4 ms·
No mention of Kim Dotcom or Julian Assange in the story. But that seems like higher-profile cases with the same kind of bullying tactics.
by c3d 14y ago
No mention of Kim Dotcom or Julian Assange in the story. But that seems like higher-profile cases with the same kind of bullying tactics.
- fleitz 14y agoHer behaviour is by no means uncommon which is why the press is having no problem digging up other cases in which she leveraged the resources of the state against those who were defenceless. Don't think she's particularly evil, she's your everyday average prosecutor.
- javajosh 14y agoI don't understand why people keep saying this as if it's an excuse. Just because everyone does it doesn't make it not evil. When slave-owning was legal in this country, it was still evil.
- DanBC 14y agoPeople are pointing out that things are worse than a single bad prosecutor, and that getting rid of just her will do nothing to fix the system. I don't get the impression that anyone is saying "Everyone does it, so she's fine".
- Daniel_Newby 14y agoIf it was just her, she would have already been assassinated; the cops would have shook their heads and turned a blind eye because hey, she did need killin'. By getting mad at her personally, you are in effect becoming Timothy McVeigh. He took out an entire building full of feds and nothing happened. I'm not even sure that carpet nuking Washington, D.C. would put a dent in federal overreach. It's a mass social movement, not a breakdown of part of the system.
- chris_wot 14y agoGood Lord, am I ever glad you are being downvoted to oblivion. Nobody so far has suggested assasination or terrorism to solve these problems. You are the first (and hopefully the last) to suggest this as a solution.
- Daniel_Newby 14y agoD you even read my comment? No, you did not. You read the word "assassinated", then turned off your logic to indulge in an unregulated emotional response. At no point did I suggest that anybody be harmed. So go read my comment. ... Now, what you read was a conditional statement. The article claims that prosecutor Ortiz is a bad seed, a "lone gunman theory" of a rogue lawyer who conducts legal lynchings on her own accord. What I replied is that IF that hypothesis were true, she would have been taken out long ago. A lone psychopath simply cannot go around destroying people's lives in broad daylight. If nothing else, the widow of one of her victims will do her in. Since she still breathes, the rogue prosecutor theory is conclusively disproven. Read the next paragraph of my comment. Now, Timothy McVeigh had a rogue government theory, just like the article we are discussing. He thought that if you could just prune back the feds a bit, do a little gardening, that they would get the message. He obviously failed. If anything, he made them stronger and more determined. So the theory that government overreach has anything to do with individual government employees is very conclusively disproven. Logically, then, if you believe that naming and shaming prosecutor Ortiz will help, you are making the same mistake as Timothy McVeigh, and for the same reasons. The correlation of Ortiz's actions with Aaron's outcome does not imply causation. You are glad I am being downvoted into oblivion. Of course you are. You are part of the system, and the system defends itself against strong statements about how things actually work. You and your downvoting friends are antibodies trying to maintain the status quo. You are part of the vast social movement that has given us asset forfeiture and national bunny rabbit police.
- chris_wot 14y agoFaulty logic. If she was an out of control lawyer, then it does not necessarily follow she would have been "taken out".
- jacquesm 14y agoDumbest comment on HN, ever. Really, what were you thinking?
- angersock 14y agoThis is not how things are done in a civilized nation. My God man, have you no sense of decency or decorum?
- Daniel_Newby 14y agoYou clearly did not read my comment. Go back and try again. I did not say anyone should be assassinated or even hurt, I said that since the assassiation has not occurred, Ortiz logically must not be terribly important in the grand scheme of things. Honestly, is it too much to expect that people read carefully before censoring things?
- javajosh 14y agoI think the people downvoting you are reacting to your rhetoric more than to the content of what you're saying. Basically, you're right that it's not just her, but I think you're wrong to say that she isn't worth singling out. Regardless of convention, she chose to not defy it. She chose to not change it. The system definitely needs to change. But we, the people, are part of the system and can exert political pressure on other systems to change. Sometimes you need a person to be an icon of what is wrong, and work change through her. This is far more powerful than any act of violence. (And indeed, gross abuse of power is getting worse, but it is also not widespread. So while there are thousands of Americans who have won the "your life is now ruined whatever you do!" lottery held by the government, it's still only thousands. When more than 1% of the population wins this lottery (4M or so), then I think physical violence should be considered. But not before.
- chris_wot 14y agoNo, he somehow seems to have equated "getting rid" of Oritz with killing her. Of course, I could be misinterpreting what is being said, and the commenter is free to correct me, but it does look that way given he jumped from removing Ortiz from office to assasination.
- dthunt 14y agoI actually know someone who works for DOJ and isn't insane. The problem with prosecutors is that they'd better know where that line between 'appropriate' and 'inappropriate' is, and if they're looking for magic words in poorly-worded statutes for their Trump Card, they've failed in their duty. Until the public is willing to call foul on these people, this practice will continue. Until the Congress (and state legislatures, who are somewhat less competent on the whole0 can get THEIR acts together, they need to look at everything they right from the perspective of a rogue prosecutor. That's tough, but, crap, you take a government job, you get saddled with some hard work from time to time.
- rdtsc 14y agoShe is a type or a personification of craziness and out of control incentives and culture that has been going on at the DOJ. I don't have a problems mentioning her name over and over, firing her, whatever it takes in the hopes that the issue will get a bigger attention.
- nonamegiven 14y agoIndeed, she's doing it because it impresses her bosses and colleagues. Unfortunately it seems to impress voters too.
- jacquesm 14y agoI'm not aware of a case against Julian Assange currently in progress, can you please provide a link? I know there was some talk about a grand jury being convened but I am unaware that led to an actual indictment.
- yardie 14y agoGrand juries are secret and so is the indictment. In fact, you won't even know about the indictment until you've been arrested. So unless someone isn't doing their job you shouldn't be aware of an indictment agains Assange.
- jacquesm 14y agoI know. That's why I asked for a link. Either this is news or it is unsubstantiated, it would be nice to know which.