7 ms·

The only thing I don't care for in all this is the deification of Swartz, as if he played no part in the dilemma he found himself in. That said, something need

The only thing I don't care for in all this is the deification of Swartz, as if he played no part in the dilemma he found himself in. That said, something need to be done about the prosecutors in this country, who overcharge and bend the law in way not intended.

ghshephard 12y ago
I think the community has reacted the way it has, because what Aaron did, downloading academic journals from a cabling closet, was both in the same context as things that many of us have done (Who hasn't, at one time or another scraped a few gigabytes of Academic Journals, and who hasn't, at University, spent a ton of time trapsing through campus in areas a helluva lot more locked down than where Aaron went), and, it was being done in pursuit of a noble goal, by someone who only had the best interests of others, and the internet at heart. He was then mercilessly pursued, pushed to the point of financial ruin, and threatened with several decades of prison - by a prosecutor who seemingly had zero sense of right/wrong, even in the face of the supposed victim (JSTOR) indicating they had no desire to pursue this any further. It was the sort of activity that when I went to school, would have merited a 3 day suspension, if that.
- tzs 12y ago
  (Responding out of order) > He was then mercilessly pursued, pushed to the point of financial ruin, and threatened with several decades of prison He was not threatened with several decades in prison. Worst case, if he went to trial and lost, would have been something like 7 years. There was a plea bargain on the table that would have let him get off with a few months. His own lawyers say that if he rejected that and did go to trial, they thought the most likely outcome would be probation with no jail time. It is possible that he thought he faced several decades between the time he found out about the indictment and the time he first talked to anyone who knows how the federal sentencing guidelines work and how the totals in indictments are so exaggerated that they make Hollywood accounting look realistic. You can find a very detailed examination of the charges and the possible sentences in the two links given as references in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7004640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7004640 > (Who hasn't, at one time or another scraped a few gigabytes of Academic Journals, and who hasn't, at University, spent a ton of time trapsing through campus in areas a helluva lot more locked down than where Aaron went) I traipsed a lot at Caltech. However, (1) I was a student there, and (2) if I was asked to stop because I was causing trouble, I would (to not do so would have violated the Honor System). In Swartz's case, (1) he had no connection to MIT, and (2) he did NOT stop even when it became clear that MIT did not want him to continue, and continued to the point of getting MIT temporarily cut off from JSTOR. He should have done his downloading from Harvard, where he had JSTOR access due to his position as a research fellow there, instead of sneaking around at MIT and evading their attempts to get him to stop.
  - thinkcomp 12y ago
    July 19, 2011 "If convicted on these charges, SWARTZ faces up to 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and a fine of up to $1 million." http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/July/SwartzAaronPR.html http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/July/SwartzAaronPR....
    - tzs 12y ago
      DOJ press releases greatly exaggerate the number of years when (1) dealing with multiple related charges, and (2) when dealing with defendants who do not have extensive criminal records. Federal crimes are divided into groups, and multiple charges within a group are treated like a single charge for sentencing. So if X carries a 5 year sentence if you are convicted of X in isolation, and Y carries a 5 year sentence if you are convicted of Y in isolation, and they are in the same group, then if you are convicted of both X and Y together as the result of one set of facts, you get 5 years. The press release for an indictment charging you with both X and Y will say 10 years. It ignores the grouping. Sentencing also depends on factors like prior convictions. If X carries 5 years for a first time offender, but can get you 10 years if you are a repeat offender, the DOJ press release will say 10 years, even if you are first time offender and so cannot get more than 5 years. For a detailed analysis of Swartz's indictment and what he was ACTUALLY facing, see these two Orin Kerr articles: http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aaron-swartz-part-2-prosecutorial-discretion/ http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-agains...
