3 ms·

the sentences that US courts dream up around digital offences are absolutely obscene and seem to only exist as a means of coercion. However because they're stil

the sentences that US courts dream up around digital offences are absolutely obscene and seem to only exist as a means of coercion. However because they're still technically real and it feels disgusting.

9x39 1mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#United_States_v._Aaron_Swartz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#United_States_v._... The prosecution offered 6 months in low security in a plea deal. He had been mass downloading and evading them at MIT for months until he had MIT and FBI involved and was finally caught on camera. I bring this up because A. maximum exposure to charges are rarely applied but makes great headlines for outrage and B. the plea deal seems reasonable to someone who was unreasonably persistent in the details of the case.
- Quarrelsome 1mo ago
  > maximum exposure to charges are rarely applied and if you pay up to the mafia then they generally don't kill your relatives, but they still threaten to kill your relatives. I feel like they're only on the book as a means of intimidation. It doesn't feel like a healthy justice system, especially given its a non-violent crime in this case. If he was performing digital crimes to pay for human trafficking then I'd get it, but that's far from the case.
  - gertop 1mo ago
    You keep shifting the goal posts... He did something illegal, repeatedly, he got caught, he got offered a lenient plea deal of a few months. Those are the facts. Yet somehow y'all turn it into: he was harassed, his family's life was threatened, he was going to get life in prison.
    - pdonis 1mo ago
      > He did something illegal Read the book Three Felonies A Day. The law is so bloated now that we all do illegal things all the time, we can't help it. What Swartz actually did was to download copies of scientific papers that should be in the public domain to begin with, because we paid for the research already with our tax money. The fact that such information is considered "proprietary" and JSTOR and other companies are able to keep it locked behind paywalls is an outrage. Further, after Swartz returned all the material he had downloaded and agreed not to do it again, both JSTOR and MIT said they were satisfied and no further action was needed (though JSTOR was more emphatic about it than MIT was). Which, combined with the above, should have ended the case then and there.
      - 9x39 1mo ago
        > Swartz actually did was to download copies of scientific papers That's the root, but I think what Swartz actually did was anger someone at MIT, who called the Secret Service. The federal involvement persisted even after JSTOR and the state quit, and they had him served on a plate with MIT's help. You can set a surprising amount of government force in action with a concerned phone call, as it turns out.
        pdonis 1mo ago
        > I think what Swartz actually did was anger someone at MIT, who called the Secret Service. MIT was concerned that someone (they didn't know who it was at the time--in fact IIRC they didn't find out until the police told them after they caught Swartz) was using their network in a suspicious way. I don't know that anyone was "angered". > You can set a surprising amount of government force in action with a concerned phone call, as it turns out. I don't think the people at MIT who called in the police (and they were, IIRC, fairly low level people) had any idea what a shitstorm they were going to unleash. Nor do I think the (higher-level, but still IIRC not at the level of the top MIT administration) people at MIT who ended up interacting with the Federal prosecutor thought through what was actually going on as they should have, or had the issue considered by the MIT administration as a whole as it should have been.
        1mo ago
    - deleted 1mo ago
      [deleted]
    - Quarrelsome 1mo ago
