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"We didn't believe that Morris intended to cause harm or damage," Rasch says. In his view, Morris was "motivated mainly by curiosity and by a desire to show tha

by corin_ 13y ago

"We didn't believe that Morris intended to cause harm or damage," Rasch says. In his view, Morris was "motivated mainly by curiosity and by a desire to show that he could do it." On the other hand, the Justice Department worried that "if the government treated this as a misdemeanor, a trivial offense, that others would go out and do it," Rasch said. "You had conduct that was planned, premeditated, that was deliberate, over periods of months, that caused massive disruption and expense to a wide number of different individuals." That required a response, the government believed. So Morris was charged with a single felony count. Rasch says Morris could have been charged with a separate felony for each of the thousands of computers the worm infected. But the lawyer and his colleagues believed that would be overkill. "I don't believe that you over-prosecute someone to send a message," Rasch says. "I don't believe in the head-on-a-stake theory of prosecution." ---- Is that not a contradiction, he seems to be saying that they chose felony over misdemeanor not because of him but to set an example, then goes on to say that they don't do that sort of thing?

samatman 13y ago
There is a subtle distinction between making an example and setting a precedent. It is crucial here. By prosecuting as a felony, they set legal precedent. By making it a single felony, they showed leniency to the offense in question.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> Is that not a contradiction, he seems to be saying that they chose felony over misdemeanor not because of him but to set an example He's saying that the felony charge was driven by the objective characteristics of the act -- both the deliberation and the impact -- and that going for a lesser charge given those facts would have sent an undesirable message, but that -- given that the intent was not to cause harm -- prosecuting beyond the single felony charge to send a "tough on computer crime" message was not justified. The contradiction you are finding is because you are creating overly broad extreme generalities from Rasch's description of balancing different factors.

by corin_ 13y ago

samatman 13y ago

There is a subtle distinction between making an example and setting a precedent. It is crucial here. By prosecuting as a felony, they set legal precedent. By making it a single felony, they showed leniency to the offense in question.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> Is that not a contradiction, he seems to be saying that they chose felony over misdemeanor not because of him but to set an example He's saying that the felony charge was driven by the objective characteristics of the act -- both the deliberation and the impact -- and that going for a lesser charge given those facts would have sent an undesirable message, but that -- given that the intent was not to cause harm -- prosecuting beyond the single felony charge to send a "tough on computer crime" message was not justified. The contradiction you are finding is because you are creating overly broad extreme generalities from Rasch's description of balancing different factors.