Re:A Digital Rumor Should Never Lead to a Police Raid
by tptacek on Thursday September 22, 2016 @03:34PM
(#12559609)
I don't remember probable cause being the issue in that case. Do you remember differently?
Re:A Digital Rumor Should Never Lead to a Police Raid
by Zigurd on Thursday September 22, 2016 @05:02PM
(#12560347)
The problem in the Aaron Swartz case was that MIT IT employees decided to make a federal case out of a trespass event with zero property damage, and MIT refused to release the names of those people. Subsequently there were many other sins of omission. MIT's senior leadership could have come out against the prosecution, for example. The enablers and excuse-makers disgust me.
Re:A Digital Rumor Should Never Lead to a Police Raid
by pmoriarty on Thursday September 22, 2016 @03:57PM
(#12559821)
My point was about the lack of trials for the overwhelming majority of defendants in the US. Schwartz's case was a well known example of that.
Re:A Digital Rumor Should Never Lead to a Police Raid
by tedunangst on Thursday September 22, 2016 @04:14PM
(#12559963)
How so? He didn't take a plea bargain, so it seems like a poor example of defendants taking plea bargains.
Re:A Digital Rumor Should Never Lead to a Police Raid
by pmoriarty on Thursday September 22, 2016 @04:21PM
(#12560029)
He didn't take a plea bargain because even that was too onerous! He killed himself rather than face either a trial or plea.
It's also a good example as Schwart'z case is widely considered a blatant prosecutorial abuse of power, and symptomatic of a broken judicial system.
Some might argue that that's how it should be, and is an example of the effectiveness of prosecutors, who save the state a lot of trouble and money in trying people who clearly are guilty by their own admission.
Others might call it a travesty of justice, and a mockery of the judicial process and the Constitution of the United States.
Remember the case of Aaron Schwartz.