[ale] [OT] RIP Aaron Swartz

[Jay Lozier]

On 01/19/2013 04:57 PM, Michael B. Trausch wrote:
> 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
>
 From the various articles I have read many are questioning this exact 
point and also are criticizing Carmen Ortiz for over-zealous, abusive 
prosecution.

According to the reports, Aaron was only really guilty of a misdemeanor 
(a state charge not federal) and his "felony" was violating the MIT TOS 
not any real hacking. If MIT and JSTOR suffered any "injury" part of the 
problem appears to be their own incompetence and not do to any malicious 
action on Aaron's part.

-- 
Jay Lozier
jslozier at gmail.com