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> Aaron was facing a cumulative maximum penalty of 35 years in prison. That's not true in any reasonable sense. And either way if you're just adding up cumulat

by mpyne 13y ago

> Aaron was facing a cumulative maximum penalty of 35 years in prison. That's not true in any reasonable sense. And either way if you're just adding up cumulative values it was 50 years after the charges were amended, not 35. From Jennifer Granick's post [1] decrying everything that the prosecutors did to Aaron: > He would be looking at 15 to 21 months of incarceration. That number could get higher quickly. ... True, 35 years wasn't in the cards, despite the fact that's the sentence the government publicly waived over Aaron's head. Neither was a maximum of 50 years, which was what the government arrived at after its perplexing choice to get a superceding indictment. But Aaron could easily have come out to over a year in his guideline calculation. Either way there were plea options on the table. Do you think there's any chance that Tsarnaev ends up with 6 months in jail for killing 3 people and wounding dozens more? Don't muddle up the real need for CFAA reform with such shoddy logic and misleading statements, it only makes it easier for legislators to ignore you as a "mere extremist". [1] http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/01/towards-learning-losing-aaron-swartz-part-2 http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/01/towards-learning-l... (you'll note she's not a fan of the Federal government on this)

Smerity 13y ago
I said upfront that this is not a straight up comparison. The main point for me is that I walk past the memorial for the MIT police officer killed in duty about once per week. One of these events had a tremendous impact on MIT and the surrounding community, the other had a negligible one. Regardless, have a re-read of the article you linked to. Jennifer Granick writes: > He could plead guilty to all 13 felony charges and the government would argue for a six-month prison term ... Some have blithely said Aaron should just have taken a deal. This is callous. There was great practical risk to Aaron from pleading to any felony. ... More particularly, the court is not constrained to sentence as the government suggests. ... if he plead guilty to a felony, he could have been sentenced to as many as 5 years, despite the government's agreement not to argue for more. Each additional conviction would increase the cap by 5 years ... On top of that, Aaron "would have had to swear under oath that he committed a crime, something he did not actually believe". Due to the obscenely high maximum penalty, it is no longer a sane option to fight to prove one's innocence, even in the case of what would be a minor crime, as the risk in case of failure is disastrous. Even if he pleaded guilty to all the crimes, there was no guarantee of a six month sentence. Thank you for linking to the article though. It's well written and sheds a light on the complexities at play. Small note: I didn't mention Tsarnaev in my original post, I mentioned his roommates, so your statement about Tsarnaev and a six month jail term is unfounded.
- mpyne 13y ago
  > On top of that, Aaron "would have had to swear under oath that he committed a crime, something he did not actually believe". Many people, almost by definition, do not believe that their own criminal acts were actually a "crime". Rationalization is a well-known human psychological phenomenon. Whatever else Aaron thought about his idealistic mission, being on the MIT subnet without permission was wrong (both morally and legally), as was entering into the MIT server farm to gain that access. But this wasn't even something that Aaron naïvely didn't recognize... he knew this was wrong to do as he had the same level of JSTOR access at his own campus at Harvard. But he didn't leech JSTOR from his own campus, he traveled across the city to surreptitiously do it from MIT. He even once covered his face with his bicycle helmet when he noticed a security camera so let's know act like "I didn't commit a crime" was his big hang-up. He did know, even if he disagreed personally with the law itself. > Due to the obscenely high maximum penalty, it is no longer a sane option to fight to prove one's innocence, even in the case of what would be a minor crime, as the risk in case of failure is disastrous. Well for starters you don't need to prove your innocence, you need only demonstrate that the government was unable to prove your guilt. But either way Dr. Granick covered this point already, and her treatment was comprehensive. I do apologize for misunderstanding your point to include Tsarnaev, though I think it still applies even for the accomplices. You said you pass by that memorial every week... you think the people of Boston would let anyone involved skate?
  - omegaworks 13y ago
    >his idealistic mission We don't know what he intended to do with the JSTOR data. >being on the MIT subnet without permission was wrong MIT grants guest access to its network while on the physical premises. >MIT’s open-network policies at the time allowed anyone visiting campus to access services like JSTOR.
    - roel_v 13y ago
      > MIT grants guest access to its network while on the physical premises. > >MIT’s open-network policies at the time allowed anyone visiting campus to access services like JSTOR. Please not this misinformation again. I have no horse in this race, but he was repeatedly kicked off the network, told not to mass-download again, and yet he chose to find ever-more invasive ways of accessing JSTOR, eventually planting a computer directly on the network access point; and doing so while disguised so as to avoid being caught on camera. It's not like he didn't know what was coming - and if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

