6 ms·

The White House's non-response on the two-year anniversary of Aaron Swartz's death shows why these petitions are not only flawed, but should be avoided by peopl

by declan 12y ago

The White House's non-response on the two-year anniversary of Aaron Swartz's death shows why these petitions are not only flawed, but should be avoided by people who actually care about political or policy change. Look at the nearby discussion: Instead of asking why Carmen Ortiz, who's been in her current job for nearly six years, is still there, we're debating the terms of use of the petition site. Instead of wondering why a law originally designed to protect NORAD was used to drive Aaron Swartz to suicide -- despite his JSTOR "victim" never asking for a criminal prosecution -- we're reminiscing about other, equally useless, petitions in the past. I admit it's a brilliant move by this administration (to be sure, Rs would do the same thing). Instead of having people sign up to be members of EFF or ACLU or TechFreedom.org, which will send email alerts when legal fixes like "Aaron's Law" are pending in Congress, people slap their names on a petition that results in a committee-managed non-response on the two year anniversary of his death. Imagine if even 5% or 10% of the 61,179 people who signed that petition instead organized rallies in their cities, or a kind of Leave The Internet Alone rally in DC. That might or may not accomplish something; it surely would accomplish more than signing the petition did. (You could wrap in a bunch of related topics: DMCA/copyright reform, NSA reform, CFAA reform and more.) I'm sorry if I sound frustrated. I spent hundreds of hours interviewing folks involved in the case and reading court documents about the Aaron Swartz prosecution while I was at CNET before leaving to build http://recent.io/ http://recent.io/. What happened to him was a tragedy, but Carmen Ortiz will leave for a seven-figure law firm job at a time that's convenient for her, and an effort in Congress to fix things actually coughed up a bill to make current law worse: http://www.cnet.com/news/aarons-law-rewrite-backfires-reformers-now-on-defensive/ http://www.cnet.com/news/aarons-law-rewrite-backfires-reform... If you're interested, here's a detailed piece I wrote about the federal anti-hacking law Carmen Ortiz wielded against Aaron Swartz, and how it was never originally intended to cover what he was accused of doing: http://www.cnet.com/news/from-wargames-to-aaron-swartz-how-u-s-anti-hacking-law-went-astray/ http://www.cnet.com/news/from-wargames-to-aaron-swartz-how-u...

