9 ms·

Honestly I don't care if she spends her nights and weekends caring for orphans and war widows. She's a politician who treated Aaron Swartz as a pawn in the poli

by jordanb 14y ago

Honestly I don't care if she spends her nights and weekends caring for orphans and war widows. She's a politician who treated Aaron Swartz as a pawn in the political game she is playing. No doubt she intended for her campaign for governor to describe her as a "staunch defender of intellectual property rights" who, as prosecutor, put a "dangerous hacker behind bars" for "breaking into MIT and stealing millions of dollars of federally funded research." The Obama administration has thrown better people than her out the airlock because they became political liabilities. We need to add a new rule to the political rulebook that she's playing by. Ending her career is necessary to send a lesson to every other prosecutor who sees a guy like Aaron the way a housecat sees a cornered rat.

monochromatic 14y ago
treated Aaron Swartz as a pawn in the political game she is playing Well, maybe. It's also entirely possible that she was just doing her job, and didn't totally understand the technical aspects of what Swartz was accused of doing.
- venus 14y ago
  > she was just doing her job > didn't totally understand the technical aspects of what Swartz was accused of doing These are quite entirely contradictory. How can you charge someone for a so-called crime you do not even understand?
  - dylanrw 14y ago
    This hits the nail on the head. If the government can form legislation in a domain, and have the power to prosecute in a domain it should completely understand said domain. Ignorance on many levels is the reason for much of the discontent and injustice occurring where government and internet coalesce.
- drzaiusapelord 14y ago
  > and didn't totally understand the technical aspects of what Swartz was accused of doing. She had the resources to hire the types of experts who are what I call "executive whisperers." She doesn't need to know what a perl script is to understand what happened at JSTOR. On top of it, when the "victim" JSTOR is saying "what the hell, why are you prosecuting this guy?" Then its pretty obvious we're looking at political motivations here. Sorry, but you have way too much faith in people if you think what just happened was one big 'honest mistake.'
  - rdtsc 14y ago
    She is still responsible. There is a chain of command and she is the one getting the pats on the back if a lot of prosecutions go through and crime goes down in the country, but that means she also gets to respond for fuck ups.
- genwin 14y ago
  Whether or not she totally understood the situation, she's just as liable. Either way, she'd be doing a horrible thing. You don't wield such power so haphazardly or harshly and still be a good person.
  - monochromatic 14y ago
    I agree that she's just as responsible, but I'm not ready to assume malice yet.
- Turing_Machine 14y ago
  Prosecuting someone without understanding the crime in question is not "doing your job".
  - monochromatic 14y ago
    The majority of people are not doing their jobs if your definitions are that strict. Sad but true.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- hippee-lee 14y ago
  Very entirely possible. However I have a hard time believing that someone smart enought to make it through law school and pass the bar is not be able to learn enough about technology and motivations behind the actions in this case. As a tax payer I don't want a prosecutor who doesn't know who to go after or how far to go. From reading the thread(s) here and loosely following the case in the news I am not convinced that the money spent to prosecute this case was the best possible use of my tax dollars.
  - suchire 14y ago
    "However I have a hard time believing that someone smart enought to make it through law school and pass the bar is not be able to learn enough about technology and motivations behind the actions in this case." Much of law is a very technologically backwards field. Up until recently, some law schools (and not backwater ones, but major top-tier ones) only accepted hard-copy, type-written (as in, on a physical typewriter) applications. Harvard's student library had several typewriters specifically for this purpose.
    - dfc 14y ago
      Which schools and how recently?
    - hippee-lee 14y ago
      That does not mean that someone who goes to a law school like Harvard's is not smart enough to learn about the high level concepts driving things things outside legal education. This is especially true for someone who goes through said school and strives to become a prosecutor with political ambitions. For if they attain high level success as a prosecutor and in the political arena yet they cannot understand the fundamental difference between malicious intent and a prank rooted in activism then they are a scary person to be in a position of power. They will be making and implementing policy decisions with arbitrary and personal bias not hard facts. Someone in a position of power is not strong unless they know when to apply the full amount of power entrusted to them and when to practice restraint; when and how to apply less so that the level of punishment is commiserate with the crime being prosecuted. It is bad for our society to give give someone a pass when they over prosecute a crime in both the short term and the long term.
lutze 14y ago
I think you're missing the point vis a vis "fix the machine, not the person". The tactics described in the petition are ingrained in the US justice system. Getting rid of a single prosecutor isn't going to change a damn thing because the injustices are systemic, not the product of a vindictive individual. Like Aaron said, shouting at the gears isn't going to fix the machine.
- dantheman 14y ago
