Carmen Ortiz Refuses To Reflect; Insists Her Office Will Do Everything The Same As Before
from the a-complete-failure dept
Over the weekend, in our post about Aaron Swartz, we highlighted Larry Lessig's quite reasonable anger at US Attorney Carmen Ortiz's failure to even suggest that she and her office might review their actions against Aaron Swartz to see if they were reasonable. He wasn't calling on them to necessarily repudiate their actions -- but to at least admit that they would review what they had done to determine if it was appropriate. Instead, Ortiz's statement took the hard line that what they had done was appropriate, full stop.And, now, her office is continuing to stick to that hard line. No self-reflection. No review. No admission that it's even worth reviewing. Just a faith-based belief that everything they did was correct and they will continue to treat every case exactly the same going forward.
Ortiz’s spokeswoman, Christina DiIorio-Sterling, said last night the Swartz case won’t affect the office’s handling of other cases. “Absolutely not,” she said. “We thought the case was reasonably handled and we would not have done things differently.Many others are calling on Ortiz, or her bosses in the Justice Department, to recognize just how much power they have over someone's life, and that this power must be used carefully. The response of Ortiz and her spokespeople seems to show not even the slightest sympathy or recognition that they have the power to destroy lives, and that such power needs to be used judiciously. It strikes me that someone who fails to have humility while in control of such power is someone who is simply not qualified to hold such an office.
“We’re going to continue doing the work of the office and of following our mission.”
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Filed Under: aaron swartz, carmen ortiz, doj, prosecution, reflection, us attorneys
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Background
This allows more scrutiny into how she prosecuted others as can be found here . Her political ambitions are becoming all the more prevalent as we watch her actions destroy the lives of others.
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Re: Background
Just because something works for Charles Carreon, does not mean it will work for everyone else.
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Re: Background
What Obama has to say about her actions and why the White House has offered no comments as far I know.
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Re: Re: Background
Obama promotes the establishment. His entire administration is run by those that give money to the rich and leave the poor to suffer in misery.
His drones kill thousands of people in other countries and maintain a self perpetuating war on terror.
His domestic policies allow for the dismantling ofpublic education against what Thomas Jefferson envisioned.
And we, the people, are stuck with two parties controlling every aspect of our lives through monopoly rule.
There may be differences between Democrats and Republicans but there is no difference that they're pushed the country to a far more authoritarian position for the last 30 years.
We've criminalized the poor through or Drug War, our war on women's rights, and the war on the weak and defenseless over the empowerment of the rich and powerful.
We have two Americas and a lost republic. That's the hardest thing to accept and what Obama won't talk about.
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Re: Re: Re: Background
Similarly in the UK we had a bad party (Labour) and a worse party (Tories). We thought we had a better party (Lib Dems) waiting in the wings for when the other two failed simulataneously. Unfortunately it didn't turn out like that. They got in to the coalition and revealed themselves to be another bad party quite a lot of the time.
"Power corrupts..."
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Re: Re: Background
Odds are she was corrupted by the Republicans around her.
Wouldn't be the first time.
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Not more. Both parties are very much in favor of governmental control in every aspect of our lives. The difference between the two is only what their pet issues are.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Background
While both partys are just fucked with rights and freedom, the right have gone off the bridge, under the water and drowned anything to resembles a decent humane party.
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It's not the parties, it's the establishment. Neither of the two parties truly represent America. While the Republican party is now the Fascist Party, the Democratic Party is still pushing for the money of the ere in Hollywood and elsewhere.
We have a very divided US which needs more proportionality in Congress and the states. The two-party system is killing us and electoral reform is desperately needed.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Background
The Republicans did not pass the largest push to control our lives, also known as the Obama HealthCare law.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Background
Appears Skeptical Cynic is a Republican.
"The Republicans did not pass the largest push to control our lives" - Were you not present during the Bush administration?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Background
I am a Libertarian.
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Here, here!
*facepalm* alright, carry on...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Background
I have to completely disagree with your statement about the push to control our lives. That was the "War on Terror" and the creation of the Department of Homeland Defense.