      - ghshephard 12y ago
        I think whoever just down voted you did you an injustice, so I bumped you back up. I may totally disagree with you on the righteousness of the prosecutor's behavior, and the seriousness of what they were trying to charge Aaron with - but I really appreciate the evidence and information you bring to the discussion.
        12y ago
- paulhauggis 12y ago
  " by a prosecutor who seemingly had zero sense of right/wrong, even in the face of the supposed victim (JSTOR) indicating they had no desire to pursue this any further.' Aaron didn't know the difference between right and wrong either. He snuck into a closet and copied proprietary data. If I was working for a startup, copied all of their customer data, and released it to the public (because I thought it should be free)..should I be prosecuted?
  - pdonis 12y ago
    He snuck into a closet and copied proprietary data. No, he copied data that we, the public, already paid for once, but are being forced to pay again for access to because the government has not forced organizations like JSTOR (and Elsevier and other journal publishers) to retire their outdated business model. The data itself is not "proprietary"; it doesn't contain trade secrets or personal information or anything like that. It's scientific papers that were paid for by the public. The fact that every single paper is not on a public website like arxiv.org where anyone can read it is an outrage. That said, I think Swartz knew perfectly well that he was breaking the law; but he thought it was worth doing so to fix the outrage I just described.
pdkl95 12y ago
The community isn't really deifying Swartz. What you're seeing is the community making him into a martyr. Martyrdom is a concept that is somewhat foreign or unexpected in American culture. Similar to the delusion that the country is somehow immune to totalitarianism, there exists a common assumption that martyrs, like dictators, only happen "in those other, less free countries". The very nature of what it means for someone to be a martyr basically guarantees that people will react strongly. This is why they can be a unifying force ("we must ${dangerous_but_important_task} for ${martyr}!"). This is also why the more talented oppressors take steps to prevent martyrs such as having them "disappeared". I see this situation as similar to the question of what to do with the medical data acquired from the Nazi camps. A good argument can be made for both sides, but in the end we should make use of the resources we have. So if it takes some "deification" or get the larger community to finally wake up and do something about these prosecutors (and other related people), then I would suggest that any "deification" at least served an important purpose. Given that Swartz spent a lot of time and energy trying to get people to do just that (wake up and actually fight the "big" problems in our society), then... I suspect he would have approved for the same reason.
- Shivetya 12y ago
  This generation needs better martyrs. As for waking up the community to do something? Which community? Certainly not this one. This community goes out of their way to elect their own oppressors and justifies the vilifying all those who on the other side prior to any election. Yet they have the gall to turn around and claim they are oppressed? Look, when you willingly, nigh joyfully, watch as they take over your healthcare you cannot then truly expect privacy can you? You cannot suddenly expect that they really care about you do you? Your just one wrong protest away from being in jail. Hence the term slacktivist, which applies to most of those cheering Aaron on. Never walked a protest line in their life, but ooh they may have downloaded a song they didn't pay for.
  - dwaltrip 12y ago
    Yep, clearly, the dumb Americans deserve everything that comes to them. Thank you for sharing your bold insights.