  I have to disagree, when people realize the risk is personal they'll take care to make sure what they're doing is right. Just following orders is never a valid excuse. Of course we should stop with the prosecutor we should continue on to try and fix the machine, but at the very least if prosecutors know they're responsible for their actions it'll add an additional check to the system.
  - edouard1234567 14y ago
    I think you meant -> "we SHOULDN'T" stop with the prosecutor.
    - rdl 14y ago
      Stephen P. Heymann, AUSA, too.
      - ole_korrect 14y ago
        Asst US Attorney Stephen P Heymann (US vs. Swartz) DOX http://pastebin.com/DUgS0QTw http://pastebin.com/DUgS0QTw
        Claro 14y ago
        It's been taken down by Pastebin, evidently Pastebin likes protecting assholes, here's another, but I only grabbed part of it before it went down: http://pastebin.com/WvY5RnjV http://pastebin.com/WvY5RnjV
Steko 14y ago
"We need to add a new rule to the political rulebook that she's playing by. Ending her career is necessary to send a lesson to every other prosecutor who sees a guy like Aaron the way a housecat sees a cornered rat." Yes it's vitally important that there be a completely different and much weaker standard of justice applied to wealthy software developers then those other people.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
jeswin 14y ago
She can probably kiss her governor ambitions goodbye now. The internet will destroy her campaign even before it begins.
- michaelt 14y ago
  The same internet that propelled Howard Dean and Ron Paul into the oval office?
rdl 14y ago
Yeah, the result of ending her career is both to punish her, and to establish a precedent so all future US Attorneys are appropriately concerned that if they commit egregious violations of the public trust and their oath of office, even if technically in compliance with the law, public outcry will lead to their dismissal and a career working in food service.
anoncow 14y ago
Why is federally funded research not in the public domain?
JumpCrisscross 14y ago
"Ending her career is necessary to send a lesson to every other prosecutor" Messaging that violating proportionality in such crimes is electorally unacceptable is necessary. Villainising a messenger of the law is not. I do not doubt that Mme Ortiz believes, or at least believed, that what she did is right. Her sense of morality was reinforced by her institutional context and is not unique for a prosecutor. She simply failed to recognise when she stepped outside the bounds where her values are recognised - this is not all that dissimilar from Aaron Swartz. As she should have done in his case, if we intend to use her to send a message, there is no need to do so with such zeal. I am highly conflicted about signing this petition. The call for bloodletting should never ring so clearly.
- samwyse 14y ago
  I signed, and posted on Facebook the following reason to do so: "Go sign this, if you haven't already. The description fits a lot of prosecutors, but this seems as good a place as any to start cleaning up." The job of a prosecutor is to prosecute, and if they aren't careful, they fall victim to the Iron Law of Bureaucracy (http://www.google.com/search?q=Iron+Law+of+Bureaucracy http://www.google.com/search?q=Iron+Law+of+Bureaucracy). Max Weber (1864–1920), a believer in the efficiency of bureaucracies, would also have a agreed with Pournelle; Wikipedia phrases it thusly: "Weber also saw it as a threat to individual freedoms, and the ongoing bureaucratization as leading to a "polar night of icy darkness", in which increasing rationalization of human life traps individuals in the aforementioned "iron cage" of bureaucratic, rule-based, rational control. In order to counteract bureaucrats, the system needs entrepreneurs and politicians." That's what this petition is all about. It's a warning to the politicians that the prosecutorial bureaucracy has gone too far.
- olefoo 14y ago
  As the author of the petition, the most I hope for is that it reaches the threshold to deserve a response. I do not expect Ms. Ortiz to lose her position, although I clearly do think that such an outcome would be salutary for the legal profession as a whole and the current DOJ in particular. However, even if that came to pass, she would still be a top flight lawyer with a broad set of connections; at worst she would move on to another position.
JPKab 14y ago
I had the misfortune of having a wannabe-politician as prosecutor going after me. She didn't care that I was a first time offender, and she could care less about the destruction to my profession and my ability to support my family. I was lucky enough to have a judge who had the sense to realize what was going on, and a lawyer who, due to the simplicity of the case, didn't bankrupt me. I'll never forget looking into the prosecutors eyes as she treated me like anything but a human being, and tried to needlessly destroy my life. Had she succeeded in her stated goals, I would have lost my job at a time when I couldn't possibly afford to. My consequences for my infant son and stay-at-home wife gave her zero pause, but thankfully the judge saw me as a human being, and was intelligent enough to conduct an instant cost/benefit analysis for society in her head. I seriously doubt that any of this is unique to a few prosecutors. At the end of the day, their incentives are not for the social good. Individually, they want a flawless record as a victor, costs to their victims be damned.
- cheeseandbacon 14y ago
  What was your crime?
- fleitz 14y ago
  I'll second this, if you stand accused of a political crime just watch out. They will stop at nothing to convict you, and redouble their efforts once they find out they've been duped into prosecuting you to support someone's agenda. She was exceptionally pissed to have to agree to stay the charges.

