5 ms·
Internet Activists, Aaron Swartz's Life, and 'The Day We Fight Back'
- tzs 13y agoYet another story repeating the 35 year potential sentence claim. The DoJ really should stop using their misleading method of adding up sentences in press releases. When they reach the point of charging someone, they have information on the amount of damages they are going to claim the defendant caused, what the defendant's prior record is like, and how the charges are grouped for sentencing. That gives them enough to apply the sentencing guidelines and come up with a realistic "up to" number to announce.
- AnthonyMouse 13y agoThey don't have the incentive to be restrained. Crowing about long sentences makes prosecutors look big and tough in front of the public and helps to intimidate defendants who may not know any better. The better solution is to properly delineate the severity of offenses in the law so that someone who has committed a less severe offense can't reasonably be charged with the crime that carries penalties "up to" something totally unreasonable. Stop relying on sentencing guidelines to clean up the mess created by broad prohibitions with excessive penalties -- especially at the federal level. Why is what Aaron Swartz was alleged to have done a federal felony rather than a state misdemeanor?
- ta_monkiner 13y agoSo nsa surveillance is unacceptable and must be fought but corporate surveillance is ok and should be accepted and used as a tool against nsa surveillance ? sad joke
- vdaniuk 13y agoExactly, your comment is a sad joke. It is a personal choice to be monitored by Google,Facebook and other services that an individual uses. On the other hand, that individual has zero choice in whether his or her activities will be monitored by shady government agencies.
- mattgreenrocks 13y agoYour tone is unnecessarily abrasive. Parent has a legitimate point: we defend the right to be spied on by corporations when it was that data that made this whole thing much easier to set up in the first place. For all the malicious intent assumed of government, we forget that private companies often have no such oversight rules set up for their clusters of data. And we do all this because we believe that freemium is a necessary evil.
- vdaniuk 13y agoMy tone is a reflection of parents tone, no more, no less. I've even used the same phrase. I won't argue with you as I think our axioms differ: I consider freemium necessary good, not evil and I don't think that anyone forgets about lack of private enterprise oversight and nearly no one defends the right to be spied by corporations.
- ChrisAntaki 13y agoI liked the closing sentence a lot. > With more and more people becoming the heroes of their own internet activist story, perhaps the many instead of just one can fill the void.
- adrianwaj 13y ago"a long battle with depression" Was he formally diagnosed with it?
- jheriko 13y agodisappointed to see this getting continual attention... embarassed as to the choice of hero this community seems to have chosen. let the down votes roll, i take them with pride.
- icantthinkofone 13y agoKids these days. They get on a theme, the sky is blue, I love you, and roll with their goody-two-shoes thinking life is all hugs and kisses. Life gets complicated when you get past 18 and more people on forums like this aren't.