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Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

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Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#161

Post by rdl »

davemel37 wrote: post #42

I seem to recall a story about a Pepsi employee who made a bad decision that cost Pepsi over 10 million dollars. The CEO called him into his office, and the employee shuffled in saying, "I guess you are gonna fire me now." To which the CEO Exclaimed, "Fire You?! I Just Spent 10 million dollars educating you!" Just something to think about here.

People learn from mistakes and become better.

They generally do not improve from moral/character flaws like being a power-seeking career-ambitious-to-the-exclusion-of-all-else asshole political climber.

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#162

Post by flyinRyan »

gavinlynch wrote: post #108
PrudenceYuris wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crowdsourcing the destruction of the career of an out-of-control prosecutor is a repeatable process, and, as Internet forums gain mass, a process that will get easier to apply. In other words, this is the public perception of crime on the move. You can see this in other areas of discourse, like cannabis legalization, getting rid of red light cameras that have been shown to increase collisions, etc.

When I read statements like this, I am reminded why it's a good idea that we are a representative democracy, and not a direct one.

Yea, because it's really great that we have a system where we vote for some person who disappears for two years and doesn't do anything that represents what anyone who for them wanted.

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#163

Post by flyinRyan »

mpyne wrote: post #141
marshray wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He could only get the 6 month (rather than 35 years) prison sentence by waiving his right to a fair trial. So exercising his constitutionally guaranteed right would result in a seventy-fold increase in his worst-case outcome. In 2009 fully 96% of criminal cases in our Federal court system resulted in a conviction. http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=7... This situation would be absurd if it weren't…

> 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.

What difference do you think this makes? Even a 1 year sentence will utterly destroy your life. And that's just your life outside. God forbid you get raped or something during that time.

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#164

Post by BrokenPipe »

gavinlynch wrote: post #108
PrudenceYuris wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crowdsourcing the destruction of the career of an out-of-control prosecutor is a repeatable process, and, as Internet forums gain mass, a process that will get easier to apply. In other words, this is the public perception of crime on the move. You can see this in other areas of discourse, like cannabis legalization, getting rid of red light cameras that have been shown to increase collisions, etc.

When I read statements like this, I am reminded why it's a good idea that we are a representative democracy, and not a direct one.

either way it doesn't make a difference if the politician are not accountable and the public is not informed. What we have now, practically globally, is manipulated oligarchy dressed as democracy.

And other than the above I agree with flyingRyan below http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5066292

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#166

Post by zzzeek »

mpyne wrote: post #143
zzzeek wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all great information but it goes contrary to the narrative coming from all sources I've seen, including Lessig himself who was involved with the case. His own post ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-lessig/aaron-swartz-s... ) cites a figure of "50 years" based on the number of felony counts ( http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120917/17393320412/us-gov... ) , and states the "government continued to push…

> If these numbers are really all just meaningless and in "reality" he was really only looking at...a year? why is it that nobody, even sources like Lessig, seem to be saying this. Because it goes in opposition to the worldview they're trying to push...? Everyone has a bias, you, me, Dr. Lessig, aaronsw, the prosecutors, EVERYONE. It's like when the music/movie industry tries to claim that an illegally copied media f…

> I and a few others have been trying to point out that 35 years in prison was never an actual option for some days now but I think it's kind of gotten lost in the storm...

here's what would help. If you are in fact a criminal law attorney and know these things via practice, or if you can point us all to some links of well respected criminal attorneys, without a stake in the case, on the record saying "it's very unlikely he would get more than four years".

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#168

Post by cabalamat »

res0nat0r wrote: post #52
olefoo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in the midst of changing the tense; I should have written it in emacs and then copied it into the form once I was happy with it. So it goes. I'm actually wondering whether a more considered phrasing would have done worse. As it is the main goal of putting the headline into Barack Obama's eyeballs has been reached, and Ms. Ortiz knows that her boss is making the political calculation of whether she is a liabilit…

Unfortunately this will come no where near close to the President's eyeballs. It will be reviewed and responded to by some low level staff group who has been tasked to wade thru all of the petitions (and nonsense like the Death Star) which get 25k votes.

> Unfortunately this will come no where near close to the President's eyeballs.

I'm not so sure. Obama must have been aware of the protests over SOPA last year, because it was a major news item. Swartz' death is almost as big a news item; certainly the UK media have given it significant coverage[1].

I would imagine that Obama is aware at least of roughly who Swartz was and why people are angry, and so are most other US politicians. And we all saw how quickly they caved on SOPA.

1. E.g. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/15/aaron-swart... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2263084/Aaron-Swartz... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/technology-obitua... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/colleagues-...

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#169

Post by pohl »

bjhoops1 wrote: post #165

Aaaand they just raised the petition threshold to 100,000: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57564203-93/white-house-rai...

From looking the petition page, this petition may have been grandfathered-in. (It says "SIGNATURES NEEDED BY FEBRUARY 11, 2013 TO REACH GOAL OF 25,000: 0")

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-stat...

Re: Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

#170

Post by numbsafari »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #121
numbsafari wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's worth hearing Aaron's own words to understand the folly of attacking this one person: When you’re upset with someone, all you want to do is change the way they’re acting. But you can’t control what’s inside a person’s head. Yelling at them isn’t going to make them come around, it’s just going to make them more defiant, like the GM workers who keyed the cars they made. No, you can’t force other people to ch…

You won't find me in disagreement with a campaign to change or repeal the CFAA and similar laws. But I think you mistake the point of attempts to remove these prosecutors. It isn't about them as individuals, it's about them as symbols of the broken system they represent. I would not be surprised to learn that the average prosecutor would have done exactly what these ones did, but that's the issue . You can't be a sai…

So you want to make an example of the prosecutors for trying to make an example out of Aaron Swartz?
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