

Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners - danso
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-aaron-swartz-funeral-eulogy-father-20130115,0,648108.story

======
tokenadult
It's harsh to say, and I know that there is much reason to think that the
prosecutor was over-prosecuting Aaron Swartz's case, but this kind of blame-
shifting on the part of parents is not helpful to a young person who is at
high risk for suicide. Civil disobedience according to Thoreau, according to
Gandhi, and according to Martin Luther King, Jr. is all about being willing to
do the time after intentionally breaking a law. All three of those pioneers of
civil disobedience spent time locked up in conditions worse than any Swartz
would possibly have faced even if convicted. No one in the United States
government killed Swartz, just as no one in the United States government
forced him to download the JSTOR files through a method that Larry Lessig says
he would never have advised Swartz to use. Swartz tested some limits of the
system, and found out he miscalculated. He caved in when it came time to stay
alive to test the system another day.

~~~
jlgreco
> _Civil disobedience according to Thoreau, according to Gandhi, and according
> to Martin Luther King, Jr. is all about being willing to do the time after
> intentionally breaking a law_

The issue I am seeing here is that this take on civil disobedience is only
worth it if your incarceration does one or more of the following: threatens to
clog the system, infuriates the masses, draws attention to the absurdity of
the system, provides an opportunity to set legal precedent, or is just in
general noticed and cared about. If it does none of those things, then the
only thing getting caught/locked up accomplishes is the silencing of another
voice.

Of course you could also say that protesters should accept arrests even if
there is nothing to be gained by it just to adhere to some sort of socratic
social contract mentality, but not everyone buys into that mentality. I know I
certainly do not.

If you are confident that you can secure convictions, and are confident that
the system can handle the load, and are confident that the masses don't really
give a shit about anything unless a celebrity is involved, then telling
activists to go get arrested becomes an effective tool of suppression.

Had Swartz been convicted and served his sentence, would the HN community at
large care? We were dismissive when he was alive and it looked like he was
hosed, would that have really changed when the jury came back with their
verdict?

~~~
gruseom
> Had Swartz been convicted and served his sentence, would the HN community at
> large care?

I would have. I totally misread the situation. I thought there was basically
zero chance he would be punished so vindictively. And I had no idea that he
was all this time in Kafka hell.

Had Aaron gone to prison it would have been a wake-up call for a lot of
people, much as his suicide was — except that one could have done something
about it. Actually, a trial and conviction would likely have become a cause
celebre in the tech world.

And yes I know that people don't just kill themselves for one straightforward
reason. It's still sickening.

~~~
anigbrowl
How do you mean punished so vindictively? A 6 month stint in jail (reduced for
good behavior) doesn't seem wildly vindictive to me. For the people saying he
was facing a lifetime in jail - well yeah, if you add up all the maximum
possible sentences and run them consecutively. But that hardly ever happens
except in the most egregious of cases.

If he had lost at trial I doubt his sentence would have been much longer than
a year or two. The indictment doesn't say 'he committed wire fraud, he must
serve 20 years', it just says 'he committed wire fraud' - an offense for which
the maximum penalty happens to be 20 years. The court decides what the actual
sentence is after conviction.They rarely hand out the maximum and the statute
does not assert any mandatory minimum (which provisions are unconstitutional
now anyway, but that's beside the point).

~~~
tptacek
Aaron's own lawyer said he didn't believe that Swartz would have received a
custodial sentence even if he had been convicted.

What's vindictive isn't the outcome. The outcome never had a chance to happen,
so it's hard to discuss it. What was bad about this situation is a prosecution
that had taken such a hard line that a 6-7 year prison sentence --- a life-
changing calamity --- would have seemed like a real possibility. Swartz was
being required to swear before a court that he committed 13 different felonies
just to get off with ~half a year's prison time.

~~~
anigbrowl
We'll continue to disagree about this, but I think the plea deal was fair
enough. Sure, being a felon is a burden - but realistically, being a hacker
felon is much less of a burden than being an ex-crack dealer or something.

Plugging your machine directly into someone's wiring closet without permission
and then running scripts to pull down 100x the traffic requests of everyone
else on the campus combined (resulting in a multi-day shutdown that affects
all the legitimate users of that campus) is pretty abusive. If I was running a
business and someone did that I'd be furious, even if they were just using the
bandwidth to download all of wikipedia or something equally freely accessible.

~~~
tptacek
You & I don't disagree that Swartz's actions should have been subject to
criminal charges. We depart at the need for time served in prison. In its
context: an act clearly intended as civil disobedience (though perhaps
intended anonymously) by a first time offender with no commercial purpose,
minimal damage, minimal attempt to evade detection and thus obstruct
investigation, no co-conspirators, and involving no critical information
systems or protected information of any sort should have been acknowledged by
the prosecution as one not meriting prison time. The offer should have been
"take a felony conviction and we'll argue for a suspended sentence; go to
court and you risk doing time in prison".

