Swartz suicide won't change computer crime policy, says prosecutor

Innocent until proven guilty?

Hello, anyone out there in the land-of-the-free(c) heard of this? Anyone? Doesn't seem so.

I wouldn't dare visit America!

As a retired Englishman I would love to visit America but I dare not. My perception is that in America a person can be charged with almost any "crime" and even if innocent, is faced with an almost impossible choice; to admit guilt or, even if proved innocent, to have there life ruined, if only financially. It does not appear to be a justice system at all. Pehaps some American citizen can put me straight on any misconception I might have?

Right Down to the Nitty Gritty and an Inconvenient Truth, Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth?

The following asks a valid enough question, and until answered properly will remain forever as the elephant in the room, which extraordinarily renders the law and justice an ass, and the preserve of crooks, in the USA?

More than four years since the financial crisis, not one senior Wall Street executive has faced criminal prosecution for fraud. Are Wall Street executives "too big to jail"? In The Untouchables, premiering Jan. 22, 2013, at 10 P.M. on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE producer and correspondent Martin Smith investigates why the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has failed to act on credible evidence that Wall Street knowingly packaged and sold toxic mortgage loans to investors, loans that brought the U.S. and world economies to the brink of collapse. Through interviews with top prosecutors, government officials and industry whistleblowers, FRONTLINE reports allegations that Wall Street bankers ignored pervasive fraud when buying pools of mortgage loans. Tom Leonard, a supervisor who examined the quality of loans for major investment banks like Bear Stearns, said bankers instructed him to disregard clear evidence of fraud. "Fraud was the F-word, or the F-bomb. You didn't use that word," says Leonard. "By your terms and my terms, yes, it was fraud. By the [industry's] terms, it was something else." – PBS .... http://www.thedailybell.com/28606/Root-For-Wall-Street-to-Go-to-Jail

Do you agree or is the reality and perception different?

Lack of specialist knowledge?

Isn't part of the problem that the law, the people who make the law and the people enforce the law, somewhat behind the curve when it comes to technology? I think sometimes they fear what they don't understand and therefore do what the fearful normally do, break out the big guns to ward off danger.

There needs to be a group that specialises not only in law but also who have access and understand the world in which they operate. What Swartz did wasn't bright. That data, no matter how he objected to it's use (and there is a strong argument against how it was being used, but that's a septate argument), was not his to take in the way he did. However the 'victim' understood his argument and declined to press charges once the data was returned. That should have been the end of it. However the state fears people with skills they cannot understand, so they feel the need to control them. It's this fear that needs to be conquered. Once it is understood then maybe the over-reactions will stop.

From here: http://harpers.org/blog/2013/01/carmen-ortiz-strikes-out/

"The question remains why the DOJ targeted Swartz to such an extent. The DOJ insists that the case grew entirely out of his prank at MIT, and the timeline supports this claim. However, those facts supply no meaningful rationale for their prosecutorial vendetta. On the other hand, Swartz aggressively opposed theories, pioneered by prosecutors like Heymann and Ortiz, that were designed to make the DOJ into a cyberspace police force with power to act against anyone who provoked their concern. He provided articulate, effective opposition, and regularly trumped DOJ initiatives in forums that offered fair debate. His vision of cyberspace placed a premium on the empowerment of individuals and their free access to information — offering an essential updating of the Enlightenment values of the American founders that was sharply at odds with the Justice Department’s schemes. The DOJ values secrecy over publicity, the property rights of corporations over the rights of authors and inventors, and puts a premium on the power of the state to silence voices on the Internet that it views as a threat. Their objective was clearly not to kill Swartz, but they did want to silence him by stigmatizing him and locking him away in prison."

That sounds about right. If you agree, then you can put your name to this petition. You'd think that the author of such a petition might at least proof read and edit the thing, but no, apparently. Any petition with a sufficient number of signatures has to be answered by the Whitehouse, so even if the petition itself doesn't get her fired, it will provide political support for the Congressmen calling for an investigation and a slap-down of the Department of Justice.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck

Sign this confession...

"Sign this confession or else we put you on the rack and torture you to death"

"Sign this confession or else we put you in maximum security to be sodomized and brutalized for 50 years"

One was in the middleages, the other today. I don't see any difference in these two statements whatsoever.

his choice to commit a crime. whether i think the crime he commited should have been a crime or not is fairly irrelevant, it still was.

and i equally dont care that the victim declined to press charges. afterall, once you stop prosecutions because the victim doesnt want to (or can't) continue to press charges, you open the way to people just buying off victims (or intimidating them) to call them off. which actually, i suspect has happened here. not directly by swartz, but you can't say that JSTOR wernt being threatened by all the angry internet folk on his behalf.

he chose to commit a crime. he was offered a plea bargain. he chose to commit suicide to get out of jail time.

you can't deliberately commit an act of civil disobedience and then cry when people treat you as though you have. sorry.

funny isnt it - Swartz is innocent until proven guilty.

but Ortiz is, apparently, guilty already of having driven Swartz to commit suicide. by daring to TRY and prove him guity.

JSTOR material was returned?

"Both JSTOR and MIT, whose network was allegedly used in the download, declined to press charges after the material was returned"

I was under the impression this was a technology site, but do please explain how someone can return records stored as electronic media.

Not a savior

Swartz was a problem child and we see how his life ended. He created his own problems, no one else. Idolizing this guy is ignorant and a waste.