Obama HealthCare is really just pandering to the large corporate entities (and yes you read that right). Its just a sneaky way to shift the costs out of the big guys pocket. So it forces you to get insurance, which means that those that don't use it support the costs on the company. Also makes states create their own group, so the really unhealthy can "convinced" to change to the private plan, again, so the big companies don't have to pay the bill. I mean you do know that all of the big companies have Self Sponsored plans, which essentially means that the name of your insurance company on your card is just who does the paperwork. The bill is just passed along from the insurance company to the actual company the person works for. So anything that gets them out of having to pay for sick people is money they can funnel somewhere else. They don't mind the healthy, just the sick.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Background
Further evidence can be gained from this recent article:
http://nutsandolts.com/2013/01/20/time-call-gops-ideology-proper-name-fascism/
Also, I'm not a huge fan of libertarianism. Sure, we agree that the drones should stop and the military industrial complex as well as fighting copyright laws. But libertarianism is still a very dangerous ideology that promotes a police state and gunboat diplomacy. I'll argue against certain points because I have a different perspective. In my view, everyone should have a voice in government and the government bows to the people's will. In order for that, I would still advocate that everyone has a say in how government and states function and that only happens if we have third parties gain more prominence.
Right now, for the last thirty years, libertarianism had had a great impact on the Republican party and I don't see why I should support a platform advocating lower taxes on the rich (who use up more resources than those under them), a balanced budget (on the backs of the weak and elderly), and increased spending on the military (when we outspend the next 20 countries combined)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Background
Do you know what Libertarianism even means?
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Re: Background
Libertarians just place faith in big business instead of big government. It's the same kind of beaurocracy and concentration of power in the end.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Background
It was founded by the Charles Koch foundation and the John Birch Society and alienated people based on the color of their skin.
It had a tremendous influence on the Republican party in the 70s through Nixon which allowed the libertarians to create their ideal society in Chile. And it failed.
We tried the Reagan approach which was done thought the Individual Mandate for Leadership that the Heritage Foundation puts out. Lower taxes for all, a balanced budget, and little to no government.
Meanwhile all of the jobs go overseas, and the rich get richer. Sure, libertarians want to stop the drug war, but their belief in authority rivals that of far-right conservatives.
In essence, libertarians are conservatives that want to smoke weed and get laid. That doesn't excuse their fiscal conservatism which hurts the country through austerity.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Background
> ideology that promotes a police state and
> gunboat diplomacy
'Libertarian' doesn't mean what you apparently think it does.
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FTFY
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> probably was a decent human being. Odds are
> she was corrupted by the Republicans
> around her.
You're kidding me, right?
This bit of horsecrap gets trotted out every time a Democrat/liberal is caught doing something shitty. The meme goes something like this:
Conservatives caught being racist and/or behaving badly = proof that conservatives are racists who behave badly.
Liberals caught being racist and/or behaving badly = proof that conservatives have infiltrated or corrupted them to make them look bad, because god knows, liberals are pure as the driven snow and would never do or say anything bad on their own.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Background
Do you also realize that through a strong persecution of the left wing in America, those are the people that brought forth the ideas that saved capitalism from being to imperialist?
Do you recognize that liberals are committed to the same austerity as conservatives albeit slower?
It's the system that's bad. Pointing fingers at Democrats or Republicans isn't going to help much (although, at least the Democrats have a few left of center people while the Republicans are far right)
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> are right wing ideologies?
I realize that you apparently define words in a manner which diverges significantly from the rest of the English-speaking world.
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The radical views are those of communists, socialists, and progressives which are center left to far left respectively.
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Re: Background
Yes. But may the variation of that meme that applies to Righthaven or Pretenda Law would apply:
When you're an A hole, keep digging.
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Re: Background
Maybe her arrogance and lack of humility and her actions in destroying lives by using the power they have given her will encourage them to investigate her and hopefully remove some of the powers she is abusing so much. Yes i know the senate is useless at the moment but when you have senators basically being told to STFU i think you can and should expect some payback from them.
Hopefully the Senate will start some hearings into this and demand she account for her words and he actions.
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Re: Re: Background
Over the past few decades, judges lost much of their discretion because of instances in which the public, and subsequently lawmakers became furious at apparent abuse of judicial discretion. The loss of discretionary power suffered by judges became a gain for prosecutors. Most unfortunately, prosecutors have not uniformly used this discretion in a wise pursuit of justice. One can only hope that there will be another redirection of our legal system in the near future.
