4 ms·

i read that too, but not until now, what! he should have taken the deal. 6months on 13 federal charges! if he didnt accept the plea he was facing up to 30+ yea

i read that too, but not until now, what! he should have taken the deal. 6months on 13 federal charges! if he didnt accept the plea he was facing up to 30+ years.

tptacek 11y ago
No, he was not. His own attorney said that it was likely that even if convicted on all charges, he might have received no custodial sentence. The "30 year" number is an entirely fictitious "whale sushi" PR stunt by the DOJ. http://popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-eleventy-million-years/ http://popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-ele...
- mc_hammer 11y ago
  yes he was. note i said "up to" in my post. and on top of that he was linked to political activism, which tends to get the judge to throw the book at you (ala Jullian Assange, Wesley Snipes, and many more). from his wiki page On September 12, 2012, federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment adding nine more felony counts, which increased Swartz's maximum criminal exposure to 50 years of imprisonment and $1 million in fines.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    This is simply not how federal sentencing works. You don't add up all the sentences from all the charges and then serve them back to back.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      Well, that is how the upper bound of federal sentencing works. It is just extremely unusual for the imposed sentence to be at the upper bound, due to a number of factors, particularly the federal sentencing guidelines (though upward departures from the guidelines are possible, and may reach anything up to the upper bound -- that's why it is an upper bound.)
      - tptacek 11y ago
        In the history of computer crime, has a judge ever departed from the grouping guidelines of the CFAA and wire fraud laws? Also: do you agree with the commenter upthread who is loudly asserting that Swartz faced 30-50 years for scraping JSTOR?
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        > In the history of computer crime, has a judge ever departed from the grouping guidelines of the CFAA and wire fraud laws? Not that I am aware of, but I wouldn't necessarily expect to be aware of it unless it also happened to be a very high profile case (also, the history of the guidelines being held to be discretionary rather than mandatory is much shorter than the "entire history of computer crime" -- U.S. v. Booker, which held that the provisions making the guidelines mandatory was a violation of the Sixth Amendment, was only decided in 2005.) > Also: do you agree with the commenter upthread who is loudly asserting that Swartz faced 30-50 years for scraping JSTOR? With the "up to" language presented, AFAICT the 30-50 year range is accurate in that the upper bound is within that range (35 years being apparently more precisely accurate, from what I can find.) Of course, it would not seem likely that the actual sentence would have been anywhere near the upper bound, but it was the maximum legally possible sentence. So the statement is correct, though quite likely misleading without understanding how federal sentencing works in practice.
        tptacek 11y ago
        You're being evasive. His meaning is clear. For instance, in his most recent comment, he suggested that Swartz's political activism made the longer sentence likely. He was not merely spelling out the technicality that the judge could depart from the guidelines and issue an absurd sentence. He was strongly implying that the 30-50 year sentence DOJ bragged about was anchored in reality. Do you agree with him? Do you actually believe Swartz and his attorney reasonably believed he faced 30-50 years? When we consider Swartz's predicament, or really the predicament of anyone faced with federal charges, should we assume that sentences will not group, regardless of what the guidelines say? Is the "30 years" top-line sentence useful to our discussion?
- ethanbond 11y ago
  I've seen worse be handed down for less. It's not entirely fictitious. Unlikely, but totally realistic and totally legal.
jacquesm 11y ago
> He should have taken the deal. That's debatable.
- mc_hammer 11y ago
  On September 12, 2012, federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment adding nine more felony counts, which increased Swartz's maximum criminal exposure to 50 years of imprisonment and $1 million in fines i dont know
sdalfakj 11y ago
You may be confusing that with a sales deals? His situation was akin to you waking up one day and finding, out of nowhere, a letter in the mail telling you to come in for a 6-month jail time. I assume that would not be a happy and acceptable morning for you, would it? A geek was making scientific research publicly and digitally accessible. Try to personally connect to that by telling yourself how similar that is to you doing your own hobby i your spare time. Your argument says you'd be happy to have 6 months in jail for doing your own thing. (Taking such a deal requires pleading guilty to a crime.)
- tveita 11y ago
  > His situation was akin to you waking up one day and finding, out of nowhere, a letter in the mail telling you to come in for a 6-month jail time. That's a complete misrepresentation. A reasonable person might expect there to be consequences for breaking into a closet while hiding your face from security cameras in order to retrieve a covertly installed laptop you put there to evade a network ban. That is not "out of nowhere". I'd even say it doesn't resemble my hobbies in the least.
wglb 11y ago
In either case, he would have signed up for a felony tag, which likely could have hampered what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. I am guessing that he would have found that in and of itself unacceptable.