joering2 12y ago
> Imagine if even 5% or 10% of the 61,179 people who signed that petition instead organized rallies in their cities, or a kind of Leave The Internet Alone rally in DC. That might or may not accomplish something; Well, but wasn't it actually exact purpose behind creating the site? So that people vent on it, instead of rallying on the streets? Of course, this is disgusting, but wouldn't surprise me... > but Carmen Ortiz will leave for a seven-figure law To those of us who believe in Higher Power, she will face much harsher consequences when she crosses to the other side.
- b3tta 12y ago
  I'm not a believer, like many others (especially in europe). So... It would be nice to see her face harsh consequences on this side too. I'm pretty sure that we both can agree on that one.
TheHydroImpulse 12y ago
> Imagine if even 5% or 10% of the 61,179 people who signed that petition instead organized rallies in their cities, or a kind of Leave The Internet Alone rally in DC. Because the truth is that people generally don't care enough to do anything worth while ("signing" a petition is pretty minimal in terms of effort). There will always be the activists that are local to the cause who will do everything they can to fight, but everyone else, living their own lives, working, being parents, having hobbies or what have you have their own personal problems to take care of. It's just routine. With the added regular news from the regular sources, who knows how manipulated they are, they're just so removed from what's actually going on. Not to mention, many people won't ask "What can the people do?" but "What can I do?" and their answer will be: "Nothing!" We live in a world where people are told to live their lives, handle their business and the rest will be taken care of. Maybe that's just common in Canada. I don't like this situation, but this is what I'm seeing.
- res0nat0r 12y ago
  Exactly. This is called slacktivism. Which is also a major reason why none of these online petitions which require a simple mouse click and nothing more are not taken seriously by most folks.
  - atmosx 12y ago
    Hm, we can all agree then that making an app for this and that won't change the world? Just don't tell Silicon Valley..
    - Retra 12y ago
      You can make money selling activism just as well as you can selling entrepreneurism.
      - jarcane 12y ago
        Indeed. It took me over a year to get off Credo's mailing list. They even followed me to other addresses. I only stopped getting their ads in the mail after I moved overseas. No sense selling cut-rate "libwashed" cellphones to foreigners who can't use them, I guess.
ddingus 12y ago
The core issues here, as they seem to always be, are: 1. Getting people organized and calling them to action. Frankly, Aaron got this, and he could blend code, politics, and organize people around causes. Down deep, I suspect some people who would not benefit from those attributes took notice. Call me out on that being a conspiracy theory, and I may not even argue. But, I found that aspect of Aaron compelling. Hard to imagine others didn't take notice. He left some great models. There doesn't seem to be anybody out there picking up those pieces, or if they are, it's not apparent --or as apparent as Aaron's efforts were. Maybe it takes a group to do what he did. I don't know, but I sure liked what he was doing. It got people thinking, talking, contributing, doing more. Rallies and such get attention. I like seeing them, and I like participating in them. What I don't know is how effective they are in the current media climate. One distinctive aspect of how Aaron chose to move people and set things in motion is it worked through non-mainstream / traditional / old media channels. I do know for sure that we need more of that. If it's connected to citizen action events, great! Maybe that helps actualize it for people or keep them motivated. 2. Money in the politics. We've all hashed this out. Let's just say I agree with Lessig in that we are going to have to somehow work this system to change it. I don't know if Mayday is the right kind of effort, but I support it, because we will learn things from it at the very least. Others differ in their goals, and again, it's really hard to get people centered in on this, and we need to. We need to, because darn near every issue we care about is linked to it, and we are always making trade-offs, instead of actually getting things resolved to a better state we all would live better with. And living better is really the goal, isn't it? I don't care who is right, or who has it perfect. I just want things better. Seems to me, we should be able to center in on "better" and not worry so much about perfect, or "right", just better and maybe keep doing that so that we get to "right" or "just" or "perfect" over time, incrementally. Until we see significant and sustained action on these fronts, I'm afraid it's more deals, not any meaningful changes we can feel good about. And those deals can be really ugly, or somewhat ugly, or maybe just sort of OK too. Depends on our voice and who we've got in the legislative role at the time. My .02 anyway.
- ddingus 12y ago
  Crap... I should add we also seem to be caught up in transactional politics. Vote this, get that. When that breaks down, people do too, and we don't get movements moving. We need movement politics, and the points I made in the parent post speak right to that. Significant, sustained efforts that don't go away easily and that can grow over time. Movements, not transactions. To me, the petition thing is just a warm fuzzy as declan put out there. "Hey, I did something, where is that beer and TeeVee..."
hristov 12y ago
I disagree with your main point. The petitions are a good idea. We know that some petitions are not going to change the government's mind. But just having a mechanism for getting the government to consider something and provide an official response is a good idea. Previous administrations would simply ignore things they were not interested in. And journalists who get admitted to white house press conferences can often be counted on to completely ignore subjects that were of no interest to either political party. That being said, petitions do not solve everything and the other political actions you mentioned may be called for. But even then the petition helps, as it provides an official government response which may galvanize other political action.
- thebenedict 12y ago
  The existence of a petition site is better than absolutely nothing. I'll even grant that a petition response isn't the right forum for addressing a personnel question. But like user 'btilly' says below, "The wording of the petition may have been very specific, but it still provides an opportunity to address the issue." There are smart people at the White House and they understand the intent and emotional response behind the petition. To lean on the TOS to avoid a substantive response to issues raised by Aaron's case is callous disregard for the 60,000 people who signed.
  - talmand 12y ago
