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The US government's system of justice seems increasingly opaque, arbitrary, and solely for the purpose of maintaining the status quo and those already in power.

The US government's system of justice seems increasingly opaque, arbitrary, and solely for the purpose of maintaining the status quo and those already in power. Meanwhile, much worse crimes by those in power such as torture go unpunished.

simplemath 12y ago
It's frankly disgusting.
ingler 12y ago
"It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong." -Voltaire
tptacek 12y ago
Institutionalized and organized torture programs are a monstrous offense, so by implication you're saying it's immoral to enforce laws against all lesser offenses, not just the ones that have a lot of HN valence. For instance, you would also believe it's immoral to enforce laws against car theft, or counterfeiting. I'm as frustrated as everyone else that the CIA and its horrible contractors, some of whom enriched themselves to the tune of millions of dollars by designing an abhorrent and utterly ineffective scheme to torture random people from West Asia, are apparently going to be shielded from liability. It's a miscarriage of justice. But history is full of miscarriages of justice; we don't give up on civilization when they happen.
- lstyls 12y ago
  A "miscarriage of justice" implies an occasional event. The system is rigged in favor of those individuals and groups that hold power in this country.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    For hundreds of years, African Americans were systematically murdered, robbed, raped, and disenfranchised by hundreds of thousands of American citizens who were never made culpable for the overwhelming vast majority of those offenses. If countries had to give up after continuous cycles of injustice, there would be no countries. I concede ahead of time that there's a coherent political philosophy that says "that's right, and that's a good thing". It's just not mine.
    - dmix 12y ago
      I believe the overall complaint is that decades of gov action/civil inaction has effectively neutered "cycles of injustice" into a perpetual state of mediocrity (aka status quo).
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - coldtea 12y ago
      >If countries had to give up after continuous cycles of injustice, there would be no countries. And that would be bad because?
- trhway 12y ago
  >Institutionalized and organized torture programs are a monstrous offense, so by implication you're saying it's immoral to enforce laws against all lesser offenses, it is immoral to enforce laws against one group of people while systematically ignoring violations of laws [especially of the laws of the same or greater severity] by another group of people [especially when the latter group is "closer" to the enforcers]. Such immoral system of selective law enforcement constitutes oppression. >It's a miscarriage of justice. Systematic miscarriage of justice is just an absence of justice.
- emptytheory 12y ago
  "so by implication you're saying it's immoral to enforce laws against all lesser offenses" Amazingly, the parent didn't actually say or imply that. "worse crimes go unpunished" doesn't imply "enforcing laws against lesser offenses is immoral".
  - tptacek 12y ago
    So then, what was the point of that comment? What was it trying to persuade the thread about? Serious question; I'm not asking so that I can rebut you.
    - atlantic 12y ago
      I think the point being made is that the law is enforced selectively and with varying degrees of enthusiasm, to further the interests of specific political groups.
      - tedks 12y ago
        It's striking that someone as intelligent as the comment parent could not see this. Saying "the US justice system seems only to protect the status quo because it vigorously enforces email leaks out of shady private spying companies while ignoring torture" doesn't imply that car theft should go unpunished at all. But then, if you're an HN celebrity, you can probably count on being able to say anything and get upvoted, and then having anything said against you downvoted. You could test this by masking the username on a comment until after a vote, but HN would never do that because the people who could do that are all people that benefit from this effect, and the powerful never cede power. (I hope to be proven wrong, but cynicism is rarely wrong in the world where we live.)
        tptacek 12y ago
