
Ask HN: What can we do to show we don't support the response to Aaron Swartz? - joslin01
It&#x27;s clear that petitions are useless, but it&#x27;s even more egregious when they&#x27;re promoted by the government and left out to dry for 2 years.<p>We shouldn&#x27;t accept this from our government.<p>I don&#x27;t want us to be a community of sheeple who complain a little bit, but ultimately just shrug our shoulders. We shouldn&#x27;t have to stand for reckless, almost-criminal, prosecutorial abuse. It&#x27;s basically the same as a cop beating up somebody to &quot;make an example&quot;<p>Should we code something? Organize a rally in the major cities? Write code to make it easy to start rallies? What&#x27;re some good ideas to show our discontent?
======
jeremysmyth
Two things.

Firstly, please spell his name correctly. It's Aaron Swartz. That respects him
and makes sure that your audience isn't distracted by that tiny detail and can
focus on your message.

Secondly, the petition was too narrow and targeted the individual prosecutor
for that case. Even if she was removed, it wouldn't prevent the same sort of
thing happening again.

The larger issue (and one closer to the point) is that the law is broken.

\- There are overlapping laws such that Swartz was charged with several
distinct offences for what was fundamentally a single (though repeated)
action.

\- Maximum sentences for such offences (crimes against property, in particular
those that use technology, even crimes that are on the face of it relatively
victimless) are grossly overstated when compared to violent crimes.

\- Prosecutors are permitted to present the charges in a way that maximizes
the sentencing, by adding them consecutively.

\- All of the above points join together to maximize the number of cases where
the defendant pleads guilty to avoid a court case, so there is a ridiculously
small number of such cases that go to trial (and a correspondingly vast
majority of cases of which the defendant is, as a result, convicted), even
where the defendant is actually innocent of some or all charges, or when it is
likely that a trial could result in a not guilty verdict.

No reasonable person could say Swartz deserved 35 years in prison for what he
is alleged to have done. The legal system that enabled Ortiz to present the
charges as she did is much bigger than any prosecutorial overreach she is
accused of in that petition. Let's not make it about one prosecutor. Let's
make it about all of them.

~~~
tptacek
I agree strongly with the first half of your comment, but the second half,
from consecutive sentencing on, is simply incorrect. Swartz faced nothing
resembling 35 years, because federal sentencing does not work by simply adding
the counts up for every charged offense. Like charges "group", and the
convicted are sentenced according to the most severe of those charges.

The prosecutors threatened Swartz not with 35 years, but with ~7. 7 years is
also a ludicrous sentence. But it was also an unrealistic sentence: under the
sentencing guidelines, Swartz was likely to face (if convicted) a sentence
denominated in months not years, and --- according to his own lawyer, and
observable from the actual sentencing guidelines --- one that probably could
have made the probation cutoff to avoid any custodial time.

So, your third bulleted suggestion isn't valid: CFAA crimes are already not
sentenced "consecutively".

What seems clear now is that the prosecutors were determined to have Swartz
sentenced for some amount of prison time (they offered a plea deal with a very
short sentence, and rejected any deals that failed to put Swartz in prison at
all). _That_ is a problem. The first half of your comment captures it.
Sentencing rules for _individual_ CFAA charges scale up so rapidly, and people
are so rarely charged under them, that CFAA cases are high-status vanity
projects for the US Attorney's office.

Obligatory:

[https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-
sentenc...](https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-
eleventy-million-years/)

~~~
jeremysmyth
Thanks for the popehat link. Very enlightening.

From it:

> When the government quotes the maximum sentence, they are trying to scare
> you.

> When the press quotes it, they are uninformed or lazy.

The first is what I intended to imply: Prosecutors are permitted to scare the
bejaysus out of defendants by quoting statutory maxima (not, as could be
inferred, that they can present that _to the judge_.)

The second is what I was guilty of ;)

~~~
tptacek
OK, but Swartz wasn't scared by the 35 year number, for two reasons: first,
despite what the press release said, they were overt with Swartz about what
their worst-case sentence actually was (the 7 year figure was their threat
about what would happen if the case went to trial and he lost), and second
because Swartz had very good legal representation.

A 1-2 year worst case sentence follows pretty straightforwardly from the
actual sentencing guidelines if you look at them. However, there are
mitigating factors in the Swartz case: first-time offender, non-remunerative
offense, unenthusiastic victims. Probation was a real possibility. 7 years was
not.

------
sarciszewski
What is the exact problem you want to solve?

What are some of the causes of the problem?

What are some of the effects of the problem?

If the problem disappeared today, what side-effects would it have on the rest
of the world?

What, given all of the answers to these questions, would be a solution that
solves the commonly agreed upon problem (usually by solving the causes for
said problem rather than the problem itself) with minimal negative side-
effects?

"Should we code something? Organize a rally in the major cities? Write code to
make it easy to start rallies? What're some good ideas to show our
discontent?"

No, those are actions. What good is an action without a solution in mind? Plan
then act. Don't act without a plan.

