[ale] [OT] RIP Aaron Swartz

[Michael B. Trausch]

On 01/12/2013 10:54 PM, Tim Watts wrote:
> I don't contend that the prosecutor could have / should have foreseen
> this outcome.  What sickens me is the enormous talent we've lost because
> of a prosecutor with no sense of proportion.  Even if Mr. Swartz hadn't
> killed himself would it really have been necessary to waste such a
> talent with a 35 year sentence for a single misguided prank?  Even
> JSTOR, the victim, declined to press charges for his crime and asked the
> feds to drop it.  The federal prosecutor's name is Carmen Ortiz if
> anyone's interested.

Since I learned of this it has been something that I have continued to
think about.

Looking at the application of the CFAA-1986 over the years, there seems
to be a trend of lesser severity crimes being met with harsher and
harsher sentences.  It really is insane.  You often get less time for
the careless operation of a motor vehicle that leads to a loss of life
than you could for walking into an unlocked closet, hooking up a network
connection and sucking bits across a network?

I mean, seriously, I don't care what the information is---how is it that
it could possibly warrant such harsh penalties?  How is that not "cruel
and unusual" punishment?

What a damned shame.

	--- Mike