are. You're skipping the most important part of the criminal process: the trial.
* don't bet on a fair trial, even if you're completely innocent. *
Hyperbole, and dangerous exaggeration. The "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard is a very high standard. I've won jury trials where the evidence all supported the prosecution's case (seriously, I had no evidence) but was not sufficient to reach this standard. Federal judges are even stricter at forcing federal prosecutors to satisfy this standard--they'll frequently dismiss the case without even letting the jury deliberate.
If you think jury trials are patently unfair, you need to actually go down to a courtroom and watch the jury trials. You'll learn a lot, and you'll discover that the justice system is not even remotely as lopsided as you think it is...once you get to the trial stage. (But yes, it's definitely lopsided in favor of the prosecution at every stage before trial.
Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obama could ask her to resign then there would be no need for public justification. I doubt it'll happen though. Doing so wouldn't score enough political points, given it's not a sufficiently mainstream issue, to make it worth Obama's while.
It's way worse than that. Obama's track record on abusing DoJ power against citizens is well established. Indefinite detention. Whistleblower prosecutions. Bradley Manning. The list is not short. It'd be great to see the president forced to disown Ortiz; perhaps it'd make the rest of the DoJ afraid he wouldn't back them up on their similar adventures. Realistically, though, this is not (yet) a large political threat…
Yeah, Obama's shiny happy image has enabled the Democrats to get through legislation that would have created an uproar had it been pushed through during the Bush admin. Sad.
Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
> he still wouldn't get anything approaching a 35-year sentence. You don't know that. As tptacek and an actual computer criminal defense lawyer points out: Granick: Important to remember much lower burden on prosecution at sentencing; “reasonable” loss claims on “preponderance of evidence”. Net-net: If charged with 13 felonies, you can’t lose on ANY, because even if acquitted on 12, they strike back at sentencing. Fr…
You are. You're skipping the most important part of the criminal process: the trial . * don't bet on a fair trial, even if you're completely innocent. * Hyperbole, and dangerous exaggeration. The "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard is a very high standard. I've won jury trials where the evidence all supported the prosecution's case (seriously, I had no evidence) but was not sufficient to reach this standard. Federal…
You won some jury trials once, good for you.
But I didn't say "jury trials are patently unfair" or even that trials in general are impossible to win.
Aaron was weighing a guaranteed felony record and 6 months in prison against 0 (if acquitted on all 13 charges) to 50 years at some unknowable probability.
Clearly the prosecutor wanted him to think that invoking his right to a trial was a "bad bet".
Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal
#158What if she gets fired and kills herself? Will they go after us? It's a never ending war. We're all trying to punish people to give the exemple. Us trying to fire Ortiz is similar to Ortiz trying to prosecute Aaron Swartz.
> Us trying to fire Ortiz is similar to Ortiz trying to prosecute Aaron Swart
This is a democratic country. We get to campaign to replace our elected officials, and even the appointed ones too. It's our civic duty.
Do you seriously think that's anything like a government official abusing their power in an attempt to imprison a highly-regarded citizen for years and years for downloading bulk articles from the university library?
Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal
#159It's a sad day when the mob campaigns to end the career of someone who's simply doing there job, rather than causing change to the actual law that defines how they do the job. But this particular prosecutor was just a bully, right? Who had it out for Aaron out of personal hate, perhaps the Illuminati are involved also? The only other reasoning is she was just doing her job and prosecuting a man who broke the actual l…
No mob is trying to "end the career" of some mid-level public servant for whimsical reasons.
The United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts is not someone just "doing their job", it is a very high-level position appointed to serve the public interest. What people want is to prevent this person from abusing the power entrusted in them any further.
Oh look, just last week Oritz declined to run for Governor. http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2013/01/...
Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal
#160I'm not sure what this petition is trying to accomplish. Do you think, should the President fire Ms Ortiz, she would be replaced by someone completely different? Her actions are a reflection of the entire justice system; the person who replaces her will continue with the same bullying, "String 'em up in Town Square"-style tactics as she did. Everything will continue as it has been, but now the affluent, Bay-area 20-s…
Ms Ortiz was making Swartz "an example" by throwing the kitchen sink at him so nobody else thinks about "hacking". The ones among us who signed the petition want to make AG Ortiz "an example" by asking for her head in a platter, so prosecutors think twice before using these tactics.
United States Attorney (USA) Ortiz. Dear god never Attorney General (AG) Ortiz I hope. Not ever.