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Attorney General: Aaron Swartz Case Was a ‘Good Use of Prosecutorial Discretion’
- sneak 14y agoThis is the same guy who thinks it's ok to assassinate US citizens with drones without trial. Despicable.
- rosser 14y agoI just came here to say pretty much exactly that. Consider the source, people.
- n3rdy 14y agoThis is the same guy who thinks its ok to send guns into mexico to make a case against the second amendment and raise support for the U.N small arms treaty.
- saosebastiao 14y agoDon't stop there. He thinks it is unconstitutional for Congress to limit the President's power to assassinate US Citizens without a trial.
- rayiner 14y agoIt's never been not okay to kill people in other countries actively taking up arms against you, U.S. Citizen or not. People are just riding Holder's ass because it seems different to drone strike someone versus an American soldier shooting a German-American who switched sides. E.g. http://journalstar.com/lifestyles/columnist-recounts-tale-of-german-americans-fighting-for-nazis/article_66492ff6-2d6c-5bf0-a1a4-4997e5b9d578.html http://journalstar.com/lifestyles/columnist-recounts-tale-of...
- PeterisP 14y agoUSA is not in a war. There has been no declaration of war authorised by Congress. Therefore there can be no 'enemy combatants' - as (legally and officially) there are no war enemies; and drone-striking any US citizen is simply murder.
- anigbrowl 14y agoFalse. Public Law section 107-40, Section (2)(b)(1). http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ40/pdf/PLAW-107publ40.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ40/pdf/PLAW-107publ...
- tptacek 14y agoIt's weird that so many people believe we aren't at war, like they really can't get their heads around the fact that we declared war on a brand name and unlike the "war on drugs" it was an actual war.
- rayiner 14y agoThe U.S. does not need to declare war to be engaged in hostilities, nor does the U.S. need to be in a declared war for people who take up arms against the U.S. to be enemy combatants. This is a practice that is as old as the Republic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States#Military_engagements_authorized_by_Congress http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_Unite... Holder's analysis was based on the AUMF, which as a Congressional authorization of force is as much as the U.S. has ever required. As an aside, a declaration of war is a diplomatic issue between nations. It's not even applicable in this context, in hostilities against non-nation entities.
- zeteo 14y agoA pretty clear case where the legal system and the people who run it are left behind the times (and try to keep the times back with them). Changing your MAC address, for instance, is no worse a threat to society than wearing a hoodie in public, and threats of 35 year sentences are usually reserved for cases such as murder or rape. But because hacking is such a novel kind of crime that, if it spreads, will necessitate vast changes in the expertise and structure of the law enforcement system, the powers that be feel a need to nip it in the bud with excessive, well publicized punishments and threats.
- rayiner 14y agoDon't be purposefully disingenuous. There is nothing wrong with wearing a hoodie in public, but if you wear a hoodie to hide your face from security cameras while you walk, without permission, onto a commercial building at night, then the fact of your wearing the hoodie can be used to show that you knew you were trespassing and trying to hide the fact. The same exact reasoning can be applied to changing your MAC address while trespassing onto a private network without permission. There is nothing wrong with doing it by itself, but if you do it to get onto someone's network when they don't want you on, that's something totally different. As for "threats of 35 year sentences"--the statutory maximum is not a "threat." If I punch you in a bar fight, causing no injury, and you press charges, I'm theoretically facing the maximum sentence for assault in New York, which is 25 years. But at no point does anybody think anyone will actually get a 25 year sentence for a little bar fight. If I went apoplectic about the grave injustices of "facing" 25 years in prison for a bruised chin, people would point out the obvious: the statutory maximum is for people who try to kill people, not people who get in bar fights. Similar common sense should prevail in this discussion--the fact that it doesn't is because of nothing more than grandstanding.
- RyanMcGreal 14y ago> As for "threats of 35 year sentences"--the statutory maximum is not a "threat." That's simply incorrect. It is absolutely a threat. As I recently argued: > The prosecutor used the threat of 35-50 years in prison to get Aaron to accept a guilty plea. If he chose to plead not guilty and attempt to defend himself, it would cost well over a million dollars in legal fees, and if he were found guilty anyway, the judge would be strongly predisposed to make an example of him by giving him a very long, punitive sentence. > A prosecutor forcing someone to admit guilt by threatening a life-destroying cruel and unusual punishment if they do not admit it - why, that is the very essence of using torture to extract a confession! http://quandyfactory.com/blog/103/on_crimes_and_punishments_the_cruel_and_unusual_threat_against_aaron_swartz http://quandyfactory.com/blog/103/on_crimes_and_punishments_...
