News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Aaron Swartz hit with 9 more felony charges in MIT hacking case. Parent comment

Re:Aaron Swartz hit with 9 more felony charges in MIT hackin... by bonzoesc on Wednesday September 19, 2012 @02:31PM (#4544840)
The DoJ isn't human and is not subject to emotions like "pride" or "embarrassment." Their goal is to win cases and enforce laws, and if the bureaucratic cost of adding more charges improves their chances of having the defendant found guilty on them, they're successful.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Aaron Swartz hit with 9 more felony charges in MIT hackin... by ajross on Wednesday September 19, 2012 @03:02PM (#4544989)
The DoJ is part of the executive branch, and ultimately answerable to elected officials who absolutely are sensitive to embarassment. No one wants to see a headline like "FBI wastes $2M on failed prosecution of harmless nerd" when it could be "Hacker gets jail time and fine". So they're throwing mud trying to get something to stick. If it looks like anything does, they'll offer a plea again.

You can't really believe that politics have no impact on the case decisions in the DoJ, can you?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Aaron Swartz hit with 9 more felony charges in MIT hackin... by tptacek on Wednesday September 19, 2012 @02:33PM (#4544851)
If your point here is, "it doesn't", I agree. I don't think the extra charges were added to minimize embarrassment.
[ Parent | on HN ]