    I would say a petition site that almost always results in nothing changing is worse than absolutely nothing. People signing a useless petition makes them feel as if they've done something, which usually leads them to do nothing more on the matter. When, in fact, they've actually done nothing to help the cause they think they are helping. Without the useless petition some of these people might have done something else that might have actually helped in some way.
    - inigoesdr 12y ago
      At the very least it provides a venue to gauge support, allows people to spread awareness of an issue, and causes the petition signers to think more about the situation than a passive dismissal.
Shivetya 12y ago
the petition site is nothing more than most manufactures support forums, designed to let people vent. The difference with manufacturers sites is that people can solve problems there as they become nearly self running. The Whitehouse site was a trick, something to appease the masses who themselves wanted to feel good, feel like they were being heard, fool themselves into thinking they mattered. As in, another use of effective marketing which this Administration was very good at during elections
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
lordbusiness 12y ago
> Imagine if even 5% or 10% of the 61,179 people who signed that petition instead organized rallies in their cities, or a kind of Leave The Internet Alone rally in DC. That might or may not accomplish something; it surely would accomplish more than signing the petition did. (You could wrap in a bunch of related topics: DMCA/copyright reform, NSA reform, CFAA reform and more.) Because Slacktivism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism
normloman 12y ago
What if 10% of those 61,179 signed the petition because they couldn't travel to DC or take time off work to rally? What if they have kids, a second job, or an ailing relative they care for? And suppose they could rally. If it was big enough to garner media attention, it might keep the issue in the spotlight a little longer. But it alone wouldn't change much. During the occupy protests, people rallied for months, and nothing happened. Protest has no teeth if separated from action. We need to get organized, pressure legislators, support specific policies, and get the right people in office.
snowwrestler 12y ago
I agree that the petitions site is never going to create real change in the government, but I disagree that it is harmful. Grassroots action is not a zero-sum game, in which a petition steals energy from a rally (or whatever). People do not have a fixed amount of "grassroots energy" per person. Activism is more like building a bank account in each person, in which you have to make regular "deposits" by reminding each person of the issue, then re-reminding them, then engaging them, then re-engaging them...until finally there's enough personal interest that they will begin to take more effective action like calling Congress, attending a rally, etc. This petition was never going to do anything about a particular US Attorney...but it's providing a great platform to remind everyone of what happened, and why, and how things could be different. Basically: without this petition response announced today, you wouldn't have posted about Swartz today, and many thousands of people would not have read it--a net negative.
saranagati 12y ago
and this is the state of the world. you talk about how the white house is curtailing the issue of problematic staff by mentioning how that an online petition is not the correct place for that and everyone responds to you about petitions. to be fair to them I guess you even jumped on the bandwagon within your own comment. still no talk about overzealous prosecutors.
crucini 12y ago
Declan, I respect the work you've done, but this is a bad argument: > despite his JSTOR "victim" never asking for a criminal prosecution Law enforcement and prosecutors have to take the responsibility, and not put the weight on the victim's shoulders. You are implicitly advocating a system where the victim can be intimidated out of prosecuting.
- matrixagent 12y ago
  There are many, many crimes where the victim has to press charges for any prosecution to happen, and copyright infringement most certainly should be one of those.
  - FireBeyond 12y ago
    Those are crimes where the victim's testimony is core or critical to the successful prosecution. In cases where, as this, the government has access to material evidence that doesn't rely on requiring someone to want prosecution or having to testify, then this is not the case.
- declan 12y ago
  <crucini>, thanks for your kind words. I may not have been as clear as I should have been, so let me try again. Let's look at what JSTOR itself said: "The case is one that we ourselves had regretted being drawn into from the outset... JSTOR settled any civil claims we might have had against him in June 2011..." http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz You're right that if victims can be intimidated into asking for non-prosecution, that would be a problem! But what JSTOR said above is precisely not the language of an organization that's been intimidated. More broadly, the problem lies with the over-criminalization of everyday activities, especially in federal law, as Harvey Silverglate has documented in "Three Felonies a Day." And, if you want to go back further in history, the modern police-prosecutor, victim-has-no-say approach to criminal charges is a relatively modern phenomenon. There are other ways to approach criminal law; I'd refer you to Bruce Benson's "Enterprise of Law" for more on that.
john_b 12y ago
> "Look at the nearby discussion: Instead of asking why Carmen Ortiz, who's been in her current job for nearly six years, is still there, we're debating the terms of use of the petition site. Instead of wondering why a law originally designed to protect NORAD was used to drive Aaron Swartz to suicide -- despite his JSTOR "victim" never asking for a criminal prosecution -- we're reminiscing about other, equally useless, petitions in the past." As an interesting aside, I was reading the article about the internal communications of the Chinese communist party's propaganda machine (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856218) and one of the internet commenters on the payroll for the Party had this to say: > “When transferring the attention of netizens and blurring the public focus, going off the topic is very effective.” I find the USG response to this petition laughably transparent in the same way, but it will still be effective in general. > "The White House's non-response on the two-year anniversary of Aaron Swartz's death shows why these petitions are not only flawed, but should be avoided by people who actually care about political or policy change." This has always been true; it's not just in this specific case or with respect to whitehouse.gov. A petition is a slightly more sophisticated form of the "like" button, invented in a pre-internet time. Intelligent, directed actions sustained over a period of time cause changes; a boolean expression of opinion without the threat of some undesirable (by those perpetuating the status quo) action behind it is just a way of venting.