ghshephard 12y ago

I think the community has reacted the way it has, because what Aaron did, downloading academic journals from a cabling closet, was both in the same context as things that many of us have done (Who hasn't, at one time or another scraped a few gigabytes of Academic Journals, and who hasn't, at University, spent a ton of time trapsing through campus in areas a helluva lot more locked down than where Aaron went), and, it was being done in pursuit of a noble goal, by someone who only had the best interests of others, and the internet at heart. He was then mercilessly pursued, pushed to the point of financial ruin, and threatened with several decades of prison - by a prosecutor who seemingly had zero sense of right/wrong, even in the face of the supposed victim (JSTOR) indicating they had no desire to pursue this any further. It was the sort of activity that when I went to school, would have merited a 3 day suspension, if that.

tzs 12y ago
(Responding out of order) > He was then mercilessly pursued, pushed to the point of financial ruin, and threatened with several decades of prison He was not threatened with several decades in prison. Worst case, if he went to trial and lost, would have been something like 7 years. There was a plea bargain on the table that would have let him get off with a few months. His own lawyers say that if he rejected that and did go to trial, they thought the most likely outcome would be probation with no jail time. It is possible that he thought he faced several decades between the time he found out about the indictment and the time he first talked to anyone who knows how the federal sentencing guidelines work and how the totals in indictments are so exaggerated that they make Hollywood accounting look realistic. You can find a very detailed examination of the charges and the possible sentences in the two links given as references in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7004640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7004640 > (Who hasn't, at one time or another scraped a few gigabytes of Academic Journals, and who hasn't, at University, spent a ton of time trapsing through campus in areas a helluva lot more locked down than where Aaron went) I traipsed a lot at Caltech. However, (1) I was a student there, and (2) if I was asked to stop because I was causing trouble, I would (to not do so would have violated the Honor System). In Swartz's case, (1) he had no connection to MIT, and (2) he did NOT stop even when it became clear that MIT did not want him to continue, and continued to the point of getting MIT temporarily cut off from JSTOR. He should have done his downloading from Harvard, where he had JSTOR access due to his position as a research fellow there, instead of sneaking around at MIT and evading their attempts to get him to stop.
- thinkcomp 12y ago
  July 19, 2011 "If convicted on these charges, SWARTZ faces up to 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and a fine of up to $1 million." http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/July/SwartzAaronPR.html http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/July/SwartzAaronPR....
  - tzs 12y ago
    DOJ press releases greatly exaggerate the number of years when (1) dealing with multiple related charges, and (2) when dealing with defendants who do not have extensive criminal records. Federal crimes are divided into groups, and multiple charges within a group are treated like a single charge for sentencing. So if X carries a 5 year sentence if you are convicted of X in isolation, and Y carries a 5 year sentence if you are convicted of Y in isolation, and they are in the same group, then if you are convicted of both X and Y together as the result of one set of facts, you get 5 years. The press release for an indictment charging you with both X and Y will say 10 years. It ignores the grouping. Sentencing also depends on factors like prior convictions. If X carries 5 years for a first time offender, but can get you 10 years if you are a repeat offender, the DOJ press release will say 10 years, even if you are first time offender and so cannot get more than 5 years. For a detailed analysis of Swartz's indictment and what he was ACTUALLY facing, see these two Orin Kerr articles: http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aaron-swartz-part-2-prosecutorial-discretion/ http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-agains...
    - ghshephard 12y ago
      I think whoever just down voted you did you an injustice, so I bumped you back up. I may totally disagree with you on the righteousness of the prosecutor's behavior, and the seriousness of what they were trying to charge Aaron with - but I really appreciate the evidence and information you bring to the discussion.
      - 12y ago
paulhauggis 12y ago
" by a prosecutor who seemingly had zero sense of right/wrong, even in the face of the supposed victim (JSTOR) indicating they had no desire to pursue this any further.' Aaron didn't know the difference between right and wrong either. He snuck into a closet and copied proprietary data. If I was working for a startup, copied all of their customer data, and released it to the public (because I thought it should be free)..should I be prosecuted?
- pdonis 12y ago
  He snuck into a closet and copied proprietary data. No, he copied data that we, the public, already paid for once, but are being forced to pay again for access to because the government has not forced organizations like JSTOR (and Elsevier and other journal publishers) to retire their outdated business model. The data itself is not "proprietary"; it doesn't contain trade secrets or personal information or anything like that. It's scientific papers that were paid for by the public. The fact that every single paper is not on a public website like arxiv.org where anyone can read it is an outrage. That said, I think Swartz knew perfectly well that he was breaking the law; but he thought it was worth doing so to fix the outrage I just described.

pdkl95 12y ago

The community isn't really deifying Swartz. What you're seeing is the community making him into a martyr. Martyrdom is a concept that is somewhat foreign or unexpected in American culture. Similar to the delusion that the country is somehow immune to totalitarianism, there exists a common assumption that martyrs, like dictators, only happen "in those other, less free countries". The very nature of what it means for someone to be a martyr basically guarantees that people will react strongly. This is why they can be a unifying force ("we must ${dangerous_but_important_task} for ${martyr}!"). This is also why the more talented oppressors take steps to prevent martyrs such as having them "disappeared". I see this situation as similar to the question of what to do with the medical data acquired from the Nazi camps. A good argument can be made for both sides, but in the end we should make use of the resources we have. So if it takes some "deification" or get the larger community to finally wake up and do something about these prosecutors (and other related people), then I would suggest that any "deification" at least served an important purpose. Given that Swartz spent a lot of time and energy trying to get people to do just that (wake up and actually fight the "big" problems in our society), then... I suspect he would have approved for the same reason.

Shivetya 12y ago
This generation needs better martyrs. As for waking up the community to do something? Which community? Certainly not this one. This community goes out of their way to elect their own oppressors and justifies the vilifying all those who on the other side prior to any election. Yet they have the gall to turn around and claim they are oppressed? Look, when you willingly, nigh joyfully, watch as they take over your healthcare you cannot then truly expect privacy can you? You cannot suddenly expect that they really care about you do you? Your just one wrong protest away from being in jail. Hence the term slacktivist, which applies to most of those cheering Aaron on. Never walked a protest line in their life, but ooh they may have downloaded a song they didn't pay for.
- dwaltrip 12y ago
  Yep, clearly, the dumb Americans deserve everything that comes to them. Thank you for sharing your bold insights.