by mpyne 13y ago

Smerity 13y ago

I said upfront that this is not a straight up comparison. The main point for me is that I walk past the memorial for the MIT police officer killed in duty about once per week. One of these events had a tremendous impact on MIT and the surrounding community, the other had a negligible one. Regardless, have a re-read of the article you linked to. Jennifer Granick writes: > He could plead guilty to all 13 felony charges and the government would argue for a six-month prison term ... Some have blithely said Aaron should just have taken a deal. This is callous. There was great practical risk to Aaron from pleading to any felony. ... More particularly, the court is not constrained to sentence as the government suggests. ... if he plead guilty to a felony, he could have been sentenced to as many as 5 years, despite the government's agreement not to argue for more. Each additional conviction would increase the cap by 5 years ... On top of that, Aaron "would have had to swear under oath that he committed a crime, something he did not actually believe". Due to the obscenely high maximum penalty, it is no longer a sane option to fight to prove one's innocence, even in the case of what would be a minor crime, as the risk in case of failure is disastrous. Even if he pleaded guilty to all the crimes, there was no guarantee of a six month sentence. Thank you for linking to the article though. It's well written and sheds a light on the complexities at play. Small note: I didn't mention Tsarnaev in my original post, I mentioned his roommates, so your statement about Tsarnaev and a six month jail term is unfounded.

mpyne 13y ago
> On top of that, Aaron "would have had to swear under oath that he committed a crime, something he did not actually believe". Many people, almost by definition, do not believe that their own criminal acts were actually a "crime". Rationalization is a well-known human psychological phenomenon. Whatever else Aaron thought about his idealistic mission, being on the MIT subnet without permission was wrong (both morally and legally), as was entering into the MIT server farm to gain that access. But this wasn't even something that Aaron naïvely didn't recognize... he knew this was wrong to do as he had the same level of JSTOR access at his own campus at Harvard. But he didn't leech JSTOR from his own campus, he traveled across the city to surreptitiously do it from MIT. He even once covered his face with his bicycle helmet when he noticed a security camera so let's know act like "I didn't commit a crime" was his big hang-up. He did know, even if he disagreed personally with the law itself. > Due to the obscenely high maximum penalty, it is no longer a sane option to fight to prove one's innocence, even in the case of what would be a minor crime, as the risk in case of failure is disastrous. Well for starters you don't need to prove your innocence, you need only demonstrate that the government was unable to prove your guilt. But either way Dr. Granick covered this point already, and her treatment was comprehensive. I do apologize for misunderstanding your point to include Tsarnaev, though I think it still applies even for the accomplices. You said you pass by that memorial every week... you think the people of Boston would let anyone involved skate?
- omegaworks 13y ago
  >his idealistic mission We don't know what he intended to do with the JSTOR data. >being on the MIT subnet without permission was wrong MIT grants guest access to its network while on the physical premises. >MIT’s open-network policies at the time allowed anyone visiting campus to access services like JSTOR.
  - roel_v 13y ago
    > MIT grants guest access to its network while on the physical premises. > >MIT’s open-network policies at the time allowed anyone visiting campus to access services like JSTOR. Please not this misinformation again. I have no horse in this race, but he was repeatedly kicked off the network, told not to mass-download again, and yet he chose to find ever-more invasive ways of accessing JSTOR, eventually planting a computer directly on the network access point; and doing so while disguised so as to avoid being caught on camera. It's not like he didn't know what was coming - and if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.