        I don't know why you're attributing motives for this phenomenon to me, because (a) I mostly agree with you, and (b) find it irritating, not satisfying. (I mean, I agree that my comments will get upvoted much more quickly than yours no matter what I say, not that my comment above was so incoherent that it could only be upvoted out of bias). The problem with masking usernames prior to votes is that it would make all comments anonymous, and spur a lot of pointless voting. I'd much rather an HN flag that simply stopped awarding karma or, for that matter, comment scores above (say) 5 once a commenter crosses (say) 50k karma. Dan wouldn't even have to make it mandatory; he could just make it public whether or not you've opted-in to that "level playing field" feature. Most high-karma commenters would. The top 10 commenter karma scores on the leaderboard were removed after I lobbied for it for months. I wish they'd extend it all the way down to that 50k threshold; at a certain point, you should just have "karma: lots" (like Slashdot used to) and no gradations between those users. I'd still get bonus upvotes though, because there are people who more or less "subscribe" to my comments. Same thing with Patrick, George Grellas, and 'mechanical_fish. And, god willing, 'tzs. Finally, believe me, my real professional circle is mostly made up of people who think very little of HN, and my karma here is not a source of "celebrity" for me, or at least, not in a good sense.
- thaumaturgy 12y ago
  > ...so by implication you're saying it's immoral to enforce laws against all lesser offenses... After reading and re-reading the rest of this subthread, I think there's an error here. I don't see that shit_parade was saying that; they were just expressing frustration at what appears to be disproportionate resources dedicated to prosecuting the likes of Barrett Brown vs. resources dedicated to prosecuting state-sponsored torturers. (For the record, I recognize that all moral issues aside, prosecuting state-sponsored torturers is a lot harder than prosecuting someone like Barrett Brown.) I don't see anything in their comment that implied the morality of enforcing laws against lesser offenses. Or maybe more clearly: "I wish those in power guilty of torture would be punished" is not quite the same as, "Those in power guilty of torture should be punished before anyone else is".
  - tptacek 12y ago
    I agree. Buried somewhere downthread is a comment where I admitted being a bit knee-jerk about this.
petegrif 12y ago
It has always been like this. We just have more access to the truth.
rayiner 12y ago
It only seems opaque because the article is so shitty. They bury the actual basis of the sentence in the middle: > He ultimately signed a plea deal on three lesser charges: transmitting a threat, trying to hide a laptop computer during a raid, and to being "accessory after the fact in the unauthorized access to a protected computer." The factual stipulation justifies each of these: https://freebarrettbrown.org/files/BB_factualresume.pdf https://freebarrettbrown.org/files/BB_factualresume.pdf. 1) He didn't just report on the HBGary hack, he emailed the CEO acting as a go-between for Anonymous. 2) His threats in YouTube were not taken out of context. They were directed at a specific person, that person's kids, and mentioned being armed and responding with violence multiple times. 3) He coordinated with his mother to conceal two computers from the FBI during a search pursuant to a valid warrant. This is not someone who got prosecuted just for reporting on a criminal organization. He got prosecuted for getting involved, then flipping out and threatening agents when he was investigated.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  >He emailed the CEO of HBGary to ask if Anonymous should redact anything before releasing it. There is more here than him getting in trouble for merely reporting about Anonymous. Is that a crime? It occurs to me the HBGary or Stratfor might not have minded the opportunity, even if it was only a tip to them of what was to come. It also demonstrates some sort of good faith. From the IRC logs “Earlier it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to tell Stratfor that you guys will consider making any reasonable redactions to emails that might endanger, say, activists living under dictatorships with whom they might have spoken […] If they fail to cooperate, it will be on them if any claims are made about this yield endangering anyone,” -BB
  - tptacek 12y ago
    According to Kim Zetter's reporting, Brown's communications with Stratfor had the overt effect of concealing Jeremy Hammond's involvement, so much so that he was charged with obstructing the investigation, not simply for being a spokesperson. His assistance was allegedly material, not moral.
- 12y ago
wahsd 12y ago
The Jeffrey Sterling case is another one of those interesting cases where our government is using the ruse of process and perceived legitimacy to railroad someone with little basis in provable fact. They went so far as to subpoena Condoleezza "I'm a liar and complicit in war crimes" Rice to sway the jury through celebrity.

