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It's harsh to say, and I know that there is much reason to think that the prosecutor was over-prosecuting Aaron Swartz's case, but this kind of blame-shifting o

It's harsh to say, and I know that there is much reason to think that the prosecutor was over-prosecuting Aaron Swartz's case, but this kind of blame-shifting on the part of parents is not helpful to a young person who is at high risk for suicide. 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. All three of those pioneers of civil disobedience spent time locked up in conditions worse than any Swartz would possibly have faced even if convicted. No one in the United States government killed Swartz, just as no one in the United States government forced him to download the JSTOR files through a method that Larry Lessig says he would never have advised Swartz to use. Swartz tested some limits of the system, and found out he miscalculated. He caved in when it came time to stay alive to test the system another day.

jlgreco 14y ago
> 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 system, provides an opportunity to set legal precedent, or is just in general noticed and cared about. If it does none of those things, then the only thing getting caught/locked up accomplishes is the silencing of another voice. Of course you could also say that protesters should accept arrests even if there is nothing to be gained by it just to adhere to some sort of socratic social contract mentality, but not everyone buys into that mentality. I know I certainly do not. If you are confident that you can secure convictions, and are confident that the system can handle the load, and are confident that the masses don't really give a shit about anything unless a celebrity is involved, then telling activists to go get arrested becomes an effective tool of suppression. Had Swartz been convicted and served his sentence, would the HN community at large care? We were dismissive when he was alive and it looked like he was hosed, would that have really changed when the jury came back with their verdict?
- gruseom 14y ago
  > 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 something about it. Actually, a trial and conviction would likely have become a cause celebre in the tech world. And yes I know that people don't just kill themselves for one straightforward reason. It's still sickening.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Maybe so. I am not confident that his conviction would cause waves large enough to really cause any sort of change though. I can't help but feel many people here would be less inclined to change their position (or even care enough to read articles about it) were the revelations not accompanied by such a tragic shock. Maybe I'm just being cynical because I found the dismissal from prominent community members so shocking and offensive at the time. However I am certain that were he someone with even less celebrity who was interested in something more marginal than freeing academic works, getting convicted really really would do fuck-all for his cause.
  - anigbrowl 14y ago
    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).
subsystem 14y ago
He didn't "test some limits". He did what most people interested in computers have done at one point. Connect to a network you aren't supposed to connect to and download something you aren't supposed to download.
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  That's outside the limit of legal behavior. He's not saying it was the worst thing ever, just that Swartz's actions crossed the threshold between legal and illegal.
gruseom 14y ago
> blame-shifting on the part of parents That is too harsh. They just lost their son. What can they be but blind with pain?
rhizome 14y ago
The parents are now responsible for at-risk youth and Aaron was supposed to carry the mantle of Thoreau and Gandhi, who's blame-shifting now? You allow an arrogance on the part of prosecutors not to be held to the same standard you assign these people, for why couldn't they see they were battling such a force as you ascribe to the Swartz family, including Aaron, and relent under the threat of acting on the wrong side of history? After all, by your estimation, they themselves left an at-risk youth and the possibly-next Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the lurch. Perhaps without this wisdom of proportionality they are not competent to be Federal prosecutors, especially if by your terms they are acting in the tradition of evil that the aforementioned precursors fought to transcend. But lets not battle hyperboles. Maybe we can simply agree that while the actions of Obama's Department of Justice and Secret Service were not entirely to blame for killing Aaron, they certainly knowingly helped supply the weapons, and at any rate that ultimately the interests of justice absolutely were not served by their efforts. Maybe we can also agree that the Department of Justice has schools of bigger fish to fry these days.

jlgreco 14y ago

> 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 system, provides an opportunity to set legal precedent, or is just in general noticed and cared about. If it does none of those things, then the only thing getting caught/locked up accomplishes is the silencing of another voice. Of course you could also say that protesters should accept arrests even if there is nothing to be gained by it just to adhere to some sort of socratic social contract mentality, but not everyone buys into that mentality. I know I certainly do not. If you are confident that you can secure convictions, and are confident that the system can handle the load, and are confident that the masses don't really give a shit about anything unless a celebrity is involved, then telling activists to go get arrested becomes an effective tool of suppression. Had Swartz been convicted and served his sentence, would the HN community at large care? We were dismissive when he was alive and it looked like he was hosed, would that have really changed when the jury came back with their verdict?

gruseom 14y ago
> 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 something about it. Actually, a trial and conviction would likely have become a cause celebre in the tech world. And yes I know that people don't just kill themselves for one straightforward reason. It's still sickening.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Maybe so. I am not confident that his conviction would cause waves large enough to really cause any sort of change though. I can't help but feel many people here would be less inclined to change their position (or even care enough to read articles about it) were the revelations not accompanied by such a tragic shock. Maybe I'm just being cynical because I found the dismissal from prominent community members so shocking and offensive at the time. However I am certain that were he someone with even less celebrity who was interested in something more marginal than freeing academic works, getting convicted really really would do fuck-all for his cause.
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  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).

subsystem 14y ago

He didn't "test some limits". He did what most people interested in computers have done at one point. Connect to a network you aren't supposed to connect to and download something you aren't supposed to download.

anigbrowl 14y ago
That's outside the limit of legal behavior. He's not saying it was the worst thing ever, just that Swartz's actions crossed the threshold between legal and illegal.

gruseom 14y ago

> blame-shifting on the part of parents That is too harsh. They just lost their son. What can they be but blind with pain?

rhizome 14y ago

The parents are now responsible for at-risk youth and Aaron was supposed to carry the mantle of Thoreau and Gandhi, who's blame-shifting now? You allow an arrogance on the part of prosecutors not to be held to the same standard you assign these people, for why couldn't they see they were battling such a force as you ascribe to the Swartz family, including Aaron, and relent under the threat of acting on the wrong side of history? After all, by your estimation, they themselves left an at-risk youth and the possibly-next Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the lurch. Perhaps without this wisdom of proportionality they are not competent to be Federal prosecutors, especially if by your terms they are acting in the tradition of evil that the aforementioned precursors fought to transcend. But lets not battle hyperboles. Maybe we can simply agree that while the actions of Obama's Department of Justice and Secret Service were not entirely to blame for killing Aaron, they certainly knowingly helped supply the weapons, and at any rate that ultimately the interests of justice absolutely were not served by their efforts. Maybe we can also agree that the Department of Justice has schools of bigger fish to fry these days.