Yet another story repeating the 35 year potential sentence claim.
The DoJ really should stop using their misleading method of adding up sentences in press releases. When they reach the point of charging someone, they have information on the amount of damages they are going to claim the defendant caused, what the defendant's prior record is like, and how the charges are grouped for sentencing. That gives them enough to apply the sentencing guidelines and come up with a realistic "up to" number to announce.
They don't have the incentive to be restrained. Crowing about long sentences makes prosecutors look big and tough in front of the public and helps to intimidate defendants who may not know any better.
The better solution is to properly delineate the severity of offenses in the law so that someone who has committed a less severe offense can't reasonably be charged with the crime that carries penalties "up to" something totally unreasonable. Stop relying on sentencing guidelines to clean up the mess created by broad prohibitions with excessive penalties -- especially at the federal level. Why is what Aaron Swartz was alleged to have done a federal felony rather than a state misdemeanor?
So nsa surveillance is unacceptable and must be fought but corporate surveillance is ok and should be accepted and used as a tool against nsa surveillance ? sad joke
It is a personal choice to be monitored by Google,Facebook and other services that an individual uses. On the other hand, that individual has zero choice in whether his or her activities will be monitored by shady government agencies.
Parent has a legitimate point: we defend the right to be spied on by corporations when it was that data that made this whole thing much easier to set up in the first place. For all the malicious intent assumed of government, we forget that private companies often have no such oversight rules set up for their clusters of data. And we do all this because we believe that freemium is a necessary evil.
My tone is a reflection of parents tone, no more, no less. I've even used the same phrase.
I won't argue with you as I think our axioms differ: I consider freemium necessary good, not evil and I don't think that anyone forgets about lack of private enterprise oversight and nearly no one defends the right to be spied by corporations.
The DoJ really should stop using their misleading method of adding up sentences in press releases. When they reach the point of charging someone, they have information on the amount of damages they are going to claim the defendant caused, what the defendant's prior record is like, and how the charges are grouped for sentencing. That gives them enough to apply the sentencing guidelines and come up with a realistic "up to" number to announce.