Genius Aaron Schwartz (founder of reddit) killed himself due to Obama's DOJ

[No1]

Jewish Excellence.

at all of you fakkits talking about how he took the coward's way out. I'd love to see how your bytch-asses react when you're facing 35-50 years, federal time.

He had not been sentenced yet and was offered multiple pleas and undoubtedly would have been let out while he appealed if he had to serve anything at all. His lawyer never specified what the plea deals were that he turned down either. Bottom line, I'm not killing myself when I have not exhausted all of my options. I wish you all would drop that topic because it takes away from the law here and drags us into an unnecessary conversation that there will be no middle ground on.

 

[theworldismine13]

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pe...z-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck

the petition got 25K, this should be interesting

 

[zerozero]

the petition got 25K, this should be interesting

it'll be a pointless bureaucratic response but still, at least they have to say something

 

[zerozero]

@BarNone you might find this interesting:

The Volokh Conspiracy » The Criminal Charges Against Aaron Swartz (Part 1: The Law)

The criticisms of the Swartz prosecution concern two different questions. The first question is the law. Were the charges against Swartz based on a fair reading of the laws? Or was the prosecution being overly aggressive or relying on strained theories in charging Swartz as it did? The second question is discretion and judgment. The DOJ has the discretion to charge cases or not, and prosecutors can agree to different plea deals or even agree to have charges dismissed. Were the prosecutors in this case unfair in how they exercised discretion, or did they act irresponsibly in the case in how they exercised the discretion that the law grants them?

I hope to answer these questions in two posts. In the first post, I’m going to try and answer the first question — the law — as informed by my background as a specialist in this particular area of law who has testified on these statutes before Congress, defended computer crime cases involving these statutes, and helped prosecute them, too. In a subsequent post, I’ll try to answer the second question, the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

basically I think you need all types of people in this world.. we need the lawyers like you or the guy who wrote this who're just like "okay is this prosecution technically overreaching?" and you need people like Aaron or his supporters who're like "screw the legalities this situation is crazy and we should raise hell and change something" Both the dispassionate and activist factors are needed in the social dynamics...

 

[gldnone913]

Son was tied to Wikileaks?

RIP but having your name tied to that shyt is probably worst case scenario

 

[No1]

@BarNone you might find this interesting:

The Volokh Conspiracy » The Criminal Charges Against Aaron Swartz (Part 1: The Law)



basically I think you need all types of people in this world.. we need the lawyers like you or the guy who wrote this who're just like "okay is this prosecution technically overreaching?" and you need people like Aaron or his supporters who're like "screw the legalities this situation is crazy and we should raise hell and change something" Both the dispassionate and activist factors are needed in the social dynamics...

Great post, I'll check this out later.

 

[Constantine]

He knew he was stealing those articles. People spend time on research, developing a thesis, and putting the paper together. He could've probably copped a plea, but instead he took himself out.

 

[zerozero]

He knew he was stealing those articles. People spend time on research, developing a thesis, and putting the paper together. He could've probably copped a plea, but instead he took himself out.

you seem to be under the impression that researchers are deriving revenue from these articles. quite the opposite. sometimes they have to pay to publish!

 

[zerozero]

guys push this petition over the limit too:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-attorney-steve-heymann/RJKSY2nb

Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Heymann's overzealous prosecution of an allegedly minor and non-violent electronic crime led to the suicide of Aaron Swartz. President Obama recently said, as repeated by Vice President Biden, "if our actions result in saving only one life, they're worth taking." We should not destroy the lives of human beings for crimes against computer systems that harm no one and provide no benefit to the perpetrator. Such actions should be treated as forms of protest and civil disobedience. To prosecute these actions the same as rapes and murders is a savage abuse of the criminal justice system which continues to destroy the lives of peaceful, productive members of society.

Fire Attorney Steve Heymann before his reckless prosecutions claim any more lives.

 

[Type Username Here]

you seem to be under the impression that researchers are deriving revenue from these articles. quite the opposite. sometimes they have to pay to publish!

He stole free words. Let's just call it what it is. And the company he stole from asked the government to drop the charges.

This was retribution for his work with wikileaks and spearheading the backlash against SOPA.

The man stole words which should belong to the public domain ANYWAY. 6 months on probation would have been excessive.


One good thing about his death is that now the wheels have been set in motion to do away with this age-old concept of academic publishing gathering. People are pushing for an open source alternative to JSTOR.

 

[TrueEpic08]

Regardless, if this goes to court, and I don't know how far deep in the process any of this was. I can't see him getting anywhere near that amount of time and he would have the entire academic legal community writing amicus briefs on his behalf. I also don't see that federal court going through with. Sure, there was overreach but the DOJ didn't kill him. They probably wanted to get him convicted to serve as an example but for nothing more than declaratory relief. I just refuse to believe Ortiz would actually recommend giving the guy that much time. If that did happen, she could kiss that gubernatorial run goodbye.