by declan 12y ago

joering2 12y ago

> Imagine if even 5% or 10% of the 61,179 people who signed that petition instead organized rallies in their cities, or a kind of Leave The Internet Alone rally in DC. That might or may not accomplish something; Well, but wasn't it actually exact purpose behind creating the site? So that people vent on it, instead of rallying on the streets? Of course, this is disgusting, but wouldn't surprise me... > but Carmen Ortiz will leave for a seven-figure law To those of us who believe in Higher Power, she will face much harsher consequences when she crosses to the other side.

b3tta 12y ago
I'm not a believer, like many others (especially in europe). So... It would be nice to see her face harsh consequences on this side too. I'm pretty sure that we both can agree on that one.

TheHydroImpulse 12y ago

> Imagine if even 5% or 10% of the 61,179 people who signed that petition instead organized rallies in their cities, or a kind of Leave The Internet Alone rally in DC. Because the truth is that people generally don't care enough to do anything worth while ("signing" a petition is pretty minimal in terms of effort). There will always be the activists that are local to the cause who will do everything they can to fight, but everyone else, living their own lives, working, being parents, having hobbies or what have you have their own personal problems to take care of. It's just routine. With the added regular news from the regular sources, who knows how manipulated they are, they're just so removed from what's actually going on. Not to mention, many people won't ask "What can the people do?" but "What can I do?" and their answer will be: "Nothing!" We live in a world where people are told to live their lives, handle their business and the rest will be taken care of. Maybe that's just common in Canada. I don't like this situation, but this is what I'm seeing.

res0nat0r 12y ago
Exactly. This is called slacktivism. Which is also a major reason why none of these online petitions which require a simple mouse click and nothing more are not taken seriously by most folks.
- atmosx 12y ago
  Hm, we can all agree then that making an app for this and that won't change the world? Just don't tell Silicon Valley..
  - Retra 12y ago
    You can make money selling activism just as well as you can selling entrepreneurism.
    - jarcane 12y ago
      Indeed. It took me over a year to get off Credo's mailing list. They even followed me to other addresses. I only stopped getting their ads in the mail after I moved overseas. No sense selling cut-rate "libwashed" cellphones to foreigners who can't use them, I guess.