simplemath 12y ago

It's frankly disgusting.

ingler 12y ago

"It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong." -Voltaire

tptacek 12y ago

Institutionalized and organized torture programs are a monstrous offense, so by implication you're saying it's immoral to enforce laws against all lesser offenses, not just the ones that have a lot of HN valence. For instance, you would also believe it's immoral to enforce laws against car theft, or counterfeiting. I'm as frustrated as everyone else that the CIA and its horrible contractors, some of whom enriched themselves to the tune of millions of dollars by designing an abhorrent and utterly ineffective scheme to torture random people from West Asia, are apparently going to be shielded from liability. It's a miscarriage of justice. But history is full of miscarriages of justice; we don't give up on civilization when they happen.

lstyls 12y ago
A "miscarriage of justice" implies an occasional event. The system is rigged in favor of those individuals and groups that hold power in this country.
- tptacek 12y ago
  For hundreds of years, African Americans were systematically murdered, robbed, raped, and disenfranchised by hundreds of thousands of American citizens who were never made culpable for the overwhelming vast majority of those offenses. If countries had to give up after continuous cycles of injustice, there would be no countries. I concede ahead of time that there's a coherent political philosophy that says "that's right, and that's a good thing". It's just not mine.
  - dmix 12y ago
    I believe the overall complaint is that decades of gov action/civil inaction has effectively neutered "cycles of injustice" into a perpetual state of mediocrity (aka status quo).
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >If countries had to give up after continuous cycles of injustice, there would be no countries. And that would be bad because?
trhway 12y ago
>Institutionalized and organized torture programs are a monstrous offense, so by implication you're saying it's immoral to enforce laws against all lesser offenses, it is immoral to enforce laws against one group of people while systematically ignoring violations of laws [especially of the laws of the same or greater severity] by another group of people [especially when the latter group is "closer" to the enforcers]. Such immoral system of selective law enforcement constitutes oppression. >It's a miscarriage of justice. Systematic miscarriage of justice is just an absence of justice.
emptytheory 12y ago
"so by implication you're saying it's immoral to enforce laws against all lesser offenses" Amazingly, the parent didn't actually say or imply that. "worse crimes go unpunished" doesn't imply "enforcing laws against lesser offenses is immoral".
- tptacek 12y ago
  So then, what was the point of that comment? What was it trying to persuade the thread about? Serious question; I'm not asking so that I can rebut you.
  - atlantic 12y ago
    I think the point being made is that the law is enforced selectively and with varying degrees of enthusiasm, to further the interests of specific political groups.
    - tedks 12y ago
      It's striking that someone as intelligent as the comment parent could not see this. Saying "the US justice system seems only to protect the status quo because it vigorously enforces email leaks out of shady private spying companies while ignoring torture" doesn't imply that car theft should go unpunished at all. But then, if you're an HN celebrity, you can probably count on being able to say anything and get upvoted, and then having anything said against you downvoted. You could test this by masking the username on a comment until after a vote, but HN would never do that because the people who could do that are all people that benefit from this effect, and the powerful never cede power. (I hope to be proven wrong, but cynicism is rarely wrong in the world where we live.)
      - tptacek 12y ago
        I don't know why you're attributing motives for this phenomenon to me, because (a) I mostly agree with you, and (b) find it irritating, not satisfying. (I mean, I agree that my comments will get upvoted much more quickly than yours no matter what I say, not that my comment above was so incoherent that it could only be upvoted out of bias). The problem with masking usernames prior to votes is that it would make all comments anonymous, and spur a lot of pointless voting. I'd much rather an HN flag that simply stopped awarding karma or, for that matter, comment scores above (say) 5 once a commenter crosses (say) 50k karma. Dan wouldn't even have to make it mandatory; he could just make it public whether or not you've opted-in to that "level playing field" feature. Most high-karma commenters would. The top 10 commenter karma scores on the leaderboard were removed after I lobbied for it for months. I wish they'd extend it all the way down to that 50k threshold; at a certain point, you should just have "karma: lots" (like Slashdot used to) and no gradations between those users. I'd still get bonus upvotes though, because there are people who more or less "subscribe" to my comments. Same thing with Patrick, George Grellas, and 'mechanical_fish. And, god willing, 'tzs. Finally, believe me, my real professional circle is mostly made up of people who think very little of HN, and my karma here is not a source of "celebrity" for me, or at least, not in a good sense.
thaumaturgy 12y ago
> ...so by implication you're saying it's immoral to enforce laws against all lesser offenses... After reading and re-reading the rest of this subthread, I think there's an error here. I don't see that shit_parade was saying that; they were just expressing frustration at what appears to be disproportionate resources dedicated to prosecuting the likes of Barrett Brown vs. resources dedicated to prosecuting state-sponsored torturers. (For the record, I recognize that all moral issues aside, prosecuting state-sponsored torturers is a lot harder than prosecuting someone like Barrett Brown.) I don't see anything in their comment that implied the morality of enforcing laws against lesser offenses. Or maybe more clearly: "I wish those in power guilty of torture would be punished" is not quite the same as, "Those in power guilty of torture should be punished before anyone else is".
- tptacek 12y ago
  I agree. Buried somewhere downthread is a comment where I admitted being a bit knee-jerk about this.

petegrif 12y ago

It has always been like this. We just have more access to the truth.

rayiner 12y ago

It only seems opaque because the article is so shitty. They bury the actual basis of the sentence in the middle: > He ultimately signed a plea deal on three lesser charges: transmitting a threat, trying to hide a laptop computer during a raid, and to being "accessory after the fact in the unauthorized access to a protected computer." The factual stipulation justifies each of these: https://freebarrettbrown.org/files/BB_factualresume.pdf https://freebarrettbrown.org/files/BB_factualresume.pdf. 1) He didn't just report on the HBGary hack, he emailed the CEO acting as a go-between for Anonymous. 2) His threats in YouTube were not taken out of context. They were directed at a specific person, that person's kids, and mentioned being armed and responding with violence multiple times. 3) He coordinated with his mother to conceal two computers from the FBI during a search pursuant to a valid warrant. This is not someone who got prosecuted just for reporting on a criminal organization. He got prosecuted for getting involved, then flipping out and threatening agents when he was investigated.

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
>He emailed the CEO of HBGary to ask if Anonymous should redact anything before releasing it. There is more here than him getting in trouble for merely reporting about Anonymous. Is that a crime? It occurs to me the HBGary or Stratfor might not have minded the opportunity, even if it was only a tip to them of what was to come. It also demonstrates some sort of good faith. From the IRC logs “Earlier it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to tell Stratfor that you guys will consider making any reasonable redactions to emails that might endanger, say, activists living under dictatorships with whom they might have spoken […] If they fail to cooperate, it will be on them if any claims are made about this yield endangering anyone,” -BB
- tptacek 12y ago
  According to Kim Zetter's reporting, Brown's communications with Stratfor had the overt effect of concealing Jeremy Hammond's involvement, so much so that he was charged with obstructing the investigation, not simply for being a spokesperson. His assistance was allegedly material, not moral.
12y ago

wahsd 12y ago

The Jeffrey Sterling case is another one of those interesting cases where our government is using the ruse of process and perceived legitimacy to railroad someone with little basis in provable fact. They went so far as to subpoena Condoleezza "I'm a liar and complicit in war crimes" Rice to sway the jury through celebrity.