~~~
tim_hutton
The root cause of this is the influence of money on our politicians.

Symptoms include laws written for the rich and the corporations rather than
for the people, causing the continued growth of inequality and a drag on the
economy.

Support Lawrence Lessig in his efforts to solve this root problem!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g)

He departs on the second of his New Hampshire Rebellion walks on Sunday.

~~~
sarciszewski
This is an excellent response. I agree with his message; his might not be the
most _important_ cause to address, but it must be the first one, because
without it no meaningful changes can follow.

------
JonFish85
I mean, the answer is probably to vote, and to convince others to vote. Start
locally, and work your way up the chain. Talk to your friends, get them to
vote accordingly. Go to your local government meetings, raise your issues.
Volunteer for campaigns for your representatives, whether local
representatives or Congress people.

If there aren't any representatives that you support, run for office. Dedicate
your life to making these changes. Convince others that these are important
issues, convince them to donate to your campaign and to vote for you.

The problem is, this is a hard road to take. And, truth be told, people don't
really care enough to do the actual, hard work. They'd prefer to retweet some
quote, maybe change their facebook profile picture for a week, if they're
_really_ serious about something. But ultimately, that doesn't get people
elected, it doesn't put someone in office working to make the change. Best-
case scenario, it gets some lip service from a 4-term representative. How much
do you care? Do you care enough to actually get out there and actually push
for change? Or do you just want to sit on the Internet and complain, and do a
little comfortable work that ultimately sits in a GitHub account and rots?

There isn't an easy solution. It's going to take a lot of work to convince
people to collectively vote for change in this area. This is why the
government is set up the way it is. Every 6 years, it's possible to replace
essentially 2/3's of the government (Executive & Representative).

Unfortunately, I imagine that most people truly _don 't_ care about this
"prosecutorial abuse". He knowingly broke rules & laws, and the government
went after him. He had an opportunity to take a plea deal and chose to kill
himself instead. Sad? Absolutely. But you'll have a hard time getting enough
people motivated enough to vote accordingly. There are other issues that
people care more passionately about: budgets, social issues, foreign policy,
economic issues, etc. That's why I said at the beginning to start locally,
because that's probably your best bet on this particular issue.

~~~
snowwrestler
Voting is important, but it's the minimum first step toward changing the law.
It's sort of like buying a computer--you'll have an easier time programming if
you get a good computer, but buying the computer doesn't make the programming
happen.

In the government, activism is the programming. The most effective way to get
involved is to find a nonprofit or similar org that addresses your issue, and
help grow their influence (donate, volunteer, etc). The EFF and CDT (Center
for Democracy in Technology) are two groups that are working to
adjust/clarify/fix the CFAA and how cybercrime is prosecuted.

Voting helps because activism is always easier if elected officials already
agree with you. The threat of voting can also help get officials off the fence
if they believe that they'll lose their office if they oppose your issue.

------
mst
> Consistent with the terms we laid out when we began We the People, we will
> not address agency personnel matters in a petition response, because we do
> not believe this is the appropriate forum in which to do so.

If that's the case, why not launch a petition to, e.g. require an
investigation when somebody under investigation commits suicide? (not an idea
I've thought through, btw, but my point is there's ways to address this within
the terms)

------
mobini
What's happening with Aaron's Law? Wikipedia says Oracle has interfered with
the process, but there hasn't been any updates since May 2014?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#A...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#Aaron_Swartz)

------
thinkcomp
Take out a full page ad in the New York Times about the issues he stood for.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/439578912/nyt-ad-
challe...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/439578912/nyt-ad-challenging-
john-roberts-to-file-in-his-own)

------
oldspiceman
Propose a ballot measure in your state.

~~~
dragonwriter
A ballot measure...to do what, precisely?

------
Irish
What was their decision?

~~~
rmxt
It's on the front page too, but here's the link:

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

------
shillster
I'm buying more bitcoin

------
rilita
Swartz was a member of a group that was intentionally pirating and
distributing large amounts of copyrighted material to which he did not have
permission to do so.

He is also an idiot for killing himself. If he believed what he was doing was
right he should have been willing to face the consequences. To me, killing
himself is an admission that what he did was wrong and stupid.

Should he have been thrown in jail for 7 years? Well; he would have had more
years alive after he got out then he does now.

Edit: Fuck Swartz. More clear?

~~~
sarciszewski
> intentionally pirating and distributing large amounts of copyrighted
> material to which he did not have permission to do so

Pirating is bad because it supposedly takes money out of the content
producers' pockets (let's ignore the studies that suggest the contrary).

The people who produced the content for the journals he "intentionally
[pirated]" were not paid for the content they created. They, the content
creators, are not hurt by someone pirating their research (most of which was
funded by taxpayers).

Additionally, society is benefited by more people being exposed to the
knowledge of publicly funded scientific research.

Legally, you are correct, but outside that microcosm, conflating what Aaron
did with piracy misses the point.

> He is also an idiot for killing himself

Oh just fuck off.

