Lawrence Lessig, a law professor and campaign finance reform advocate, blogs about politics, copyright, Aaron Swartz and his Mayday SuperPAC.
HN links it for his response to the Aaron Swartz prosecution and for his defense of the Mayday SuperPAC against an FEC complaint.
As Lessig reported, the plea bargain would have meant pleading guilty to a felony.
http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully
In that world, the question this government needs to
answer is why it was so necessary that Aaron Swartz be
labeled a “felon.” For in the 18 months of negotiations,
that was what he was not willing to accept, and so that
was the reason he was facing a million dollar trial in
April — his wealth bled dry, yet unable to appeal openly
to us for the financial help he needed to fund his
defense, at least without risking the ire of a district
court judge. And so as wrong and misguided and fucking sad
as this is, I get how the prospect of this fight,
defenseless, made it make sense to this brilliant but
troubled boy to end it.
The prosecutor isn't getting the "benefit of the doubt" because even a cursory look into her history shows that her office and attorneys (like Steve Heymann) have been railroading defendants and pushing spurious cases (google "Ortiz Russ Caswell" or "Ortiz UIGEA"). Carmen M. Ortiz is a bad person who abused her authority and the public trust; with Steve Heymann she pushed for 35 years in federal prison for downloading pdfs even when JSTOR refused to press charges. She cannot be voted out, and she will not listen to reason, so she must be forced to resign in disgrace. This is what prosecutors call "deterrence".
Sign the petition if you don't want Aaron's death to be in vain. He…
NB: JSTOR, to its credit, Larry Lessig says "great credit" (<https://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully>), didn't pursue prosecution of Swartz. M.I.T., however certainly did (also noted by Lessig). From Abelson's report, commissioned by MIT:
If the Review Panel is forced to highlight just one issue for reflection, we would choose to look to the MIT administration’s maintenance of a “neutral” hands-off attitude that regarded the prosecution as a legal dispute to which it was not a party. This attitude was complemented by the MIT community’s apparent lack of attention to the ruinous collision of hacker ethics, open-source ideals, questionable laws, and aggressive prosecutions that was playing out in its midst. As a case study, this is a textbook example of the very controversies where the world seeks MIT’s insight and leadership.
A friend of Aaron Swartz stressed in one of our interviews that MIT will continue to be at the cutting edge in information technology and, in today’s world, challenges like those presented in Aaron Swartz’s case will arise again and again. With that realization,
“Neutrality on these cases is an incoherent stance. It’s not the right choice for a tough
leader or a moral leader.”
<http://swartz-report.mit.edu/docs/report-to-the-president.pdf>
pp. 100-101
And the US DoJ and courts have bloody hands.
The careers of Ortiz and Heymann (DoJ) have suffered somewhat: Heymann left the DoJ, Ortiz's ambitions for higher office…
And the only way to stop future SOPAs is to make the system less corrupt, which means taking money out of politics.
This is why Lawrence Lessig left the fight against intellectual property craziness to focus on the underlying problem of corruption.
It's been years since I heard Lessig was shifting his focus to fight corruption, and recently SOPA got me curious about what he's been up to and if SOPA had brought him back out of "retirement". That led me to this article, "Why Is Lawrence Lessig MIA In The Great SOPA Piracy Debate?" http://m.paidcontent.org/article/419-why-is-lawrence-lessig-mia-in-the-great-sopa-piracy-debate/
which led me to Lessig's response: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/13119510676/me-mia-on-the-sopa-soap-opera
which led me to his iniative to fight political corruption through campaign finance reform: http://www.rootstrikers.org/
I'm actually glad to see that Lessig isn't letting SOPA distract him from his fight against corruption which is the root of the problem. Stopping SOPA would be a huge win, but it would only be a battle win, and as long as we're losing the corruption war there are going to be many more SOPAs to fight in the future.
the single most constructive thing JSTOR could do in reaction to this tragedy is loudly denounce the District Attorney for drawing them into the persecution of Aaron Swartz, for perpetuating the case after they - the victim of any wrong doing - asked the government to drop its case [0].
from this statement alone it isn't clear to me at all in what sense they "regretted being drawn into" the case.
if JSTOR is institutionally incapable of acknowledging that prosecutorial abuse played a significant role in this tragedy, of specifically acknowledging and denouncing abuse under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act [1], it can't be taken seriously as a "member of the internet community".
0. http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully
1. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/feds-go-overboard-in-prosecuting-information-activist/
It was Carmen Ortiz who was responsible for the unjust overzealous prosecution of Aaron Swartz which ultimately contributed to his death.
Carmen Ortiz's blind ambition has caused her to run roughshod over people's freedom in the past: http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/141253-15th-annual-muzzle-awards/?page=2#TOPCONTENT
We can only discourage the over-zealousness of prosecutors by making sure that it becomes a career limiting move instead of a career advancing one.
Lessig was kind enough in his writeup to not name names: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully but this kindness is both undeserved and unwise. Carmen thinks big convictions will get her a federal judgeship or other appointment. The public needs to make sure this isn't the case.
> So you have no examples or explanations for what “traditions”
I have plenty. Now, I do not wish to be rude Abduhl, but I find your
"question" a little disingenuous, and your expectation that I act as
your personal tutor on well documented matters a tad entitled. This
isn't my full-time job, and I come here mainly to look for interesting
and unusual viewpoints. Have you done even the most cursory research
into the history of patents as I indicated? Do you need some reference
material or links to get started?
How about reading some lecture notes and essays (some of the finest on
the formation of copyright, patent and trademarks) on the site of
Havard law professor Lawrence Lessig [1]
[1] https://www.lessig.org/