- thinkcomp 14y agoThe video of Eric Holder is simultaneously baffling and revealing. The USDOJ really thinks it did a good job. It's unbelievable. Holder's metric of success is apparently (in this case) nothing but how little time Aaron could have spent in jail. No other considerations seem to matter. I'm not sure how people so ignorant and blind wind up in positions of authority, but it scares me. Even scarier is the fact that I find myself agreeing with the Republican Senator from Texas who is likely only pressing the point with Holder to embarrass the Obama administration. This microcosm encapsulates so well government doing all of the wrong things for all of the wrong reasons. How did it come to this?
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- n3rdy 14y ago> who is likely only pressing the point with Holder to embarrass the Obama administration. He's doing it to build up his bid for the 2016 presidential election, and maybe a little to please his daddy. I'm positive it has nothing to do with embarrassing the Obama administration.
- ihsw 14y ago> This microcosm encapsulates so well government doing all of the wrong things for all of the wrong reasons. How did it come to this? It's always been like this, and the people pushing the political buttons and pulling the political levers are patting the AG's back now. Special interests have an iron grip on politics in Washington now and the only way to win is to spend the most money. Don't think this is limited to the Federal government, the States have been infiltrated just as well. Money makes the world go around.
- jisaacstone 14y agoYou use of 'infiltrated' indicates that there was a time when money did not drive politics. There was no such time.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
- redthrowaway 14y agoI'm genuinely curious what the Obama Administration sees in Holder. He brings no gravitas nor respect to the position; rather his role seems to be to deflect blame from Obama for his unconstitutional and generally shit-headed decisions.
- badgar 14y ago3 months sounds like a reasonable deal to offer.
- rosser 14y agoFrom my understanding, it wasn't the prison term that caused Swartz to reject the plea; it was the felony conviction.
- logn 14y agoAlso, it might be difficult to consider being locked in a cell with people who are liable to rape you to assert power. In addition, we never heard his side of the story. It's possible he had zero intent to ever distribute these. In which case, going to federal prison for trespassing seems absurd (and questionable jurisdiction).
- rayiner 14y agoHackers don't go to "rape you in the ass" prison. They go to places like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Camp,_Yankton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Camp,_Yankton
- strlen 14y agoI am not sure about the district Swartz is in, but I've known folks who went to FCI Lompoc (for non-violent felonies -- albeit ones with actual victims and non-trivial monetary damage, i.e., they did deserve to go to prison fair and square). While federal prisons are it's far cry from California state prisons (which, even at low security levels, are far more violent than state prisons -- it's not uncommon to take a longer federal sentence as opposed to a shorter CA state prison sentence for this reason), it certainly not "club fed". Swartz would have certainly have been beaten to a pulp on a regular basis, would have been treated to diesel therapy, and while possibility of sexual assault would have been low, it would be far from remote.
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- mattmaroon 14y agoI know I'll be pilloried for saying this here, but I'm not sure it wasn't. If one doesn't come at it from the stance of an anti-government idealogue (and if one understands the difference between statutory maximums and threats) this case is more complex than it's given credit for. It's quite possible Ortiz was overzealous. It's quite possible (in fact to some extent almost certain) that the system is broken and defines computer crimes poorly, and Ortiz was doing her job well in a very tough spot. It's possible we're better off with laws aimed to stop computer fraud, and that prosecuting those who commit it (even if they happen to be people we generally like) is a necessity in the 21st century. At the end of the day we have to remember, we need laws to prevent computer fraud, hacking, etc. Those laws will, almost by necessity, be written and enforced by non-programmers. Which is not to say Aaron deserved 17 felony charges. But it's overly simple to vilify Ortiz or the AG's office.
- ihsw 14y agoThe problem is when laws are written ad hoc for politically inconvenient people, at that point the executive branch will throw their hands in the air and say "We're just enforcing the law!" and ignore the ethical and moral issues.
- WalterSear 14y agoThere are mountains of computer crimes going on that are well within the current definitions. It's inconceivable that pursuing Aaron in this manner was useful for anything but making an example for the old bosses of intellectual property.