ddingus 12y ago

The core issues here, as they seem to always be, are: 1. Getting people organized and calling them to action. Frankly, Aaron got this, and he could blend code, politics, and organize people around causes. Down deep, I suspect some people who would not benefit from those attributes took notice. Call me out on that being a conspiracy theory, and I may not even argue. But, I found that aspect of Aaron compelling. Hard to imagine others didn't take notice. He left some great models. There doesn't seem to be anybody out there picking up those pieces, or if they are, it's not apparent --or as apparent as Aaron's efforts were. Maybe it takes a group to do what he did. I don't know, but I sure liked what he was doing. It got people thinking, talking, contributing, doing more. Rallies and such get attention. I like seeing them, and I like participating in them. What I don't know is how effective they are in the current media climate. One distinctive aspect of how Aaron chose to move people and set things in motion is it worked through non-mainstream / traditional / old media channels. I do know for sure that we need more of that. If it's connected to citizen action events, great! Maybe that helps actualize it for people or keep them motivated. 2. Money in the politics. We've all hashed this out. Let's just say I agree with Lessig in that we are going to have to somehow work this system to change it. I don't know if Mayday is the right kind of effort, but I support it, because we will learn things from it at the very least. Others differ in their goals, and again, it's really hard to get people centered in on this, and we need to. We need to, because darn near every issue we care about is linked to it, and we are always making trade-offs, instead of actually getting things resolved to a better state we all would live better with. And living better is really the goal, isn't it? I don't care who is right, or who has it perfect. I just want things better. Seems to me, we should be able to center in on "better" and not worry so much about perfect, or "right", just better and maybe keep doing that so that we get to "right" or "just" or "perfect" over time, incrementally. Until we see significant and sustained action on these fronts, I'm afraid it's more deals, not any meaningful changes we can feel good about. And those deals can be really ugly, or somewhat ugly, or maybe just sort of OK too. Depends on our voice and who we've got in the legislative role at the time. My .02 anyway.

ddingus 12y ago
Crap... I should add we also seem to be caught up in transactional politics. Vote this, get that. When that breaks down, people do too, and we don't get movements moving. We need movement politics, and the points I made in the parent post speak right to that. Significant, sustained efforts that don't go away easily and that can grow over time. Movements, not transactions. To me, the petition thing is just a warm fuzzy as declan put out there. "Hey, I did something, where is that beer and TeeVee..."

hristov 12y ago

I disagree with your main point. The petitions are a good idea. We know that some petitions are not going to change the government's mind. But just having a mechanism for getting the government to consider something and provide an official response is a good idea. Previous administrations would simply ignore things they were not interested in. And journalists who get admitted to white house press conferences can often be counted on to completely ignore subjects that were of no interest to either political party. That being said, petitions do not solve everything and the other political actions you mentioned may be called for. But even then the petition helps, as it provides an official government response which may galvanize other political action.

thebenedict 12y ago
The existence of a petition site is better than absolutely nothing. I'll even grant that a petition response isn't the right forum for addressing a personnel question. But like user 'btilly' says below, "The wording of the petition may have been very specific, but it still provides an opportunity to address the issue." There are smart people at the White House and they understand the intent and emotional response behind the petition. To lean on the TOS to avoid a substantive response to issues raised by Aaron's case is callous disregard for the 60,000 people who signed.
- talmand 12y ago
  I would say a petition site that almost always results in nothing changing is worse than absolutely nothing. People signing a useless petition makes them feel as if they've done something, which usually leads them to do nothing more on the matter. When, in fact, they've actually done nothing to help the cause they think they are helping. Without the useless petition some of these people might have done something else that might have actually helped in some way.
  - inigoesdr 12y ago
    At the very least it provides a venue to gauge support, allows people to spread awareness of an issue, and causes the petition signers to think more about the situation than a passive dismissal.

Shivetya 12y ago

the petition site is nothing more than most manufactures support forums, designed to let people vent. The difference with manufacturers sites is that people can solve problems there as they become nearly self running. The Whitehouse site was a trick, something to appease the masses who themselves wanted to feel good, feel like they were being heard, fool themselves into thinking they mattered. As in, another use of effective marketing which this Administration was very good at during elections

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

lordbusiness 12y ago

> Imagine if even 5% or 10% of the 61,179 people who signed that petition instead organized rallies in their cities, or a kind of Leave The Internet Alone rally in DC. That might or may not accomplish something; it surely would accomplish more than signing the petition did. (You could wrap in a bunch of related topics: DMCA/copyright reform, NSA reform, CFAA reform and more.) Because Slacktivism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism

normloman 12y ago

What if 10% of those 61,179 signed the petition because they couldn't travel to DC or take time off work to rally? What if they have kids, a second job, or an ailing relative they care for? And suppose they could rally. If it was big enough to garner media attention, it might keep the issue in the spotlight a little longer. But it alone wouldn't change much. During the occupy protests, people rallied for months, and nothing happened. Protest has no teeth if separated from action. We need to get organized, pressure legislators, support specific policies, and get the right people in office.