by jordanb 14y ago

monochromatic 14y ago

treated Aaron Swartz as a pawn in the political game she is playing Well, maybe. It's also entirely possible that she was just doing her job, and didn't totally understand the technical aspects of what Swartz was accused of doing.

venus 14y ago
> she was just doing her job > didn't totally understand the technical aspects of what Swartz was accused of doing These are quite entirely contradictory. How can you charge someone for a so-called crime you do not even understand?
- dylanrw 14y ago
  This hits the nail on the head. If the government can form legislation in a domain, and have the power to prosecute in a domain it should completely understand said domain. Ignorance on many levels is the reason for much of the discontent and injustice occurring where government and internet coalesce.
drzaiusapelord 14y ago
> and didn't totally understand the technical aspects of what Swartz was accused of doing. She had the resources to hire the types of experts who are what I call "executive whisperers." She doesn't need to know what a perl script is to understand what happened at JSTOR. On top of it, when the "victim" JSTOR is saying "what the hell, why are you prosecuting this guy?" Then its pretty obvious we're looking at political motivations here. Sorry, but you have way too much faith in people if you think what just happened was one big 'honest mistake.'
- rdtsc 14y ago
  She is still responsible. There is a chain of command and she is the one getting the pats on the back if a lot of prosecutions go through and crime goes down in the country, but that means she also gets to respond for fuck ups.
genwin 14y ago
Whether or not she totally understood the situation, she's just as liable. Either way, she'd be doing a horrible thing. You don't wield such power so haphazardly or harshly and still be a good person.
- monochromatic 14y ago
  I agree that she's just as responsible, but I'm not ready to assume malice yet.
Turing_Machine 14y ago
Prosecuting someone without understanding the crime in question is not "doing your job".
- monochromatic 14y ago
  The majority of people are not doing their jobs if your definitions are that strict. Sad but true.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
hippee-lee 14y ago
Very entirely possible. However I have a hard time believing that someone smart enought to make it through law school and pass the bar is not be able to learn enough about technology and motivations behind the actions in this case. As a tax payer I don't want a prosecutor who doesn't know who to go after or how far to go. From reading the thread(s) here and loosely following the case in the news I am not convinced that the money spent to prosecute this case was the best possible use of my tax dollars.
- suchire 14y ago
  "However I have a hard time believing that someone smart enought to make it through law school and pass the bar is not be able to learn enough about technology and motivations behind the actions in this case." Much of law is a very technologically backwards field. Up until recently, some law schools (and not backwater ones, but major top-tier ones) only accepted hard-copy, type-written (as in, on a physical typewriter) applications. Harvard's student library had several typewriters specifically for this purpose.
  - dfc 14y ago
    Which schools and how recently?
  - hippee-lee 14y ago
    That does not mean that someone who goes to a law school like Harvard's is not smart enough to learn about the high level concepts driving things things outside legal education. This is especially true for someone who goes through said school and strives to become a prosecutor with political ambitions. For if they attain high level success as a prosecutor and in the political arena yet they cannot understand the fundamental difference between malicious intent and a prank rooted in activism then they are a scary person to be in a position of power. They will be making and implementing policy decisions with arbitrary and personal bias not hard facts. Someone in a position of power is not strong unless they know when to apply the full amount of power entrusted to them and when to practice restraint; when and how to apply less so that the level of punishment is commiserate with the crime being prosecuted. It is bad for our society to give give someone a pass when they over prosecute a crime in both the short term and the long term.

lutze 14y ago

I think you're missing the point vis a vis "fix the machine, not the person". The tactics described in the petition are ingrained in the US justice system. Getting rid of a single prosecutor isn't going to change a damn thing because the injustices are systemic, not the product of a vindictive individual. Like Aaron said, shouting at the gears isn't going to fix the machine.