- AnthonyMouse 14y agoI think you can fairly argue that the prosecutors in this case, at the least, didn't do anything atypical. The fact that this sort of behavior is par for the course is a separate issue -- and one that deserves fixing, whether or not the fix involves the prophylactic purging from the system of some high profile participants. However, the idea that the CFAA is the best we can do in the way of legislation is just laughable. I really can't stand this futile notion that because the law can't be totally perfect, we might as well just give up and allow it to be catastrophically bad. No to that. We can't make it perfect but we can make it a lot better than it is.
- olefoo 14y agoThis is the same attorney general who refuses to disclose the legal reasoning behind the presumption that the president is entitled to kill American Citizens at home or abroad without due process of law. Also the same attorney general who has so far only prosecuted bit players in the nationwide mortgage document fraud without even bringing charges against executives whose name is on memos ordering the fraudulent practice. If you're wondering why justice in this country appears to be available only to those who can afford it... He is the prime mechanism of failure.
- aamar 14y agoWould appreciate a link to information about executives whose name is on memos ordering the fraudulent practice. I understand that there is evidence of fraudulent mortgages, and executives involved in risky financial behavior, but I am not aware of something tying the executives to the fraud.
- Torgo 14y agoIf you can find the full video of this hearing on C-SPAN or something, both before and after you can hear him taking questions on the lack of HSBC/bank executive prosecutions, as well as the issue of drone killings of Americans on American soil while not engaged in activities that present immediate and clear danger. You won't be satisfied with the answers, but they are there. The man is a world-class expert at giving responses that don't answer the question.
- gamblor956 14y agoThe original legal memo justifying the case for killing Americans pursuant to the war on terror was written by John Yoo while working for the Bush Administration. John Yoo is also famous for writing the torture memo. He is currently, to the great shame of all alumni, employed as a professor at the UC Berkeley, in the law school.
- javajosh 14y agoIt's time to get beyond the shock and outrage at the stone-walling occurring, now, at every level of government, and take a good hard look at what's motivating Holder. We are asking him to empathize with us - the least we can do is empathize with him. First things first: Swartz is small potatoes. Holder deals with a lot of things, not the least of which is fielding questions about the legality of drone strikes on US soil [1], or writing memos about Gitmo or torture [2]. The handling or mis-handling of a single case is nothing to Eric Holder, especially since his boss is not up for reelection. Second thing: the default position for any government leader is to back up your people. It's easier that way. If everyone in government backs up their people, coupled with unapologetic denials of wrong-doing, you have a much more comfortable government for one and all - at least between elections. But hey, 4 years of total autonomy is far better than suffering constant public scrutiny and having to react to it. This is even more powerful if you have the judiciary on your side and, since you're all on the same team, that's more likely than not. In summary, Eric Holder doesn't care about this case, and has assumed the default position of someone in his station: deny-everything. It would have been quite remarkable, in hindsight, for him to have done anything else. Clearly this is not a good outcome: we want an Attorney General who shares our sensibilities, and in this case, we wanted someone in that role who perceives the fact that the federal prosecutor overstepped their bounds and drove a sensitive soul into oblivion for actions which caused no-one any harm. We want someone who understands that merely to be prosecuted is a severe punishment in time and treasure. We want someone who understands the difference between someone who breaks the law out of a heartfelt spirit of doing the right thing, and someone who breaks the law out of malicious, selfish intent. Sadly, I can think of no other way to address this problem than to keep this in mind for the next election. [1] http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/03/05/173572444/president-could-in-theory-order-drone-strike-inside-u-s-holder-says http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/03/05/173572444/pre... [2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/06/pentagon-iraqi-torture-centres-link?CMP=twt_gu http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/06/pentagon-iraqi-t... EDIT: P.S. I really like looking at inexplicable/horrible things like a software bug. Rather than indulge in pointless, impotent anger, treat the anger as a signal that your understanding of the system is flawed, and think through the forces at work. It's hard to get in the head of an insider, especially right after they pissed you off - but chances are they didn't want to piss you off. They didn't care about you at all. Then, when your cogent analysis is through and you understand the system and how it can be fixed, you turn your anger back on a little and RIP THAT SHIT APART AND FIX IT.
- AutoCorrect 14y agoof course he also believes in using drones to hunt and kill US Citizens, whether they are within our without our borders. A bad person can do terrible damage, if left to run free (speaking about the AG here).
- darkarmani 14y agoWithin our borders, he would have a lot more trouble using military drones for policing actions.
- likpok 14y agoDo you think the military would not shoot down a hijacked airliner heading towards New York? With that in mind, how is using a drone any different?
- rdavl 14y agoSo nobody argues that scientific papers should be free for everyone to use?