8 ms·

He's obsessing over this supposed 6-month offer. Sounds exactly like what I'd expect the husband of a prosecutor to sound like. Does he have any idea what even

• gadders 14y ago
  I highly doubt he would have been stuck in general population at a Federal Prison. I would have expected he would have been at one of the "Club Fed" institutions.
  • wavesounds 14y ago
    What makes you say this? How is this determined? I know of someone who committed suicide after being raped in prision. Which is one of the reasons its such a scary prospect for many young men.
    • deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    • gadders 14y ago
      Normally white collar non-violent criminals are placed in a slightly more "relaxed" environment. He is more likely to be sharing a cell with a embezzling accountant than Grand Wizard of the aryan nation. Conrad Black managed 37 months whilst in his sixties.
• smackfu 14y ago
  >Does he have any idea what even 6 months in jail would have been like for a 20-something? Still a huge difference between 30 years and 6 months (which was probably 3 months in reality). OTOH, a felony conviction on your record is a lot more damaging than 6 months in jail.
  • sp4rki 14y ago
    A felony conviction is not necessarily such a big deal and in some cases is even a "good" thing to advance your career if you plan on staying on the "security field". I made a post[1] in this same thread referring to this, but in short: A lot of convicted computer criminals have made very successful careers in the technology/security business out of having been convicted of computer crimes. You might even argue that their success is owed to the controversy, social support, and PR created because of their convictions. [1]http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5061071 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5061071
  • bradleyjg 14y ago
    In the federal system good time credits are only available for sentences over a year.
• eykanal 14y ago
  Never mind the fact that it was a plea bargain, which means he would have had to plead guilty to a crime he didn't believe he committed. What a bastardized thought process: "Just admit that you were wrong, we were right, and sit in jail for 6 months! How could anyone refuse that? What an unreasonable person."
  • jpdoctor 14y ago
    > What a bastardized thought process I think it's great: So now when Carmen is charged with manslaughter, she can be offered a plea-bargain of six months. I wonder how Mr Carmen would feel about it being put in that light.
    • mc32 14y ago
      Why would she be charged with manslaughter? There might be some stipulations for overzealous prosecution, (malicious prosecution?) or something like that. Justice is not perfect. There are countless people in jail in error (through no malfeasance). People identify the wrong person, someone was somewhere at the wrong time and circumstance is too strong, etc., etc. It can aim for perfection, but it's hardly that. Of course that does not preclude the aggrieved from being angry and disillusioned. Life is full of these weird uncertainties. It's not as though the girlfriends or boyfriends of people who become distraught and commit suicide because of a breakup would be charged with manslaughter. I've never heard of that being a successful case.
      • darkarmani 14y ago
        > Why would she be charged with manslaughter? You are missing the point. She can always be charged with manslaughter and take her max of 10 years in prison, or she can plea bargain down to 1 month. It's not about what you can prove, but what you can extort using trumped up charges to force a plea. (I'm not being serious, but that was the OP's point i believe)
        • jpdoctor 14y ago
• philwelch 14y ago
  Six months in a minimum-security, white collar prison over an act of civil disobedience would not be a bad deal to take. The felony conviction would be the problematic part.
  • gadders 14y ago
    True, but if you're independently wealthy, as he was, how much of an issue would that be? If he had a start-up idea, would it stop his funding?>
    • throwit1979 14y ago
      He's no longer independently wealthy. The infinite resources of the DoJ bled him dry in very short order, as they do to nearly every single federal defendant.
      • gadders 14y ago
        That has been asserted, but no evidence has been supplied.
        • bgentry 14y ago
          Lawyers are very expensive, especially good ones. The man might have had a couple million in the bank, tops. Considering the 2 years since indictment and the trial hadn't even started yet, that's a lot of legal time on the books.
    • philwelch 14y ago
      I don't think anyone in the know would think less of him for it. I'm sure things were rough for Robert T. Morris when he received his conviction--though he didn't serve time and it's not clear whether his conviction was a felony--but he seemed to recover a decent career from it.
      • gadders 14y ago
• tcuk 14y ago
  I'm sorry, but if you are arguing that Aaron Swartz did absolutely not break any current laws (whether you agree with them or not), then you are delusional, I urge you to read Orin Kerr's analysis of the situation, and refute anything he has stated, in a logical coherent manner, with solid evidence. I'm sorry but I'm sure this man, his wife, or any of the prosecution team did not expect Aaron to commit suicide or was their intention. I'm sure they are just as upset as everyone else. Try and put your emotions aside, and let your logic take control again.
  • ucee054 14y ago
    "I'm sure they are just as upset as everyone else." Oh, you think they are just as upset as Swartz's parents? Really?