You know what I bet happened here? Aaron hatched this plot assuming that the
worst thing that might happen is that JSTOR might have sued him. After all,
what was he really doing? The same set of actions from his own network would
have been mere copyright infringement. He wanted to make it less likely that
he'd get sued, so he did it from someone else's network. That was dumb, but
does it really transmute a tort into a felony?

~~~
pfedor
_The same set of actions from his own network would have been mere copyright
infringement. He wanted to make it less likely that he'd get sued, so he did
it from someone else's network._

I'm probably misunderstanding you: How could he have done the same from his
home network? The articles he was downloading were only accessible from MIT
intranet, not from the public Internet, no?

~~~
tptacek
He was a fellow at Harvard, with an office there, and had legitimate access to
JSTOR.

------
clarky07
I really feel for his family, but I just can't blame his death on the
Government. Did they handle this poorly and overreach greatly? Yes. Did they
kill him? No. He was offered a plea deal for 6 months in prison. Nobody in
their right mind kills themselves over 6 months in jail or the prospect of
being a felon.

Obviously being labeled a felon and 6 months in jail sucks, but it's not like
he couldn't get a job because of it. Based on the front page of HN for the
last several days it's clear he was a well respected and loved individual in
our community. He would have been just fine.

~~~
Adam503
Aaron Swartz was not a very big guy at all. Aaron Swartz would have been raped
within moments of walking in a Federal Prison. Aaron Swartz prison stay would
have been 6 months of non-stop prison rape.

Impending prison rape is exactly the sort of thing reasonable people commit
suicide about. All the time.

~~~
anigbrowl
Highly unlikely <http://www.nij.gov/journals/259/prison-rape.htm>

------
suprgeek
His father is justifiably enraged at the US Govt. Ms Ortiz and Steve Heymann
are certainly the primary culprits here - However MIT is equally if not more
responsible for this mess that ended in a horrible and needless tragedy.

MIT has a higher duty than the Govt. It is in their charter to foster open
access - and not only did they NOT stand up for Aaron, they actually made the
prosecution malicious by refusing to ask for anything less than JAIL TIME
[http://gothamist.com/2013/01/15/aaron_swartzs_lawyer_mit_ref...](http://gothamist.com/2013/01/15/aaron_swartzs_lawyer_mit_refused_pl.php)

So MIT as good as killed Aaron along with the Govt.. for shame!

~~~
waterlesscloud
MIT didn't kill Aaron. But their decision to be the roadblock to a plea deal
because it didn't include time in prison is shameful, and there is definitely
some heavy responsibility on the heads of those at MIT who rejected that deal.

~~~
suprgeek
Everyone involved in the case had been made aware of Aaron's depression
[http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/he_ll_be_safe_in_jail_fed...](http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/he_ll_be_safe_in_jail_feds_tKixbOwLxbCX617hKRq8YK)

They knew that this (suicide) was a risk if they kept hounding the guy - yet
the Prosecutors and MIT both kept going at it - for the sake of political gain
(prosecutors).

~~~
awj
> yet the Prosecutors and MIT both kept going at it - for the sake of
> political gain (prosecutors).

Do you have proof of this, or is it just what you believe of the situation?

~~~
BrokenPipe
Well yeah, it's also in article here on HN. They wanted him to have jail time

~~~
anigbrowl
Articles aren't proof. Victims don't have veto authority over plea bargain
negotiations in any US jurisdiction that I know of.

~~~
BrokenPipe
Veto is non necessary, pressure and willingness to pursue and unwillingness to
have any plaid without jail time is what the MIT is _rightly_ accused of.

------
halis
He may feel differently in time. My little brother committed suicide 5 years
ago when he was like 22. His wife was cheating on him and despite having three
sons, he still did it.

I know for years I hated her and blamed her fiercely. In time though, I looked
at it differently. While I still don't have much love for her, I really can't
place the blame for my brother's actions solely at her feet.

The thing is, it isn't natural or normal to kill yourself when your wife
cheats on you, if it's ever normal, especially when you have three sons to
watch out for. My brother had problems. He wasn't right in the head and I
don't think he ever really was.

If it wasn't his wife, I think he just would have found another reason,
because I think he wanted to go.

Aaron Swartz may have hated what the government was doing to him and he may
have even stated that was the reason for his suicide, I really don't know. But
that wasn't the reason, in my opinion.

If the threat of a prison sentence was reason enough to hang yourself, it
would only make sense to at least see if you're convicted first.

My heart goes out to the family, I know firsthand how much it hurts when a
family member commits suicide. And I really can't blame the father for
reacting that way, I would've (and did) react the same way. Just thought it
would be useful to offer some perspective.

------
staunch
Going from being rich to poor (due to legal costs), facing years in prison,
and becoming a convicted felon for life? For running what amounted to "wget -r
<http://jstor.mit.edu/> " to download publicly funded academic papers?