~~~
tzs
He wasn't pirating directly from the journals, though. He was pirating from
JSTOR. JSTOR spends a lot of money to legally take journals that are not
available online and make them available. They pay for the rights to do this,
and then they pay for the costs of digitizing the material.

JSTOR are good guys, with the same mission Swartz claimed to have--they were
making journals more available and at less cost than they would have been
without JSTOR.

~~~
sarciszewski
> JSTOR are good guys, with the same mission Swartz claimed to have--they were
> making journals more available and at less cost than they would have been
> without JSTOR.

Most scientific research done in the United States is publicly funded and
therefore should be publicly available at no cost to the public. Less cost
might sound like a good idea on paper, but no cost is fair.

[https://twitter.com/search?q=%23canhazpdf&src=typd](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23canhazpdf&src=typd)

I support what Aaron wanted to do, and hope to dissuade as many people as I
can from publishing their research in closed-access journals.

~~~
tzs
> Most scientific research done in the United States is publicly funded and
> therefore should be publicly available at no cost to the public. Less cost
> might sound like a good idea on paper, but no cost is fair

It costs JSTOR money to get permission to use the material from the
publishers. It costs JSTOR money to digitize print journals. How would you
suggest that JSTOR get the money for that?

Because of JSTOR, public libraries, community colleges, non-profit research
institutions, and many universities outside of the top tier research
universities can get organization wide access to large collections of journals
for orders of magnitude less than it would cost them without JSTOR, and they
can let the general public use their access for free.

Individuals can buy JSTOR subscriptions covering thousands of journals for
less than it would cost to subscribe to one individual journal directly.

Yes, that's not as good as no cost, but it is a tremendous improvement over
what the world would be like without JSTOR, and that's a good thing.

~~~
sarciszewski
> Yes, that's not as good as no cost, but it is a tremendous improvement over
> what the world would be like without JSTOR, and that's a good thing.

I agree, but that's not really my concern.

> How would you suggest that JSTOR get the money for that?

I don't suggest they get the money for that. I'm more of a "let's topple the
giants" sort of guy.

JSTOR's survival/profitability is not my concern. The free diffusion of
publicly funded research is. And, frankly, I don't care if that makes me a bad
person.

I feel the same way about the for-profit closed-door academic research
publishing model as I do about the fossil fuel industry. :)

> It costs JSTOR money to get permission to use the material from the
> publishers. It costs JSTOR money to digitize print journals.

JSTOR can keep doing what they're doing. I have no problem with their
existence. I just want to stop people from publishing exclusively in journals
that can only be made available to the public for a cost.

Then eventually we won't need JSTOR anymore.

> Because of JSTOR, public libraries, community colleges, non-profit research
> institutions, and many universities outside of the top tier research
> universities can get organization wide access to large collections of
> journals for orders of magnitude less than it would cost them without JSTOR,
> and they can let the general public use their access for free.

But it's still a cost that can be avoided by scientists boycotting the
publications that JSTOR has to spend money to obtain permission from and
digitize.

------
skidoo
Stop paying taxes, stop voting. Stop enabling the government altogether. If
they refuse to accept that the people own the government, and not the other
way around, then there is no reason to recognize its supposed authority. Live
a moral and ethical life, but live as though the government does not exist. It
will never willingly relinquish its power. You cannot change the system from
the inside out. Every politician is a liar. All of this needs to be
acknowledged. Rallies and demonstrations and petitions are entirely useless
and wasted efforts.

~~~
fmdud
>Stop voting.

Being "apolitical" actually turns out to be a pretty naïve stance on politics.
There's a great David Foster Wallace quote about "protest by non-
participation" like this:

“If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are
in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties,
who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in
their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you
every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on
primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself
that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you
either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the
value of some Diehard's vote.”

DFW wrote that 15 years ago at this point. Non-voting isn't some radical new
way of showing your disapproval in politics. The fact that you're not voting
means they don't have to give a shit about what you think.

~~~
crdoconnor
If you attend a protest you probably have 100x as much impact on the political
system as somebody who votes.

If you strike you probably have 200x as much impact on the political system as
somebody who votes.

If you are ready and willing be tear gassed, arrested or beaten up for your
beliefs you can help shape politics in a way no voter ever has or will.

Non voting isn't some radical new way of showing your disapproval in politics.
It doesn't show that they don't have to give a shit about what you think. It's
just tacit recognition of the truth. Individual votes are close to
insignificant. Real politics happens elsewhere.

~~~
fmdud
I agree but the idea of "voting" here can be extrapolated into striking,
attending protests, etc. as it's really a stand-in for the idea of "making
your voice heard", as opposed to "completely opting out of the political
process and telling yourself that doing so is making your voice heard".

~~~
crdoconnor
>the idea of "voting" here can be extrapolated into striking

I don't think that's true in the slightest.