snowwrestler 12y ago

I agree that the petitions site is never going to create real change in the government, but I disagree that it is harmful. Grassroots action is not a zero-sum game, in which a petition steals energy from a rally (or whatever). People do not have a fixed amount of "grassroots energy" per person. Activism is more like building a bank account in each person, in which you have to make regular "deposits" by reminding each person of the issue, then re-reminding them, then engaging them, then re-engaging them...until finally there's enough personal interest that they will begin to take more effective action like calling Congress, attending a rally, etc. This petition was never going to do anything about a particular US Attorney...but it's providing a great platform to remind everyone of what happened, and why, and how things could be different. Basically: without this petition response announced today, you wouldn't have posted about Swartz today, and many thousands of people would not have read it--a net negative.

saranagati 12y ago

and this is the state of the world. you talk about how the white house is curtailing the issue of problematic staff by mentioning how that an online petition is not the correct place for that and everyone responds to you about petitions. to be fair to them I guess you even jumped on the bandwagon within your own comment. still no talk about overzealous prosecutors.

crucini 12y ago

Declan, I respect the work you've done, but this is a bad argument: > despite his JSTOR "victim" never asking for a criminal prosecution Law enforcement and prosecutors have to take the responsibility, and not put the weight on the victim's shoulders. You are implicitly advocating a system where the victim can be intimidated out of prosecuting.

matrixagent 12y ago
There are many, many crimes where the victim has to press charges for any prosecution to happen, and copyright infringement most certainly should be one of those.
- FireBeyond 12y ago
  Those are crimes where the victim's testimony is core or critical to the successful prosecution. In cases where, as this, the government has access to material evidence that doesn't rely on requiring someone to want prosecution or having to testify, then this is not the case.
declan 12y ago
<crucini>, thanks for your kind words. I may not have been as clear as I should have been, so let me try again. Let's look at what JSTOR itself said: "The case is one that we ourselves had regretted being drawn into from the outset... JSTOR settled any civil claims we might have had against him in June 2011..." http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz You're right that if victims can be intimidated into asking for non-prosecution, that would be a problem! But what JSTOR said above is precisely not the language of an organization that's been intimidated. More broadly, the problem lies with the over-criminalization of everyday activities, especially in federal law, as Harvey Silverglate has documented in "Three Felonies a Day." And, if you want to go back further in history, the modern police-prosecutor, victim-has-no-say approach to criminal charges is a relatively modern phenomenon. There are other ways to approach criminal law; I'd refer you to Bruce Benson's "Enterprise of Law" for more on that.

john_b 12y ago

> "Look at the nearby discussion: Instead of asking why Carmen Ortiz, who's been in her current job for nearly six years, is still there, we're debating the terms of use of the petition site. Instead of wondering why a law originally designed to protect NORAD was used to drive Aaron Swartz to suicide -- despite his JSTOR "victim" never asking for a criminal prosecution -- we're reminiscing about other, equally useless, petitions in the past." As an interesting aside, I was reading the article about the internal communications of the Chinese communist party's propaganda machine (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856218) and one of the internet commenters on the payroll for the Party had this to say: > “When transferring the attention of netizens and blurring the public focus, going off the topic is very effective.” I find the USG response to this petition laughably transparent in the same way, but it will still be effective in general. > "The White House's non-response on the two-year anniversary of Aaron Swartz's death shows why these petitions are not only flawed, but should be avoided by people who actually care about political or policy change." This has always been true; it's not just in this specific case or with respect to whitehouse.gov. A petition is a slightly more sophisticated form of the "like" button, invented in a pre-internet time. Intelligent, directed actions sustained over a period of time cause changes; a boolean expression of opinion without the threat of some undesirable (by those perpetuating the status quo) action behind it is just a way of venting.