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Looks like Steve Heymann has a history of this: "The case was picked up by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Heymann in Boston, the cybercrime prosecutor who won a
by jeremymims 14y ago
Looks like Steve Heymann has a history of this:
"The case was picked up by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Heymann in Boston, the cybercrime prosecutor who won a record 20-year prison stretch for TJX hacker Albert Gonzalez. Heymann indicted Aaron on 13 counts of wire fraud, computer intrusion and reckless damage. The case has been wending through pre-trial motions for 18 months, and was set for jury trial on April 1." [1]
Appears that Jonathan James and Aaron Swartz both had the same prosecutor after them...
[1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/aaron-swartz/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/aaron-swartz/
- _delirium 14y agoNot a whole lot of information available about Heymann, but what little I can find doesn't make me like him more. Here's something that turned up from 1996, where he tried to get Harvard to authorize warrantless surveillance: Stephen Heymann, deputy chief of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney's office in Boston, wanted Harvard to put an electronic banner on its intranet telling users they were being monitored. The banner, implying consent, would let law enforcement do the data tap without having to get a court order. From the sidebar ("case in point") here: http://books.google.com/books?id=2xcEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA65 http://books.google.com/books?id=2xcEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA65 edit: He also apparently wrote a law-review article in 1997 entitled "Legislating Computer Crime", which might give a more accurate and perhaps nuanced account of his views on the subject. I'd link it, but it's paywalled.
- doktrin 14y ago> "who won a record 20-year sentence" I know this is common verbiage, but it's frankly sickening. Do they view their targets as people, or are they merely a collection of scalps?
- rwmj 14y agoGonzalez stole real money, I'm sure causing many people a great deal of trouble and distress. He said in chat logs that he aimed to steal $15 million and retire. It's really not that much different from pickpocketing or bank robbery, except on a much larger scale, and I'm quite happy if pickpockets, bank robbers, insurance scammers, and other criminals get serious time. This is quite different from Aaron Swartz who wrote a slightly more advanced recursive 'wget'/'curl' to download something he already had access to.
- linuxhansl 14y agoPunishment is unfortunately needed for deterrence. But 20 years? Does anybody here have any grasp about how long 20 years are in prison? Where I'm from the maximum sentence is 15 years in prison.
- jwdunne 14y agoYes, that stood out to me too. There are people in the UKwjo have been released or sentenced much shorter terms for FAR more heinous crimes. We're talking juveniles who have tortured and killed infants, people who have beaten children to death, people who raped multiple women and much more. I know he stole a lot of money but this is compared to people who have destroyed lives, many of whom enjoyed doing so.
- cgag 14y agoI've never really understood why people want such long prison sentences. Is that guy going to be any more reformed after 20 years than 5?
- doktrin 14y agoOh, I'm certainly not arguing Gonzalez should not have been prosecuted. What I am reacting to quite specifically is the notion that "winning" a higher sentence is somehow a goal in and of itself. Having worked quite closely with the legal community over the last half decade, I have to say that the mercenary attitude many hold continues to jar me.
- rve 14y agoKill THAT prosecutor !
- super42 14y agoIf you guys are interested in Heymann being fired, please sign the petition. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-attorney-steve-heymann/RJKSY2nb https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-...