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I get that vengeance can be satisfying, but it means sending a message. And the message that US attorneys are going to hear is "don't fuck with young affluent w

I get that vengeance can be satisfying, but it means sending a message. And the message that US attorneys are going to hear is "don't fuck with young affluent white hackers with powerful friends". I never met Swartz, but I'd be surprised if he'd have wanted his legacy to be people that look like him getting a pass while everyone else suffers the same as before.

pekk 14y ago
There is no reason to suppose that this will be taken as a reason not to prosecute white people. The specific act and its context are clearly more important.
- MichaelSalib 14y ago
  In international relations, there's a whole literature devoted to signalling: looking at how states send signals to other states. There's a huge amount of evidence showing that the signals received are very often different from the ones transmitted.
  - pekk 14y ago
    The race of the defendant isn't a salient part of this. We don't have to wait for a black Aaron Swartz to act, on the far-fetched premise that the only thing that will be noticed by prosecutors was his color. This is a far-fetched idea. Federal prosecutors are certainly intelligent enough to understand many of the factors which make this sensitive, including a suicide, internet backing, the specific alleged crime and the open access issue. Without deciding that the whole problem is that you can't prosecute white people. So many white people are prosecuted without fanfare that this would be an impossibly irrational conclusion to draw.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      Ah, but what good is concern trolling if you can't find a way to cram race into the discussion too? If you aren't going to do it properly, you may as well not even bother! /s
    - MichaelSalib 14y ago
      Are we really going to pretend that federal prosecutors are colorblind, that aren't significant racial disparities in federal sentencing already?
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        Did he say anything of the sort?
- geuis 14y ago
  I'm not following your train of thought. What does "white people" have to do with anything?
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    > the message that US attorneys are going to hear is "don't fuck with young affluent white hackers with powerful friends"
kragen 14y ago
Having grown up in New Mexico, I didn't classify Aaron as "white". I don't know if he did.
- YuriNiyazov 14y ago
  What do you mean?
  - ojbyrne 14y ago
    I'm going to guess he means "Jewish." Some people don't consider that white.
    - YuriNiyazov 14y ago
      Wow, well ain't that some shit. And in year 2013, no less.
      - cmircea 14y ago
        He probably means "caucasian".
      - Vivtek 14y ago
        Yeah, my grandma died four years ago - 2009 - and I'm pretty sure she considered Jews kind of a third group, neither white nor "colored". I couldn't swear that my own contemporaries still in Indiana don't think the same, but everybody's wised up to the point that they don't actually come out and state anything explicitly. (This is a good thing; it'll slow down the transmission of that attitude to their own kids.) America's a weird place.
    - triplesec 14y ago
      It's odd to lump categorise. Some Jews are white, and some are not.
  - gknoy 14y ago
    He might have meant that the mental categories he used when classifying Swartz did not include race. If you'd asked me, I'd have acknowledged his race, but I wouldn't have used it as a way to describe him. "Young hacker", not "Young white hacker". Rich, even, but it would not have occurred to me to mention the color of his skin. We have been, after all, discussing the content of his character instead.
Natsu 14y ago
Most here would prefer that they take home a lesson not to throw the book at people who are trying to make things better. I think it's been pointed out that he's popular (and thus, has "powerful friends") because they sided with him in trying to do good and improve things. This is a far cry from someone using their celebrity status to flout the law for personal gain, which is the sort of thing one usually condemns. > I'd be surprised if he'd have wanted his legacy to be people that look like him getting a pass while everyone else suffers the same as before. Well, that's why Reason magazine (among others) has endorsed Aaron's law to at least fix one part of this. We can't change the system all at once. But we should make whatever progress we can, one law at a time. Perhaps eventually we will go to something like the German system, which dispenses efficient justice without any use of plea bargains. HN was discussing that the other day as well.
- MichaelSalib 14y ago
  Most here would prefer that they take home a lesson not to throw the book at people who are trying to make things better. Swartz thought that JSTOR was an illegitimate institution and he thought that justified him doing whatever he wanted to them. Why should prosecutors respect his moral judgments in that regard? He thought the law was wrong...so you think prosecutors should assume that everyone who thinks the law is wrong is "trying to make the world better"? I get that lots of people here agree with him: they think JSTOR is awful and they think they're entitled to do whatever they want to JSTOR, the laws be damned. But why should prosecutors believe that? that's why Reason magazine (among others) has endorsed Aaron's law to at least fix one part of this. I believe that "Aaron's law" wouldn't have made any difference in his case at all. I've seen people propose minor tweaks, but none that would have made a real difference for Swartz. And I've seen a lot of incredibly vague proposals that boil down to dramatically weakening prosecutors' power in criminal cases. But these are jokes: they're so vague that no one could ever advocate for them or they're politically impossible (Congressman, I write you today to urge you to make it harder for federal prosecutors to offer plea bargains for less than 1/5 the maximum sentence they're seeking).
  - vacri 14y ago
    A relative of mine embezzled money from her family business, to the tune of high five-figures. If you don't take motivation into account, how should she be sentenced? She was found guilty and sentenced, but before reading further, what do you think should have happened to her? If we take motivation into account (as the court did), does it change how you think she should have been treated by the court to know that she didn't keep a cent of the money herself, but spent it on giving food and clothes to homeless people, organising it herself rather than through a charity? She wasn't preying on the weak, she was misguided and trying to help society rather than get stuff for herself - and the law is supposed to be about protecting society. Motivation is an important aspect of any crime, and prosecutors should be looking for appropriate sentences, not the harshest one they can make stick. Besides, his case is a focus point that gives an excellent chance to start looking for reform rather than sweep it under the carpet as 'business as usual' - because prison sentences in the US have exploded ridiculously in the past 20 years.
rhizome 14y ago
And the message that US attorneys are going to hear is "don't fuck with young affluent white hackers with powerful friends". If as I hope this gets the CFAA entirely repealed, then yes, I'm fine with the message being that if a law is abused that the entire law under which they're trying to build careers can be swept out from under them. If Ortiz and Heymann have to work corporate contracts for the rest of their careers, that will be fine with me.

