Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners • Hacker News Board

Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners

#61

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 1:58 AM UTC

gruseom wrote: post #57

jlgreco wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Civil disobedience according to Thoreau, according to Gandhi, and according to Martin Luther King, Jr. is all about being willing to do the time after intentionally breaking a law The issue I am seeing here is that this take on civil disobedience is only worth it if your incarceration does one or more of the following: threatens to clog the system, infuriates the masses, draws attention to the absurdity of the syst…

> Had Swartz been convicted and served his sentence, would the HN community at large care? I would have. I totally misread the situation. I thought there was basically zero chance he would be punished so vindictively. And I had no idea that he was all this time in Kafka hell. Had Aaron gone to prison it would have been a wake-up call for a lot of people, much as his suicide was — except that one could have done somet…

How do you mean punished so vindictively? A 6 month stint in jail (reduced for good behavior) doesn't seem wildly vindictive to me. For the people saying he was facing a lifetime in jail - well yeah, if you add up all the maximum possible sentences and run them consecutively. But that hardly ever happens except in the most egregious of cases.

If he had lost at trial I doubt his sentence would have been much longer than a year or two. The indictment doesn't say 'he committed wire fraud, he must serve 20 years', it just says 'he committed wire fraud' - an offense for which the maximum penalty happens to be 20 years. The court decides what the actual sentence is after conviction.They rarely hand out the maximum and the statute does not assert any mandatory minimum (which provisions are unconstitutional now anyway, but that's beside the point).

Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners

#62

Post by jlgreco » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 2:00 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #58

jlgreco wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that there is a fine difference between admitting you did the act, and admitting you did the act and conceding the act indeed violated the laws the prosecutors assert. For example, presumably Aaron's lawyers would argue that while Aaron did in fact use a fake name on a captive portal, but that doing so was not wire fraud. Why should you abstain from arguing if your actions violated the law just because…

This is the definition of wire fraud: ( http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1343 ) Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, s…

Further evidence that we all commit numerous felonies a day I suppose.

You would be remiss to not even attempt a defence of such a 'crime'.

Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners

#63

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 2:47 AM UTC

jlgreco wrote: post #62

anigbrowl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the definition of wire fraud: ( http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1343 ) Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, s…

Further evidence that we all commit numerous felonies a day I suppose. You would be remiss to not even attempt a defence of such a 'crime'.

[deleted]

Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners

#64

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 2:47 AM UTC

jlgreco wrote: post #62

anigbrowl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the definition of wire fraud: ( http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1343 ) Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, s…

Further evidence that we all commit numerous felonies a day I suppose. You would be remiss to not even attempt a defence of such a 'crime'.

Further evidence that we all commit numerous felonies a day I suppose.

Oh crap, that's just intellectual laziness.these things are, on the whole, very well defined. If you read through a whole title rather than just individual subsections you'll see very specific definitions for for what all these terms mean, and where the statute is vague you can look up what the courts have interpreted those terms to mean (or that courts have voided them in some cases).

If I am a prosecutor and I can prove that you're responsible for the individual elements of such a crime - a scheme to obtain the money or goods of another, by deception, using signals transmitted by wire, interstate, then you've committed it. Sometimes (as in this case) the facts are very clear. It might seem complex to you but it's definitionally very straightforward to me.

Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners

#65

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 2:48 AM UTC

jlgreco wrote: post #62

anigbrowl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the definition of wire fraud: ( http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1343 ) Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, s…

Further evidence that we all commit numerous felonies a day I suppose. You would be remiss to not even attempt a defence of such a 'crime'.

[deleted]

Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners

#66

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 2:49 AM UTC

BrokenPipe wrote: post #39

awj wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet the Prosecutors and MIT both kept going at it - for the sake of political gain (prosecutors). Do you have proof of this, or is it just what you believe of the situation?

Well yeah, it's also in article here on HN. They wanted him to have jail time

Articles aren't proof. Victims don't have veto authority over plea bargain negotiations in any US jurisdiction that I know of.

Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners

#67

Post by tptacek » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 2:52 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #61

gruseom wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Had Swartz been convicted and served his sentence, would the HN community at large care? I would have. I totally misread the situation. I thought there was basically zero chance he would be punished so vindictively. And I had no idea that he was all this time in Kafka hell. Had Aaron gone to prison it would have been a wake-up call for a lot of people, much as his suicide was — except that one could have done somet…

How do you mean punished so vindictively? A 6 month stint in jail (reduced for good behavior) doesn't seem wildly vindictive to me. For the people saying he was facing a lifetime in jail - well yeah, if you add up all the maximum possible sentences and run them consecutively. But that hardly ever happens except in the most egregious of cases. If he had lost at trial I doubt his sentence would have been much longer th…

Aaron's own lawyer said he didn't believe that Swartz would have received a custodial sentence even if he had been convicted.