      I think you're being hysterical. Getting threatened for 35 years in jail is absurd for the crime. Stating "oh well it would never have actually _been_ 35 years" is akin to pretending to punch someone and stopping just before you hit them and then mocking them for flinching. > I wasn't _actually_ going to hit you, quit being a baby. Which is why its actually illegal to do that to people in a lot of places. My issue is that the sentence is artificial and used for intimidation as opposed to being a rational basis for a justice system. Hence the mafia analogy. Imagine if the US had a maximum sentence of 35 years for mere possession of a firearm but in practice, it would only be used in very unlikely conditions. It wouldn't last a minute. It's only allowed to be like this because nobody cares about tech.
      - tpmoney 1mo ago
        > Imagine if the US had a maximum sentence of 35 years for mere possession of a firearm but in practice, it would only be used in very unlikely conditions. It wouldn't last a minute. It's only allowed to be like this because nobody cares about tech. This is effectively how all federal sentencing and reporting about that sentencing works, all the time. A lawyer blogger Popehat has talked about this for years[1]. Headlines pull add up all charges and the maximum statutory sentences for those and report it as if that's even remotely close to a likely outcome and it's not. In fact, Popehat actually wrote about that as it applied to Swartz in the aftermath of his suicide[2]. If you read about the Swartz prosecution, you saw people decrying the fact that he was facing 35 years in prison. That's more than rapists and murders serve, they say. But they are talking about the maximum possible sentences, not any sentence he was remotely likely to get. Recently in the context of another case I explained how federal sentencing works, and how it's driven by an arcane set of rules producing a recommendation that federal judges often follow — rules that on most occasions produce a result well below the maximum possible sentence. Which isn't to say that this sort of aggressive intimidation isn't bullshit. It is. But it's also not some unique "nobody cares about tech" thing. [1]: https://www.popehat.com/p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sentencing https://www.popehat.com/p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sentenci... [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20150604204913/http://www.popehat.com/2013/03/24/three-things-you-may-not-get-about-the-aaron-swartz-case/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150604204913/http://www.popeha...
- AnthonyMouse 1mo ago
  > The prosecution offered 6 months in low security in a plea deal. That's the racket. Getting any jailtime for "mass downloading" is a severe penalty, but that gets turned into the carrot because the stick is so unreasonably disproportionate.
  - zer00eyz 1mo ago
    > turned into the carrot because the stick is so unreasonably disproportionate. John Kiriakou talks often about his own lawyers showing up at his house to convince him to take the deal. And then ending up in a higher security prison. https://youtu.be/b-wc8tRNoJk?t=980 https://youtu.be/b-wc8tRNoJk?t=980 Has some context around what went down with him going to jail in case one is unaware.
- _carbyau_ 1mo ago
  I don't think the issue is the time in prison. I think it is the criminal record. Other places in the world, once you've served your time you can often go right back to living. Not that it is easy but it doesn't hang over you. In the US, once you have a criminal record - any criminal record - there are flow on effects that keep fucking with you for life.
- marysol5 1mo ago
  He'd been caught once already, then continued and went around ever barrier they put in place to try and stop him.
marysol5 1mo ago
Not in this case, also why because it's "digital" does it change anything. SWATing is "digital" but leads to very real death

