General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWTP Petition : Remove United States DA from office for overreach in the case of Aaron Swartz
Posting this in General Discussion because I don't know if it's been posted (couldn't find it when I searched). So far it has 21,255 of 25,000 needed signatures:
A prosecutor who does not understand proportionality and who regularly uses the threat of unjust and overreaching charges to extort plea bargains from defendants regardless of their guilt is a danger to the life and liberty of anyone who might cross her path.
[link:https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck|
northoftheborder
(7,572 posts)Justin_Beach
(111 posts)albeit one with a bit of a Delores Umbridge quality:
http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/meetattorney.html
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)As the chief federal law enforcement officer in Massachusetts, Ms. Ortiz supervises the prosecution of all federal crimes and the litigation of all civil matters in which the federal government has an interest. She oversees the work of more than 200 attorneys and support staff in Boston, Worcester and Springfield.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Justin_Beach
(111 posts)JSTOR, the supposed victim in the theft of nothing, declined to prosecute and urged the DA to drop charges.
reorg
(3,317 posts)following the "incident", making non-copyrighted material as well as a limited number of current articles freely available to everyone.
They admit that Aaron Swartz's prank had an "impact" on their decision.
http://about.jstor.org/news/jstor%E2%80%93free-access-early-journal-content-and-serving-%E2%80%9Cunaffiliated%E2%80%9D-users
dlwickham
(3,316 posts)The criminal investigation and todays indictment of Mr. Swartz has been directed by the United States Attorneys Office. It was the governments decision whether to prosecute, not JSTORs. As noted previously, our interest was in securing the content. Once this was achieved, we had no interest in this becoming an ongoing legal matter.
http://about.jstor.org/news/jstor-statement-misuse-incident-and-criminal-case
doesn't say anything about urging the government to drop the charges
reorg
(3,317 posts)http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz
dlwickham
(3,316 posts)I'm still waiting for someone to back up that line
I'm not accusing anyone of lying or misrepresenting JSTOR's position; I just want someone to show me where that had been said
I think this was a situation where JSTOR was damned if they did or damned if they didn't
Swartz is being made to be some kind of martyr and the powers that be at JSTOR, which unless you were an academic had probably never heard of before this, wanted to wash their hands of the whole mess
the first fact is that JSTOR and Swartz came to an agreement where Swartz would return the materials he illegally downloaded with an guarantee that none of the material would be made available for free out in cyberspace or wherever and JSTOR would accept his mea culpa
the second fact is that he still illegally downloaded something like 4 million pages of documents despite returning the materials
it's like a thief and a jewelry store agreeing to let things be if the thief returned the diamonds he stole but that the fact that he stole doesn't not go away
Agony
(2,605 posts)in 2 days
dlwickham
(3,316 posts)what's your point?
reorg
(3,317 posts)appears to be Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen P. Heymann, according to DOJ information:
http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/July/SwartzAaronPR.html
and this article, with some interesting comments from Aaron Swartz' lawyer:
Heymann, the deputy chief of the criminal division in the Boston-based U.S. Attorney's office, also headed the computer crimes task force there, a position Peters said "doesn't carry much prestige and respect unless you have computer crimes cases."
...
Peters said Heymann was threatening Swartz with potentially longer prison sentences if Swartz didn't accept his plea deal offers.
"He was very intransigent," Peters said of Heymann. "It was his philosophy that as you got closer to trial the plea offers only got worse. But the offer he was making was so unreasonable that having it get worse didn't concern me much."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-stephen-heymann_n_2473278.html
Total signatures right now: 24,511
ReallyIAmAnOptimist
(357 posts)Very sad.
reorg
(3,317 posts)threshold reached within two days, looking forward to White House response
dlwickham
(3,316 posts)this is a moot point since the charges against the defendant have been dropped
Fire Walk With Me
(38,893 posts)Occupy Wall Street ?@OccupyWallStNYC
Practicing democracy gets harder & harder. The @whitehouse just quadrupled the signature threshold for petitions. !#%$*
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57564203-93/white-house-raises-petition-signature-threshold-to-100k/
reorg
(3,317 posts)"AS OF JANUARY 15, 2013", one day after the demand to sack the prosecutor reached the signature threshold.
Fire Walk With Me
(38,893 posts)Fire Walk With Me
(38,893 posts)Stun ☠ ?@57UN
Rep Zoe Lofgren Is Introducing Aarons Law to Prevent Future CFAA Abuses
http://blog.greenpirate.org/rep-zoe-lofgren-is-introducing-aarons-law-to-prevent-future-cfaa-abuses/
Retweeted by Anonymous
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)Cindy Ortiz I think her name is.