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Thomas Jefferson said...
I think anyone who wants to be in government must be a sociopath.
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Re: Thomas Jefferson said...
Maximus: With all my heart, no.
Marcus Aurelius: Maximus, that is why it must be you.
Maximus for Congress.
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Re: Re: Thomas Jefferson said...
And everyone who really wants to become a bishop, I want to warn: the Patriarch sees it and is unlikely you will become bishops. The Bishopric will be for those who are not seeking it.
His Holiness said that the consecration of Father Panteleimon was supposed to be performed on Aug. 10 at the Novodevichy monastery, but in those days the capital was covered with the smoke of forest fires and so His Holiness was asked to cancel the Patriarchal Liturgy in order to avoid a large gathering of people and not to endanger people’s health. The Primate called Father Panteleimon and said that consecration would be postponed. “He told me quietly in response:” Maybe it can be canceled? ” – said the Patriarch. – Thank you, Vladyka Panteleimon, for these words – they warmed my soul. “
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Re: Re: Re: Thomas Jefferson said...
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Re: Thomas Jefferson said...
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Sonia Sotomayor
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Top down situation
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Re: Top down situation
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Never admit you did anything wrong!
So she is just following her leaders where they lead her by examples they set.
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Re: Never admit you did anything wrong!
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Re: Never admit you did anything wrong!
So she is just following her leaders where they lead her by the gold ring they set in her nose.
Fixed that for ya ;)
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Re: Re: Never admit you did anything wrong!
Political ambition is sordid, foul beast that demands from you your soul and gives in return a modicum of righteous authority which can be abused with very little fear of consequences.
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Re: Re: Re: Never admit you did anything wrong!
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They
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So its ok to nail him a 6 month conviction and felon charges with a 50 year hammer ?
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I have been debating this extensively for 3 or 4 days now. Can you point me to this supposed wrong you speak of? I haven't found it yet.
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Where's yours? When are you going to admit htat he didn't?
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Had his case gone to trial, guilt was not certain as that decision would lie with a jury of his piers and obviously there are a hell of a lot of people (his piers if you will) that have seen the evidence presented from every angle that do not buy the case that the prosecution is selling.
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Also add in the fact that a jury of reasonable peers, while it being possible they may have found the facts of guilt convincing, the over the top, unreasonable scale of the charges in this case may have caused them to find for "not guilty" anyways since the punishments seem to far exceed the scope of the supposed crimes.
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> certain as that decision would lie with a
> jury of his piers
What do defendants in land-locked jurisdictions do when there are no piers from which to form a jury?
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And great effort would have been expended to exclude all of those people from the jury.
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To those that pine for Sharia Law...
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> did something wrong?
You mean downloading what someone after the fact decided was 'too much' of a free thing?
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Invoking Godwin's Law
FTFY
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Re:
Can you name a country that ISN'T "supposedly democratic, but is, in fact, more or less a dictatorship" by your standards?
I can't.
America is FAR from perfect, but it's better than anywhere else on Earth.
Which may be a sad commentary about the human race...
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Re: Re:
I can't.
America is FAR from perfect, but it's better than anywhere else on Earth.
Which may be a sad commentary about the human race..."
You mean countries that have "elections" for their leadership which are manipulated to give the people the leader they really want even if they don't know it. Like Russia, Iran, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Mexico and Egypt? We have a president that is dismantling the checks and balances built into our government as quickly as possible. We have a president who has encouraged the harshest punishments for anyone who exposes government abuse or mismanagement. We now could easily have tens of thousands of citizens arrested on secret evidence obtained through secret government spying, which is allowed through a secret interpretation of a law that none of us are allowed to see. For our own good.
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I can't.
America is FAR from perfect, but it's better than anywhere else on Earth.
there are far far better places to live than America, I have traveled their experienced the heartland and the west coast, and while impressive and the people are decent enough, the system sucks, during my visit, the best time in country was when the airplane took off from the runway and i was going home.
you lot need to reform your system, to acknowledge that the founding were not infaibly, that they got some things wrong. that to make a more perfect union it might be necessary to use some principles used in other countries, seperation of the judicary from the election process, seperation of administration of justice from the election process, if a prosecutor is uses their office to further personal ambition, tha must be recognized for the corruption it is. and an elected politician who heads any government department must accept responsibility for all department failing, and resign immediately, that will focus on their proper job, making sure the depatment operats properly
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The former is most accurate, the latter needs evidentiary support!