dantheman 14y ago
I have to disagree, when people realize the risk is personal they'll take care to make sure what they're doing is right. Just following orders is never a valid excuse. Of course we should stop with the prosecutor we should continue on to try and fix the machine, but at the very least if prosecutors know they're responsible for their actions it'll add an additional check to the system.
- edouard1234567 14y ago
  I think you meant -> "we SHOULDN'T" stop with the prosecutor.
  - rdl 14y ago
    Stephen P. Heymann, AUSA, too.
    - ole_korrect 14y ago
      Asst US Attorney Stephen P Heymann (US vs. Swartz) DOX http://pastebin.com/DUgS0QTw http://pastebin.com/DUgS0QTw
      - Claro 14y ago
        It's been taken down by Pastebin, evidently Pastebin likes protecting assholes, here's another, but I only grabbed part of it before it went down: http://pastebin.com/WvY5RnjV http://pastebin.com/WvY5RnjV

Steko 14y ago

"We need to add a new rule to the political rulebook that she's playing by. Ending her career is necessary to send a lesson to every other prosecutor who sees a guy like Aaron the way a housecat sees a cornered rat." Yes it's vitally important that there be a completely different and much weaker standard of justice applied to wealthy software developers then those other people.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

jeswin 14y ago

She can probably kiss her governor ambitions goodbye now. The internet will destroy her campaign even before it begins.

michaelt 14y ago
The same internet that propelled Howard Dean and Ron Paul into the oval office?

rdl 14y ago

Yeah, the result of ending her career is both to punish her, and to establish a precedent so all future US Attorneys are appropriately concerned that if they commit egregious violations of the public trust and their oath of office, even if technically in compliance with the law, public outcry will lead to their dismissal and a career working in food service.

anoncow 14y ago

Why is federally funded research not in the public domain?

JumpCrisscross 14y ago

"Ending her career is necessary to send a lesson to every other prosecutor" Messaging that violating proportionality in such crimes is electorally unacceptable is necessary. Villainising a messenger of the law is not. I do not doubt that Mme Ortiz believes, or at least believed, that what she did is right. Her sense of morality was reinforced by her institutional context and is not unique for a prosecutor. She simply failed to recognise when she stepped outside the bounds where her values are recognised - this is not all that dissimilar from Aaron Swartz. As she should have done in his case, if we intend to use her to send a message, there is no need to do so with such zeal. I am highly conflicted about signing this petition. The call for bloodletting should never ring so clearly.

samwyse 14y ago
I signed, and posted on Facebook the following reason to do so: "Go sign this, if you haven't already. The description fits a lot of prosecutors, but this seems as good a place as any to start cleaning up." The job of a prosecutor is to prosecute, and if they aren't careful, they fall victim to the Iron Law of Bureaucracy (http://www.google.com/search?q=Iron+Law+of+Bureaucracy http://www.google.com/search?q=Iron+Law+of+Bureaucracy). Max Weber (1864–1920), a believer in the efficiency of bureaucracies, would also have a agreed with Pournelle; Wikipedia phrases it thusly: "Weber also saw it as a threat to individual freedoms, and the ongoing bureaucratization as leading to a "polar night of icy darkness", in which increasing rationalization of human life traps individuals in the aforementioned "iron cage" of bureaucratic, rule-based, rational control. In order to counteract bureaucrats, the system needs entrepreneurs and politicians." That's what this petition is all about. It's a warning to the politicians that the prosecutorial bureaucracy has gone too far.
olefoo 14y ago
As the author of the petition, the most I hope for is that it reaches the threshold to deserve a response. I do not expect Ms. Ortiz to lose her position, although I clearly do think that such an outcome would be salutary for the legal profession as a whole and the current DOJ in particular. However, even if that came to pass, she would still be a top flight lawyer with a broad set of connections; at worst she would move on to another position.

JPKab 14y ago

I had the misfortune of having a wannabe-politician as prosecutor going after me. She didn't care that I was a first time offender, and she could care less about the destruction to my profession and my ability to support my family. I was lucky enough to have a judge who had the sense to realize what was going on, and a lawyer who, due to the simplicity of the case, didn't bankrupt me. I'll never forget looking into the prosecutors eyes as she treated me like anything but a human being, and tried to needlessly destroy my life. Had she succeeded in her stated goals, I would have lost my job at a time when I couldn't possibly afford to. My consequences for my infant son and stay-at-home wife gave her zero pause, but thankfully the judge saw me as a human being, and was intelligent enough to conduct an instant cost/benefit analysis for society in her head. I seriously doubt that any of this is unique to a few prosecutors. At the end of the day, their incentives are not for the social good. Individually, they want a flawless record as a victor, costs to their victims be damned.

cheeseandbacon 14y ago
What was your crime?
fleitz 14y ago
I'll second this, if you stand accused of a political crime just watch out. They will stop at nothing to convict you, and redouble their efforts once they find out they've been duped into prosecuting you to support someone's agenda. She was exceptionally pissed to have to agree to stay the charges.