i read that too, but not until now, what! he should have taken the deal. 6months on 13 federal charges! if he didnt accept the plea he was facing up to 30+ years.

tptacek 11y ago

No, he was not. His own attorney said that it was likely that even if convicted on all charges, he might have received no custodial sentence. The "30 year" number is an entirely fictitious "whale sushi" PR stunt by the DOJ. http://popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-eleventy-million-years/ http://popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-ele...

mc_hammer 11y ago
yes he was. note i said "up to" in my post. and on top of that he was linked to political activism, which tends to get the judge to throw the book at you (ala Jullian Assange, Wesley Snipes, and many more). from his wiki page On September 12, 2012, federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment adding nine more felony counts, which increased Swartz's maximum criminal exposure to 50 years of imprisonment and $1 million in fines.
- tptacek 11y ago
  This is simply not how federal sentencing works. You don't add up all the sentences from all the charges and then serve them back to back.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Well, that is how the upper bound of federal sentencing works. It is just extremely unusual for the imposed sentence to be at the upper bound, due to a number of factors, particularly the federal sentencing guidelines (though upward departures from the guidelines are possible, and may reach anything up to the upper bound -- that's why it is an upper bound.)
    - tptacek 11y ago
      In the history of computer crime, has a judge ever departed from the grouping guidelines of the CFAA and wire fraud laws? Also: do you agree with the commenter upthread who is loudly asserting that Swartz faced 30-50 years for scraping JSTOR?
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        > In the history of computer crime, has a judge ever departed from the grouping guidelines of the CFAA and wire fraud laws? Not that I am aware of, but I wouldn't necessarily expect to be aware of it unless it also happened to be a very high profile case (also, the history of the guidelines being held to be discretionary rather than mandatory is much shorter than the "entire history of computer crime" -- U.S. v. Booker, which held that the provisions making the guidelines mandatory was a violation of the Sixth Amendment, was only decided in 2005.) > Also: do you agree with the commenter upthread who is loudly asserting that Swartz faced 30-50 years for scraping JSTOR? With the "up to" language presented, AFAICT the 30-50 year range is accurate in that the upper bound is within that range (35 years being apparently more precisely accurate, from what I can find.) Of course, it would not seem likely that the actual sentence would have been anywhere near the upper bound, but it was the maximum legally possible sentence. So the statement is correct, though quite likely misleading without understanding how federal sentencing works in practice.
        tptacek 11y ago
        You're being evasive. His meaning is clear. For instance, in his most recent comment, he suggested that Swartz's political activism made the longer sentence likely. He was not merely spelling out the technicality that the judge could depart from the guidelines and issue an absurd sentence. He was strongly implying that the 30-50 year sentence DOJ bragged about was anchored in reality. Do you agree with him? Do you actually believe Swartz and his attorney reasonably believed he faced 30-50 years? When we consider Swartz's predicament, or really the predicament of anyone faced with federal charges, should we assume that sentences will not group, regardless of what the guidelines say? Is the "30 years" top-line sentence useful to our discussion?
ethanbond 11y ago
I've seen worse be handed down for less. It's not entirely fictitious. Unlikely, but totally realistic and totally legal.

jacquesm 11y ago

> He should have taken the deal. That's debatable.

mc_hammer 11y ago
On September 12, 2012, federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment adding nine more felony counts, which increased Swartz's maximum criminal exposure to 50 years of imprisonment and $1 million in fines i dont know

sdalfakj 11y ago

You may be confusing that with a sales deals? His situation was akin to you waking up one day and finding, out of nowhere, a letter in the mail telling you to come in for a 6-month jail time. I assume that would not be a happy and acceptable morning for you, would it? A geek was making scientific research publicly and digitally accessible. Try to personally connect to that by telling yourself how similar that is to you doing your own hobby i your spare time. Your argument says you'd be happy to have 6 months in jail for doing your own thing. (Taking such a deal requires pleading guilty to a crime.)

tveita 11y ago
> His situation was akin to you waking up one day and finding, out of nowhere, a letter in the mail telling you to come in for a 6-month jail time. That's a complete misrepresentation. A reasonable person might expect there to be consequences for breaking into a closet while hiding your face from security cameras in order to retrieve a covertly installed laptop you put there to evade a network ban. That is not "out of nowhere". I'd even say it doesn't resemble my hobbies in the least.

wglb 11y ago

In either case, he would have signed up for a felony tag, which likely could have hampered what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. I am guessing that he would have found that in and of itself unacceptable.