Carl Edward Sagan: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"
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I can't.
How about Switzerland?
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How can a(I suppose an american though doesn't matter) person say that with a definite straight face in plain 2013 is mind boggling.
Seriously, if you are American(or even if not) and you believe that, then you sir, are very much a part of the problem.
Sheep can't and wont fix a problem when they think this is the best pasture around...
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American silliness....
The idea that there's some better shang-ri-la out there is probably more wishful thinking than reality.
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I disagree. I can think of a half dozen nations off the top of my head where, imperfect though they are, their government is much more democratic, fair, and just than the US.
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The USA is a Representative Republic. Unfortunately, the people that the dumb masses have chosen to represent us are raised to that high level of responsibility by a beauty contest instead of actual knowledge and experience. Look at Obama and the experience he had before becoming President. Hell, look at the higher but still low level of experience Bush had before him.
If the people we chose to represent us are people that we "like" instead of choosing people for their skill and knowledge then the US is getting exactly what they want. Those people that look good and say nice things but do not lead us to a better path.
The leaders we have in the US are those that we have chosen and the reasons we choose them have become the wrong ones.
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Re: Re:
While the US is not a purely democratic nation, by design, you can't just ignore that fact that democratic principles are and important part of the mix, also by design.
We are not just a representative republic. We are a democratic representative republic.
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Re: Re:
Yes, but it is a Republic of Corporations. Corporations are people too my friend.
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She has to tow the public line...
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Re: She has to tow the public line...
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To bad they don't spend a third of the time on violations of the current gun laws on the books.
But like the Vice President said there are to many to prosecute.
That's why we need more gun laws, simple huh?
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Lawyers
2) Claim you would do it again
Welcome to the USA Kangaroo system
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You have to ask, was it in the public’s interest to charge Aaron Swartz and send him to prison for 50 years? No? Then was it ethical to bully him into admitting to a felony and accepting 6 months in prison, using a 50 year prison sentence? Hell no!
They should be hanging their heads in shame at this stage!
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* not all of course, but I fear too few prosecutors really have justice as their goal, even if they think they do.
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Essentially a student from a Collage in Quebec found a security flaw in their online student services where all students private information could be accessed. Long story short.... he reported the issue to the collage as security flaw, when to check on it weeks later and the flaw was still there and then got a call from the business running the site calling him a hacker. He was then expelled from the collage, but public response to the issue raised awareness and the business (Skytech) ended up giving the young man a full scholarship and a job! The School still has expelled him, but it's a rinky-dink school in the first place.
With enough voices, you can get justice!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/01/21/montreal-dawson-college-hack-ham ed-al-khabaz.html
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This whole 'punish the people who show us security flaws' trend is ludicrous.
It's equivalent to the Secret Service leaving the gates to the White House wide open, then arresting anyone who noticed it.
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How?
I know, she's just a symptom of a broken Federal prosecutor system, but maybe that's too big a problem to address right now.
I just want to see this one person hounded into retirement. I want to see her reviled by the public and by her peers. I want to see her name become an insult.
What can we do within the bounds of the law to crush this bitch?
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Re: How?
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Re: Re: How?
Now now, I firmly believe she should lose her job for this, but actually ruining somebody's entire future for something that, while questionable, is not illegal by any stretch, is exactly what caused this situation to begin with. Going overboard with justice and "making examples" out of people is the very flaw in the US justice system that needs to be done away with.
Carmen Ortiz should have used discretion in Swartz's prosecution, and discretion also needs to be exercised in our reaction. Now, I'm not a law student, but I believe the purpose of justice should be as follows:
1. To penalize the guilty party, taking into account both the amount of harm caused, and the extent of this person's responsibility for it. This is why accidental manslaughter is not prosecuted the same way as premeditated murder.
2. To provide compensation to the victim for the damages incurred, at the guilty party's expense. As we often see in copyright infringement cases here on Techdirt, it is a huge problem when the "compensation" far exceeds the actual damages.