pekk 14y ago

There is no reason to suppose that this will be taken as a reason not to prosecute white people. The specific act and its context are clearly more important.

MichaelSalib 14y ago
In international relations, there's a whole literature devoted to signalling: looking at how states send signals to other states. There's a huge amount of evidence showing that the signals received are very often different from the ones transmitted.
- pekk 14y ago
  The race of the defendant isn't a salient part of this. We don't have to wait for a black Aaron Swartz to act, on the far-fetched premise that the only thing that will be noticed by prosecutors was his color. This is a far-fetched idea. Federal prosecutors are certainly intelligent enough to understand many of the factors which make this sensitive, including a suicide, internet backing, the specific alleged crime and the open access issue. Without deciding that the whole problem is that you can't prosecute white people. So many white people are prosecuted without fanfare that this would be an impossibly irrational conclusion to draw.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Ah, but what good is concern trolling if you can't find a way to cram race into the discussion too? If you aren't going to do it properly, you may as well not even bother! /s
  - MichaelSalib 14y ago
    Are we really going to pretend that federal prosecutors are colorblind, that aren't significant racial disparities in federal sentencing already?
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      Did he say anything of the sort?
geuis 14y ago
I'm not following your train of thought. What does "white people" have to do with anything?
- jlgreco 14y ago
  > the message that US attorneys are going to hear is "don't fuck with young affluent white hackers with powerful friends"

kragen 14y ago

Having grown up in New Mexico, I didn't classify Aaron as "white". I don't know if he did.