    • tcuk 14y ago
      Did you actually just post this? I'm assuming your a grown adult, so it's weird that I'm having to explain this: Everyone else refers to the average person, or more so if you want to be technical, the average emotional response..
      • ucee054 14y ago
        How about you give up on your mind reading powers for a while? I'm sure you can read the psychology of Ortiz and every other prosecutor, and determine that their opinions of Aaron Swartz are exactly like normal people. I'd rather believe that they saw him like a target to be scalped, bullied into submission by plea bargain. I don't know why, maybe because US prosecutors have a history of treating the accused like targets to be scalped, and bullied into submission by plea bargain? Books have actually written on this subject, why don't you have a look? Here are some references: http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Eclipse-William-Norman-Grigg/dp/0979985900/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1358269055&sr=8-2&keywords=william+norman+grigg http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Eclipse-William-Norman-Grigg/d... http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Justice-Some-Equality-Powerful/dp/1250013836/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358268955&sr=1-1&keywords=glenn+greenwald http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Justice-Some-Equality-Powerful... http://www.amazon.com/The-Tyranny-Good-Intentions-Constitution/dp/0307396061/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1358268923&sr=8-2&keywords=paul+craig+roberts http://www.amazon.com/The-Tyranny-Good-Intentions-Constituti... Finally, don't expect me to re-interpret the idiotic opinions that you post as something really profound, because my mind reading powers are as awful as yours. Express yourself clearly instead. And don't call me a child - that's ad-hominem, jackass.
• blablabla123 14y ago
  But he is making a valid point. After all Swartz was smart enough to see what he was doing and hardly took any precautions to hide his identity on the laptop placed at MIT Campus. So obviously he didn't expect a life in prison, but in case he did expect no consequences, I would call him naive. Anyway, probably it makes sense to wait for this MIT analysis and other analysis of the case to decide whether the prosecutor did act irresponsibly...
• vph 14y ago
  But that's the truth. He is pointing out that 6 month in jail is not 35 years in prison as portrayed by many sources.
  • GiraffeNecktie 14y ago
    No it isn't. The sworn duty of the prosecutor is not to get a conviction, it's to get the truth. Trying to force someone to confess to a crime they didn't commit by threatening to lock them away for most of their adult life, is only a very small step away from torturing someone or threatening them with execution to obtain a confession.
    • rayiner 14y ago
      Nobody thinks he didn't commit the crimes he was charged with. He clearly accessed MIT's network without permission, and he clearly downloaded copyrighted documents with intent to distribute. The debate isn't about whether he did those things, it's about whether those actions should be crimes at all and even if they should be, whether the associated penalties were reasonable.
      • marekmroz 14y ago
        I think he committed no crime other than maybe trespassing. * MIT network was open * Everyone on this open network had access to the JSTOR articles * No EULA or any other agreement or license was presented to the user that would define what constitutes abusing the above mentioned privileges Nobody is discussing whether he did the things he did. What we are discussing is whether anyone in their right mind would consider this a crime. So there. (edited to expand on my point)
• rayiner 14y ago
  Is illegally accessing MIT's network and downloading millions of copyrighted documents no worse than re-playing an NFL game to your buddies? I think this is the heart of why people in the tech community can't make sense of what happened, and unfortunately probably why Swartz didn't realize what he was getting himself into. I don't think it's just prosecutors or husbands of prosecutors who think illegally accessing the network of a key piece of the defense industrial complex (whatever else MIT might be, it is certainly that) is a bigger deal than putting together a March Madness pool.
  • mindslight 14y ago
    Is accessing MIT's network and downloading millions of documents worse than illegally re-playing a copyrighted NFL game to your buddies? No, people in the tech community can't make sense of what happened because they viscerally understand what he actually did, just like everybody understands how to record and replay TV. Aaron plugged into an ethernet port to get a faster connection, something people do every day. Aaron continued downloading files after he was told to stop. Should he have faced some penalty for continuing after being told to stop? Sure. Should it have been decades in prison for asserting his right to a jury trial? Of fucking course not.
    • rayiner 14y ago
      You can't just throw away all context to make it seem like he did something everyone does every day. If I plug into the Ethernet network in my closet to get a faster connection, that's one thing. If I go into the network closet at Lockheed-Martin and do the same thing, it's a big fucking deal. MIT is a key piece of the defense industrial complex. It might be a hotbed of internet intellectualism, but it's also at various points been one of the top non-profit defense contractors. I can guarantee you that when the police found someone was attached to the network switch, before they figured out the identity of the person, they ran through the scenarios of whether the downloading was a cover for accessing classified information, etc. They wouldn't be doing their jobs otherwise. Once you've created that kind of suspicion in people, they're not as eager to give you the benefit of the doubt as people on Hacker News who see the story in full hindsight and with sympathy towards his motivations.