3. To take appropriate action to stop the same crime from happening again. It is plain to see that making examples out of criminals by giving extremely harsh sentences does not deter others one bit, so this can only really be applied to preventing repeat offenses. Whether that be removing an abusive father from his household, revoking a drunk driver's license, or simply removing the individual from society altogether if they are very dangerous.
In the case of Ortiz, the harm she caused is very great indeed, but she cannot be held fully accountable for Aaron's suicide. As a prosecutor she was overzealous and irresponsible, so it would be best for her to be removed from her position. This would be both a penalty to her and would prevent her from harming anyone else in this way. I also hope Swartz's family has a chance to bring charges against her to be repaid in some small way at least. However, where you say they should be put under a "lasting cloud of shame that will follow them for eternity and ending any possible future they have in politics in general," that is beyond the scope of justice.
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Re: How?
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Re: How?
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Prosecutors
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262831/Revealed-Aaron-Swartz-prosecutor-drove-hacke r-suicide-2008-named-cyber-crime-case.html
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But remember, these are lawyers...
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Re: But remember, these are lawyers...
Still though I disagree. In watching the discourse over this, Contrast the actions of Ortiz's office with that of MIT and JSTOR in this case. Since JSTOR officially announced that they had settled their disagreement with Aaron after he delivered the hard drive containing the data and requested that the prosecution drop the charges and MIT issued a sincere apology with a promise to investigate their role in the matter with an intent to address any improper issues that they found, JSTOR and MIT have been largely spared from the backlash currently occurring.
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Best Masnick quote of 2013. I'm calling it.
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For those who actually want to delve into the role played by the DOJ, they may wish to read and reflect upon the direction provided to all federal prosecutors by Eric Holder in a memo under his signature dated May 19, 2010.
I would post a link to the PDF, but certainly expertise exhibited here can be brought to bear to find it quickly.
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I did. And I stand by it.
It always has been in cases like this.
The problem is that the prosecutor stretched as far as possible to apply any and all conceivable charges, no matter how ridiculous the charges are when you look at what really happened. (Wire fraud? Really??)
A prosecutor's purpose is to further justice. It couldn't be clearer in this case that his wasn't in the prosecutor's mind at all. They dug and stretched as much as they could to dig up any law they could remotely make the case over, in a cold attempt to bully Swartz into pleading guilty.
That is immoral. That it's common, even sanctioned, behavior makes it no less immoral. This has been a problem for a very long time, and is one of the many reasons why the legal system, is viewed by most people with fear and suspicion.
What Swartz actually did, at worst, did not rise to anything even close to the level of severity that the prosecutor was applying. If this level of severity is applied to everything, then pretty much every adult in the US would be in prison right now.
The prosecutor's behavior was egregious. It was immoral.
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Certain lawyers (such as rather average regular here) will argue that is as it should be. The problem is - as was discussed by Orin Kerr a few days ago at The Volokh Conspiracy, there's a lot of poorly written and unwise law out there creating discrepancy between legal and moral.
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In other words, legislators are claiming that we can trust prosecutors to act with morality in mind, not just follow the letter of the law.
Clearly, we cannot.
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If the threat wasn't serious, then it should not have been made.
It is beyond clear they had no concern for justice. I call that immoral. They just wanted to make it look like they were doing something.
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If you want to start a list of such people, you can put me on it.
" Has it now become immoral to charge an individual with violating US law when there exist facts that are believed to meet all of the requirements associated with such a violation?"
Your question is ridiculously simplistic. The aggressive tactics, abuse of a position of power, and massive overstating of the "harm" supposedly caused were indeed immoral.
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Like hitting....
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Time to institute an Ortiz Watch?
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US Attorney is a rep of US Government
Default Five Steps To Tyranny
To implement tyranny, the aspiring tyrant should do as follows:
1. ‘Us’ and ‘them’: use prejudice to foster the (fictional) notion of the existence of superior and dominant in-groups (liberals) and inferior and powerless out-groups (conservatives).
2. Obey orders: insist that all people under your wing are to obey your orders. (Prosecute and destroy if they don't)
3. Dehumanize the enemy: emphasize on making inimical factions look less than human.
4. ‘Stand up’ or ’stand by’: suppress dissenting or opposing opinions to your own.
5. Suppress Individuality: foster the development of group identities while suppressing/destroying the individual.
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No one is safe when the government is corrupt!!!
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Remember Kissinger?
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