YuriNiyazov 14y ago
What do you mean?
- ojbyrne 14y ago
  I'm going to guess he means "Jewish." Some people don't consider that white.
  - YuriNiyazov 14y ago
    Wow, well ain't that some shit. And in year 2013, no less.
    - cmircea 14y ago
      He probably means "caucasian".
    - Vivtek 14y ago
      Yeah, my grandma died four years ago - 2009 - and I'm pretty sure she considered Jews kind of a third group, neither white nor "colored". I couldn't swear that my own contemporaries still in Indiana don't think the same, but everybody's wised up to the point that they don't actually come out and state anything explicitly. (This is a good thing; it'll slow down the transmission of that attitude to their own kids.) America's a weird place.
  - triplesec 14y ago
    It's odd to lump categorise. Some Jews are white, and some are not.
- gknoy 14y ago
  He might have meant that the mental categories he used when classifying Swartz did not include race. If you'd asked me, I'd have acknowledged his race, but I wouldn't have used it as a way to describe him. "Young hacker", not "Young white hacker". Rich, even, but it would not have occurred to me to mention the color of his skin. We have been, after all, discussing the content of his character instead.

Natsu 14y ago

Most here would prefer that they take home a lesson not to throw the book at people who are trying to make things better. I think it's been pointed out that he's popular (and thus, has "powerful friends") because they sided with him in trying to do good and improve things. This is a far cry from someone using their celebrity status to flout the law for personal gain, which is the sort of thing one usually condemns. > I'd be surprised if he'd have wanted his legacy to be people that look like him getting a pass while everyone else suffers the same as before. Well, that's why Reason magazine (among others) has endorsed Aaron's law to at least fix one part of this. We can't change the system all at once. But we should make whatever progress we can, one law at a time. Perhaps eventually we will go to something like the German system, which dispenses efficient justice without any use of plea bargains. HN was discussing that the other day as well.

MichaelSalib 14y ago
Most here would prefer that they take home a lesson not to throw the book at people who are trying to make things better. Swartz thought that JSTOR was an illegitimate institution and he thought that justified him doing whatever he wanted to them. Why should prosecutors respect his moral judgments in that regard? He thought the law was wrong...so you think prosecutors should assume that everyone who thinks the law is wrong is "trying to make the world better"? I get that lots of people here agree with him: they think JSTOR is awful and they think they're entitled to do whatever they want to JSTOR, the laws be damned. But why should prosecutors believe that? that's why Reason magazine (among others) has endorsed Aaron's law to at least fix one part of this. I believe that "Aaron's law" wouldn't have made any difference in his case at all. I've seen people propose minor tweaks, but none that would have made a real difference for Swartz. And I've seen a lot of incredibly vague proposals that boil down to dramatically weakening prosecutors' power in criminal cases. But these are jokes: they're so vague that no one could ever advocate for them or they're politically impossible (Congressman, I write you today to urge you to make it harder for federal prosecutors to offer plea bargains for less than 1/5 the maximum sentence they're seeking).
- vacri 14y ago
  A relative of mine embezzled money from her family business, to the tune of high five-figures. If you don't take motivation into account, how should she be sentenced? She was found guilty and sentenced, but before reading further, what do you think should have happened to her? If we take motivation into account (as the court did), does it change how you think she should have been treated by the court to know that she didn't keep a cent of the money herself, but spent it on giving food and clothes to homeless people, organising it herself rather than through a charity? She wasn't preying on the weak, she was misguided and trying to help society rather than get stuff for herself - and the law is supposed to be about protecting society. Motivation is an important aspect of any crime, and prosecutors should be looking for appropriate sentences, not the harshest one they can make stick. Besides, his case is a focus point that gives an excellent chance to start looking for reform rather than sweep it under the carpet as 'business as usual' - because prison sentences in the US have exploded ridiculously in the past 20 years.

rhizome 14y ago

And the message that US attorneys are going to hear is "don't fuck with young affluent white hackers with powerful friends". If as I hope this gets the CFAA entirely repealed, then yes, I'm fine with the message being that if a law is abused that the entire law under which they're trying to build careers can be swept out from under them. If Ortiz and Heymann have to work corporate contracts for the rest of their careers, that will be fine with me.