What's vindictive isn't the outcome. The outcome never had a chance to happen, so it's hard to discuss it. What was bad about this situation is a prosecution that had taken such a hard line that a 6-7 year prison sentence --- a life-changing calamity --- would have seemed like a real possibility. Swartz was being required to swear before a court that he committed 13 different felonies just to get off with ~half a year's prison time.

Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners

#68

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 2:54 AM UTC

Adam503 wrote: post #30

clarky07 wrote: post #11

I really feel for his family, but I just can't blame his death on the Government. Did they handle this poorly and overreach greatly? Yes. Did they kill him? No. He was offered a plea deal for 6 months in prison. Nobody in their right mind kills themselves over 6 months in jail or the prospect of being a felon. Obviously being labeled a felon and 6 months in jail sucks, but it's not like he couldn't get a job because…

Aaron Swartz was not a very big guy at all. Aaron Swartz would have been raped within moments of walking in a Federal Prison. Aaron Swartz prison stay would have been 6 months of non-stop prison rape. Impending prison rape is exactly the sort of thing reasonable people commit suicide about. All the time.

Highly unlikely http://www.nij.gov/journals/259/prison-rape.htm

Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners

#69

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 4:45 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #67

anigbrowl wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you mean punished so vindictively? A 6 month stint in jail (reduced for good behavior) doesn't seem wildly vindictive to me. For the people saying he was facing a lifetime in jail - well yeah, if you add up all the maximum possible sentences and run them consecutively. But that hardly ever happens except in the most egregious of cases. If he had lost at trial I doubt his sentence would have been much longer th…

Aaron's own lawyer said he didn't believe that Swartz would have received a custodial sentence even if he had been convicted. What's vindictive isn't the outcome. The outcome never had a chance to happen, so it's hard to discuss it. What was bad about this situation is a prosecution that had taken such a hard line that a 6-7 year prison sentence --- a life-changing calamity --- would have seemed like a real possibili…

We'll continue to disagree about this, but I think the plea deal was fair enough. Sure, being a felon is a burden - but realistically, being a hacker felon is much less of a burden than being an ex-crack dealer or something.

Plugging your machine directly into someone's wiring closet without permission and then running scripts to pull down 100x the traffic requests of everyone else on the campus combined (resulting in a multi-day shutdown that affects all the legitimate users of that campus) is pretty abusive. If I was running a business and someone did that I'd be furious, even if they were just using the bandwidth to download all of wikipedia or something equally freely accessible.

Re: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners

#70

Post by tptacek » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 5:12 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #69

tptacek wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaron's own lawyer said he didn't believe that Swartz would have received a custodial sentence even if he had been convicted. What's vindictive isn't the outcome. The outcome never had a chance to happen, so it's hard to discuss it. What was bad about this situation is a prosecution that had taken such a hard line that a 6-7 year prison sentence --- a life-changing calamity --- would have seemed like a real possibili…

We'll continue to disagree about this, but I think the plea deal was fair enough. Sure, being a felon is a burden - but realistically, being a hacker felon is much less of a burden than being an ex-crack dealer or something. Plugging your machine directly into someone's wiring closet without permission and then running scripts to pull down 100x the traffic requests of everyone else on the campus combined (resulting i…

You & I don't disagree that Swartz's actions should have been subject to criminal charges. We depart at the need for time served in prison. In its context: an act clearly intended as civil disobedience (though perhaps intended anonymously) by a first time offender with no commercial purpose, minimal damage, minimal attempt to evade detection and thus obstruct investigation, no co-conspirators, and involving no critical information systems or protected information of any sort should have been acknowledged by the prosecution as one not meriting prison time. The offer should have been "take a felony conviction and we'll argue for a suspended sentence; go to court and you risk doing time in prison".

You know what I bet happened here? Aaron hatched this plot assuming that the worst thing that might happen is that JSTOR might have sued him. After all, what was he really doing? The same set of actions from his own network would have been mere copyright infringement. He wanted to make it less likely that he'd get sued, so he did it from someone else's network. That was dumb, but does it really transmute a tort into a felony?