The DOJ could honestly care less. Half the legal left's been working on the Bradley Manning case for about three years now, and they're still trying to nail him with as much fervor as they've been doing from the beginning. When an entity with the force of limitless sovereign power and influence (law is too restricting and doesn't quite accurately describe what's going on here, since they can and routinely do find ways to except themselves and those they pursue from the letter of their own laws) comes after you, the support of those people only matters so much (as in, not that much at all). If they want something done, whether it be putting someone in jail or presenting a bound of legality and illegality through a case (in this situation, both) they will find a way to have it done.

Even if it was capped at just declaratory relief (which, if you're looking at the actions of the prosecutors under Ortiz, wasn't going to be the case), that's still ridiculous, because you then have to deal with the issue of the application of that law and any more exceptions to that law that they want to apply in the future. Based on the actions of the DOJ since 2001, and American courts and lawmakers since the inception of an American system of law, I just find this to be a bit naive.

I could, of course, connect this to my other thread, but we're dropping that for a slightly more appropriate forum (Also, I'm tired. So this might seem a bit scattershot...)

 

[TrueEpic08]

He stole free words. Let's just call it what it is. And the company he stole from asked the government to drop the charges.

This was retribution for his work with wikileaks and spearheading the backlash against SOPA.

The man stole words which should belong to the public domain ANYWAY. 6 months on probation would have been excessive.


One good thing about his death is that now the wheels have been set in motion to do away with this age-old concept of academic publishing gathering. People are pushing for an open source alternative to JSTOR.

I wish this would happen, but then you're getting into the ever murky and retrograde elements (in terms of the American government at least) of technology law and intellectual property law. Which probably means that there's going to be decades of hopeless fighting in the courts on this. Not to say don't design programs, archives and aggregators for this or even don't attempt to fight the courts on this. But it's far beyond just that bolded topic.

I have half a mind to find some of my US Trade Rep Special 301 lists as an example, but, again, I'm tired. Maybe tonight or tomorrow.

 

[zerozero]

I wish this would happen, but then you're getting into the ever murky and retrograde elements (in terms of the American government at least) of technology law and intellectual property law. Which probably means that there's going to be decades of hopeless fighting in the courts on this.

well, we don't need to liberate the old articles to start liberating the new articles. there's actually many open access journals out there, we just need to make universities and academics submit to them instead. there's a big movement around this:

Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association

let's resolve in our own lives to make information open where we have influence and it makes sense. here's the organization that's been helping people do this for a decade:

http://creativecommons.org/

Creative Commons helps you share your knowledge and creativity with the world.

Creative Commons develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical
infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and
innovation.

There is no registration to use the Creative Commons licenses. Licensing a work is as simple as selecting which of the six licenses best meets your goals, and then marking your work in some way so that others know that you have chosen to release the work under the terms of that license.

 

[TrueEpic08]

well, we don't need to liberate the old articles to start liberating the new articles. there's actually many open access journals out there, we just need to make universities and academics submit to them instead. there's a big movement around this:

Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association

I know all about Creative Commons and OASPA. I've been reading some of those journals and others for quite a while. I'm just saying that if you're going to be committed to open access, it can't just be a forward looking ideal. Research is built on looking to previous research, therefore open access must be predicated on access to those elements as well as new elements. And open access journals doesn't exactly circumvent the threat of IP and Technology law in all cases.

That's all.

 

[No1]

The DOJ could honestly care less. Half the legal left's been working on the Bradley Manning case for about three years now, and they're still trying to nail him with as much fervor as they've been doing from the beginning. When an entity with the force of limitless sovereign power and influence (law is too restricting and doesn't quite accurately describe what's going on here, since they can and routinely do find ways to except themselves and those they pursue from the letter of their own laws) comes after you, the support of those people only matters so much (as in, not that much at all). If they want something done, whether it be putting someone in jail or presenting a bound of legality and illegality through a case (in this situation, both) they will find a way to have it done.

Even if it was capped at just declaratory relief (which, if you're looking at the actions of the prosecutors under Ortiz, wasn't going to be the case), that's still ridiculous, because you then have to deal with the issue of the application of that law and any more exceptions to that law that they want to apply in the future. Based on the actions of the DOJ since 2001, and American courts and lawmakers since the inception of an American system of law, I just find this to be a bit naive.

I could, of course, connect this to my other thread, but we're dropping that for a slightly more appropriate forum (Also, I'm tired. So this might seem a bit scattershot...)

I disagree with a lot of what you said here, particularly about the illegality aspect, but that's just too much effort right now. And that's an essay. But I'll just put it like this before we agree to disagree, to make your argument you have to ignore entirely what the courts have actually done in regard to the specific application of the law in question. They have shot it down. But otherwise, you're speaking in generalities that can easily be refuted and we'd end up at, "sometimes it does this and sometimes it does that." So let's just agree to disagree and move on.