If we're lucky we can get this kind of outrage built up when it is, and then fix it for everyone.
These laws get passed when the innocent victim is a sympathetic white girl, why can't they get repealed when the innocent accused is a sympathetic white boy?
You're quite right that race shouldn't have anything to do with it; I shouldn't have written it that way. But this is clearly wrong:
>No laws are being rewritten posthumously for 'sympathetic white girl'.
We pass laws for specific sympathetic victims all the time. We often even name them after the victims. Megan's law, Amber alerts, etc.
It isn't that they're white that matters, what matters is that they're sympathetic. At best, if we assume society is fairly racist, maybe we see them as more sympathetic because they're white. But let me admit that was a mistake and move past it, because it's going down the wrong path.
The point is that most of the innocent accused in the existing justice system are poor, uneducated, largely unsympathetic urban youth who no one in power cares about. There is no powerful lobby to fix it for them.
In this case we have a brilliant kid who everyone loved, who was subjected to the same injustice. This should never have happened -- not to him, not to the others. So we should rally behind this tragedy and while we have the support of public opinion, prevent it from happening again, to anyone.
There are numerous examples of laws that have 'little innocent white girls' as catalyzing moments, to the extent that they are often named after the victims, if only in popular media. Just from the top of my head and a few seconds on google: numerous proposed "Caylee's Laws", Chelsea's Law, Marsy's Law, Jessica's Law, Megan's Law...
Whether Aaron is a "sympathetic" defendant depends strongly on your point of view. All the laws named after little white girls are named after dead little white girls who were the victims of brutal crimes.
Aaron is the alleged perpetrator of a potentially serious felony. Moreover, he is the perpetrator of a crime that most people cannot distinguish from hacking (because unlike the HN crowd, most people are not technology literate beyond knowing how to download apps). Aaron would not be a sympathetic defendant to most of America; he would be just another one of the same hackers who try to steal money from their bank accounts.
I don't think you're getting the idea here. We have internets now. The prosecutor says Aaron was a bad man. Everyone who knows anything about him -- and that's tons of people -- says completely the opposite. The New York Times is writing largely sympathetic stories about him. This isn't 1950 anymore. You don't get to control the public discourse just because you have a suit and an office.
It doesn't matter what they say he did, it matters what we say he did. And we say he did good. Which we can get people to believe, because we're right, and there are millions of us.
This whole "tech people are irrelevant and no one listens to them" meme dates back to the 1990s before tech people were relevant and people started listening to them, and before there were millions of us instead of thousands.
There are a lot of us. We're generally pretty smart. We control a lot of important stuff. We can fix serious problems if we collectively set out to do it.
You can say "politics doesn't work that way" a hundred times, but politics works the way that people make it work. And we're people.
The prosecution does not say that Aaron was a bad man. They merely alleged he committed acts which fall within the definition of a crime under statutes passed by Congress.
It is irrelevant whether Aaron is bad or good; the law addresses only guilt and leaves morality to others. Legally, what matters is (1) whether he committed the alleged acts and (2) whether those acts (which are currently crimes) should be crimes.
It doesn't matter what they say he did,
You're right, because now he's dead and we do not allow the prosecution of dead men.
* it matters what we say he did. And we say he did good. Which we can get people to believe, because we're right, and there are millions of us.*
You have people on HN, on reddit, and 4chan who agree with you, and the bloggers who work for the NY Times. As I already discussed, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that you will convince other people (i.e., the tecnically illerate supermajority of America) that what he did was "good" once they understand that what he did is considered hacking.
There are a lot of us. We're generally pretty smart. We control a lot of important stuff. We can fix serious problems if we collectively set out to do it.
People in SV keep saying that, and then they churn out yet another social network or photo sharing app. At this point, I'll believe statements like that, even if made on HN, once they are backed by actual action and not just words.
You can say "politics doesn't work that way" a hundred times, but politics works the way that people make it work. And we're people.
Yes, you are people. But you're a small minority of America that generally avoids politics and interacting with the rest of America. Until that changes, and you involve yourself in America beyond just relatively unimportant stuff, like unpaid access to academic journals, you won't have much success changing anything.
>It is irrelevant whether Aaron is bad or good; the law addresses only guilt and leaves morality to others. Legally, what matters is (1) whether he committed the alleged acts and (2) whether those acts (which are currently crimes) should be crimes.
We are not in a court of law. We are in the court of public opinion, where it is very relevant whether Aaron is bad or good.
>there's not a snowball's chance in hell that you will convince other people (i.e., the tecnically illerate supermajority of America) that what he did was "good" once they understand that what he did is considered hacking.
Half the point of this exercise is to make those people understand that "hacking" doesn't mean what they think it means. By these prosecutors' definitions, what they each do every morning by logging into a website using an ad blocker in violation of its terms of service or filling in a fake name to a web form is just as much considered "hacking" -- which is the problem. These laws are asinine. They make us all felons. Normal people can understand that without having to know what curl is.
>People in SV keep saying that, and then they churn out yet another social network or photo sharing app. At this point, I'll believe statements like that, even if made on HN, once they are backed by actual action and not just words.
I read your other post where you attributed the SOPA defeat to lobbying rather than activism. I don't agree with you. If you talk to Congressional aids, it was the volume of letters and the phone calls from real people who did it. It broke records.
If you don't agree with that, how about the Arab Spring? The activists themselves attribute their success to social media. Granted many of them are now learning that being citizens in a new democracy is harder than it looks, but you can't deny that there are actions there rather than just words.
What kind of actions are you looking for anyway? We are not going to have that sort of semi-violent revolution in the United States. That just isn't in the cards. But we can have political change without violence -- which is going to involve a lot more "words" than "actions" but is more than capable of getting results.
And what do you care? If we're willing bust our butts trying to change things, why do you have to shit on the attempt?
I want to fix things. Other like minded people want to fix the same things. We have ideas. We have resources. We are going to try. You can help if you want, but if you don't want to help then please go away and if you encounter anyone more helpful on your way out the door then kindly send them back this way.
And let me say this: If you're arguing that we haven't been living up to our potential, I agree with you. We don't need "another social network or photo sharing app." But we are capable of more than that. So don't tell us that we can't do it -- it helps nothing for you to convince anyone to believe you and have them go back to making more social networks and photo sharing apps. This is more important than that.
These laws get passed when the innocent victim is a sympathetic white girl, why can't they get repealed when the innocent accused is a sympathetic white boy?