I think even someone who had never suffered from depression might contemplate
suicide. His father's words may be a little too strong, but they're not
_entirely_ off-base either.

~~~
sethist
_His father's words may be a little too strong, but they're not entirely off-
base either._

Yes, they are off base. He deserves leeway due to the untold grief he is
enduring, but a statement like that is ridiculous. Thousands of people a day
go to jail a day, many of them for breaking unjust laws, and very few of them
kill themselves. He was killed by depression/mental illness not by the
government. The charges likely exasperated his condition, but without that
underlining fragile mental state, he would almost assuredly still be alive
today.

~~~
politician
a: In a drive-by shooting, the driver is often charged along with the shooter;
even when the driver insists that he didn't know what was going to happen.

b: The defense attorney claimed that he made Stephen Heymann aware of the
suicide risk early in the case.

If Heymann was aware of the risk and pushed ahead anyway, is he a contributor
in the same sense that the driver of the car is a contributor? Why or why not?

~~~
mc32
Are you saying one should not sue, or at least weigh heavily, people's mental
state prior to launching a lawsuit?

Is that current procedure, run mental evaluations before suing? Lots of people
have mental breakdowns before and during trials. The trials proceed so long as
people are 'mentally competent' to stand trial.

If something like this were allowed, people would pretty much abuse the system
and claim mental anguish, etc. to avoid facing a trial.

~~~
politician
Aren't you aware that we already do take into account the mental states of
defendants - the mentally challenged, the insane?

~~~
anigbrowl
Yes, and one of the ways we do so is by the defense filing a motion to argue
that the defendant is unfit to stand trial for the time being. I haven't
followed the motion work in the case, so I don't know if his defense team made
any such claim. But it seems to be that quite a few people are trying to have
it both ways - on the one hand he was too mentally fragile to be put on trial,
on the other he wanted his day in court to argue for the right to download
freely and so the plea bargain with the mild sentence (which would have been
served in some sort of minimum security facility) was an unconscionable deal
with the devil.

~~~
politician
That is a good argument for why Heymann would not be a contributor. That is,
Heymann has clean hands because the defense failed to make the court aware
that Swartz was possibly unfit to stand trial. Thank you.

------
rosser
Once again, Steve Heymann appears to be the bad guy here. Here's the wh.gov
petition to have him fired, too:

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

~~~
brandonsavage
I don't know that firing people is necessarily the best way to approach the
problem. It might make us feel better but it won't solve the actual problem,
which is the overly prosecutorial society we have.

~~~
rosser
I don't know if it's the best solution either, but the fact that the petition
calling for Carmen Ortiz's sacking reached 25k signatures in three days,
alone, suggests that distaste for our "overly prosecutorial society" isn't
exactly "rare".

Having multiple hops in the chain of command behind Aaron's prosecution
publicly called out like that can't hurt, and makes it seem less of a
"backlash" and more of a "this isn't right."

------
tcuk
I think the consensus here right now is that because people believe the laws
he broke shouldn't exist in the capacity they do, he shouldn't have been
punished, and that his case is a cause for reform in things that perhaps don't
deserve to be reformed on this merit alone.

It may very well be that there is need for reform in these laws, but does that
give Aaron the right to break them? And if so, does this lead precedence for
others to behave similarly without consequence? If so, where do we draw the
line in what constitutes which laws are allowed to be bypassed? How does this
not lead to massive abuse?

I do not believe that no matter how wrong we think the laws are, in a
democratic society, we must act in appropriate ways to cause reform. This is
because edge cases like this where laws are broken that perhaps shouldn't
exist, are never real reasons to change how we prosecute people. __

There is so much confusion within this whole situation:

1) Reform on the laws 2) Reform on how we prosecute people 3) Termination of
prosecutors involved

Each of the above needs to be clearly defined, and a case made against each
one. I don't believe this case by itself causes for reform in prosecution, or
termination of prosecutors.

I only believe this case should cause reform in specific laws, and that it's
said a man felt his only option to cause reform was to break the law, which
ultimately ended in him taking his whole life.

 __I see similarities between this and the Anders Breveik case in equal but
opposite ways, where 20 years life sentence was said by many to be absurd for
his crime, and many called for reform, when in fact the Norwegian system is
extremely effective, and this was just an edge case.

~~~
gruseom
This idea that "the law" is a fixed and unambiguous thing that can only be
objectively enforced, however lamentable a given case may be, is totally at
odds with how the legal system really works. There's a good reason why we've
been hearing the phrase "prosecutorial discretion" over and over again in the
last few days — that is what was driving this case. Not some dispassionate
sorry-but-our-hands-are-tied legal code.

p.s. Invoking Breivik in this context is really inappropriate.

~~~
tcuk
If I proposed that perhaps in an age where cyber crime is not only
misunderstood but increasingly high (see anon et al), that perhaps the
prosecution wanted to deter Aaron who by all accounts was an activist, from
committing further more serious crimes.

What would you think of the above? Is it a plausible reality to the
alternative one where the prosecutors are merely evil?

------
dmix
Anonymous is planning a protest at the DoJ in Washington:

<https://twitter.com/youranonnews/status/291315488477282304>