9x39 1mo ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#United_States_v._Aaron_Swartz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#United_States_v._... The prosecution offered 6 months in low security in a plea deal. He had been mass downloading and evading them at MIT for months until he had MIT and FBI involved and was finally caught on camera. I bring this up because A. maximum exposure to charges are rarely applied but makes great headlines for outrage and B. the plea deal seems reasonable to someone who was unreasonably persistent in the details of the case.

Quarrelsome 1mo ago
> maximum exposure to charges are rarely applied and if you pay up to the mafia then they generally don't kill your relatives, but they still threaten to kill your relatives. I feel like they're only on the book as a means of intimidation. It doesn't feel like a healthy justice system, especially given its a non-violent crime in this case. If he was performing digital crimes to pay for human trafficking then I'd get it, but that's far from the case.
- gertop 1mo ago
  You keep shifting the goal posts... He did something illegal, repeatedly, he got caught, he got offered a lenient plea deal of a few months. Those are the facts. Yet somehow y'all turn it into: he was harassed, his family's life was threatened, he was going to get life in prison.
  - pdonis 1mo ago
    > He did something illegal Read the book Three Felonies A Day. The law is so bloated now that we all do illegal things all the time, we can't help it. What Swartz actually did was to download copies of scientific papers that should be in the public domain to begin with, because we paid for the research already with our tax money. The fact that such information is considered "proprietary" and JSTOR and other companies are able to keep it locked behind paywalls is an outrage. Further, after Swartz returned all the material he had downloaded and agreed not to do it again, both JSTOR and MIT said they were satisfied and no further action was needed (though JSTOR was more emphatic about it than MIT was). Which, combined with the above, should have ended the case then and there.
    - 9x39 1mo ago
      > Swartz actually did was to download copies of scientific papers That's the root, but I think what Swartz actually did was anger someone at MIT, who called the Secret Service. The federal involvement persisted even after JSTOR and the state quit, and they had him served on a plate with MIT's help. You can set a surprising amount of government force in action with a concerned phone call, as it turns out.
      - pdonis 1mo ago
        > I think what Swartz actually did was anger someone at MIT, who called the Secret Service. MIT was concerned that someone (they didn't know who it was at the time--in fact IIRC they didn't find out until the police told them after they caught Swartz) was using their network in a suspicious way. I don't know that anyone was "angered". > You can set a surprising amount of government force in action with a concerned phone call, as it turns out. I don't think the people at MIT who called in the police (and they were, IIRC, fairly low level people) had any idea what a shitstorm they were going to unleash. Nor do I think the (higher-level, but still IIRC not at the level of the top MIT administration) people at MIT who ended up interacting with the Federal prosecutor thought through what was actually going on as they should have, or had the issue considered by the MIT administration as a whole as it should have been.
        1mo ago
  - deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Quarrelsome 1mo ago
    I think you're being hysterical. Getting threatened for 35 years in jail is absurd for the crime. Stating "oh well it would never have actually _been_ 35 years" is akin to pretending to punch someone and stopping just before you hit them and then mocking them for flinching. > I wasn't _actually_ going to hit you, quit being a baby. Which is why its actually illegal to do that to people in a lot of places. My issue is that the sentence is artificial and used for intimidation as opposed to being a rational basis for a justice system. Hence the mafia analogy. Imagine if the US had a maximum sentence of 35 years for mere possession of a firearm but in practice, it would only be used in very unlikely conditions. It wouldn't last a minute. It's only allowed to be like this because nobody cares about tech.
    - tpmoney 1mo ago
      > Imagine if the US had a maximum sentence of 35 years for mere possession of a firearm but in practice, it would only be used in very unlikely conditions. It wouldn't last a minute. It's only allowed to be like this because nobody cares about tech. This is effectively how all federal sentencing and reporting about that sentencing works, all the time. A lawyer blogger Popehat has talked about this for years[1]. Headlines pull add up all charges and the maximum statutory sentences for those and report it as if that's even remotely close to a likely outcome and it's not. In fact, Popehat actually wrote about that as it applied to Swartz in the aftermath of his suicide[2]. If you read about the Swartz prosecution, you saw people decrying the fact that he was facing 35 years in prison. That's more than rapists and murders serve, they say. But they are talking about the maximum possible sentences, not any sentence he was remotely likely to get. Recently in the context of another case I explained how federal sentencing works, and how it's driven by an arcane set of rules producing a recommendation that federal judges often follow — rules that on most occasions produce a result well below the maximum possible sentence. Which isn't to say that this sort of aggressive intimidation isn't bullshit. It is. But it's also not some unique "nobody cares about tech" thing. [1]: https://www.popehat.com/p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sentencing https://www.popehat.com/p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sentenci... [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20150604204913/http://www.popehat.com/2013/03/24/three-things-you-may-not-get-about-the-aaron-swartz-case/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150604204913/http://www.popeha...
AnthonyMouse 1mo ago
> The prosecution offered 6 months in low security in a plea deal. That's the racket. Getting any jailtime for "mass downloading" is a severe penalty, but that gets turned into the carrot because the stick is so unreasonably disproportionate.
- zer00eyz 1mo ago
  > turned into the carrot because the stick is so unreasonably disproportionate. John Kiriakou talks often about his own lawyers showing up at his house to convince him to take the deal. And then ending up in a higher security prison. https://youtu.be/b-wc8tRNoJk?t=980 https://youtu.be/b-wc8tRNoJk?t=980 Has some context around what went down with him going to jail in case one is unaware.
_carbyau_ 1mo ago
I don't think the issue is the time in prison. I think it is the criminal record. Other places in the world, once you've served your time you can often go right back to living. Not that it is easy but it doesn't hang over you. In the US, once you have a criminal record - any criminal record - there are flow on effects that keep fucking with you for life.
marysol5 1mo ago
He'd been caught once already, then continued and went around ever barrier they put in place to try and stop him.

marysol5 1mo ago

Not in this case, also why because it's "digital" does it change anything. SWATing is "digital" but leads to very real death