No doubt she intended for her campaign for governor to describe her as a "staunch defender of intellectual property rights" who, as prosecutor, put a "dangerous hacker behind bars" for "breaking into MIT and stealing millions of dollars of federally funded research."

The Obama administration has thrown better people than her out the airlock because they became political liabilities. We need to add a new rule to the political rulebook that she's playing by. Ending her career is necessary to send a lesson to every other prosecutor who sees a guy like Aaron the way a housecat sees a cornered rat.

I seriously doubt that any of this is unique to a few prosecutors. At the end of the day, their incentives are not for the social good. Individually, they want a flawless record as a victor, costs to their victims be damned.

She was exceptionally pissed to have to agree to stay the charges.

The tactics described in the petition are ingrained in the US justice system. Getting rid of a single prosecutor isn't going to change a damn thing because the injustices are systemic, not the product of a vindictive individual.

Like Aaron said, shouting at the gears isn't going to fix the machine.

But excising the broken, unfit, insidiously malicious gear from the machine will make said machine one gear short of harming the innocent-until-proven-guilty.

Ortiz comes across to me as a better than average human being who did something evil because she seems to have been morally confused about something. I don't think Ortiz is, say, as bad as Kissinger.

Maybe the evil justifies the revenge of removing Ortiz. But this petition striking me as an exercise in nastiness. Wouldn't an official, public reprimand be better?

If engineers started getting sacked for breaking the build, you can be damned sure people would get very scrupulous about only committing working code, whether they're fresh out of school or greybeards.

No, it's not a perfect analogy, but I don't think it needs to be.

Just like this is, actually.

No, so not like this, actually.

How many software engineers or their professional peers have been nudged, pushed or shoved into committing suicide because of a broken build? No, really?

When a person in position of authority is maliciously responsible for driving people to the brink of suicide and then some, they need to be held to a higher standard because of the very position they hold.

This episode is not an excuse for a witch-hunt of those in power, but the people who precipitated this episode need to be excised from their position precisely because of the irresponsible witch-hunt they carried out.

It wasn't my shitty analogy to begin with. You're missing the point: getting one prosecutor fired won't change anything, because everyone above and below that prosecutor will continue operating the exact same way.

Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. But de-throning that one prosecutor will, in her own words, serve as a message [0] to others of her kind that reckless, power-drunk actions have real-world repercussions.

[0] http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/December/EremianVer...

No, it won't. People respond to risks and rewards, and we've shown amply over the years that the severity of punishment has little deterrent effect on future offenses if the odds of getting caught aren't high enough.

In other words, by throwing one prosecutor to the wolves, we have no inspired any behavioral change in other prosecutors, because we've shown that once every few decades we will punish one person - and that's stacked against the systemic pressures they face to prosecute as many people as vigorously as possible, every day.

This is the same reason why the death sentence, as severe as it is, has basically no effect on crime rates, because it's not handed out with enough regularity to be a deterrent (whether or not we should have the death sentence is another story altogether).

To achieve the "message sending" you want, we will have to regularly investigate many prosecutors, such that the odds of escaping their reckless prosecutorial actions are low. This is what most other people call "changing the system" ;)

Outlier one-offs is just compounding tragedy upon tragedy.

Pour encourager les autres.

My guess is she is just as vituperative and mean to people who work in in her office. She has done far more harm to this country in her mistreatment of Aaron Swartz than she can ever atone for.

Well, maybe. It's also entirely possible that she was just doing her job, and didn't totally understand the technical aspects of what Swartz was accused of doing.

> didn't totally understand the technical aspects of what Swartz was accused of doing

These are quite entirely contradictory. How can you charge someone for a so-called crime you do not even understand?

She had the resources to hire the types of experts who are what I call "executive whisperers." She doesn't need to know what a perl script is to understand what happened at JSTOR.

On top of it, when the "victim" JSTOR is saying "what the hell, why are you prosecuting this guy?" Then its pretty obvious we're looking at political motivations here. Sorry, but you have way too much faith in people if you think what just happened was one big 'honest mistake.'

As a tax payer I don't want a prosecutor who doesn't know who to go after or how far to go. From reading the thread(s) here and loosely following the case in the news I am not convinced that the money spent to prosecute this case was the best possible use of my tax dollars.

Much of law is a very technologically backwards field. Up until recently, some law schools (and not backwater ones, but major top-tier ones) only accepted hard-copy, type-written (as in, on a physical typewriter) applications. Harvard's student library had several typewriters specifically for this purpose.

Someone in a position of power is not strong unless they know when to apply the full amount of power entrusted to them and when to practice restraint; when and how to apply less so that the level of punishment is commiserate with the crime being prosecuted. It is bad for our society to give give someone a pass when they over prosecute a crime in both the short term and the long term.

Yes it's vitally important that there be a completely different and much weaker standard of justice applied to wealthy software developers then those other people.

Messaging that violating proportionality in such crimes is electorally unacceptable is necessary. Villainising a messenger of the law is not.

I do not doubt that Mme Ortiz believes, or at least believed, that what she did is right. Her sense of morality was reinforced by her institutional context and is not unique for a prosecutor. She simply failed to recognise when she stepped outside the bounds where her values are recognised - this is not all that dissimilar from Aaron Swartz. As she should have done in his case, if we intend to use her to send a message, there is no need to do so with such zeal.

I am highly conflicted about signing this petition. The call for bloodletting should never ring so clearly.

However, even if that came to pass, she would still be a top flight lawyer with a broad set of connections; at worst she would move on to another position.

I sure hope you can see the proportional difference between the two acts!

I see a lot of parallels between his struggle to enforce pornography laws with the current struggle to enforce copyright laws. These situations seem to arise when there is a fundamental disconnect between what "the people" think and what "the system" thinks. "The system" is represented by a codified set of strictures that are put in place by a variety of people representing what they assert are the best interests of "the people." Whereas the people themselves, act in what they consider a rational way given their understanding of or perhaps agreement to, the laws of the land. Finally our system of laws are a combination of written text, and argued cases, and the sum of those is an emergent thing thought of as public policy. When the rational acting people don't consent to the public policy, there is a rash of disobedience, and whether it is alcohol, porn, or copyright, the process of emerging to a consensus is challenging at best.

One possible explanation for the zeal in which this case was pursued may be the lack of confounding factors with respect to copyright infringement, as codified by law. I don't know of course so this is just speculation. Having a clear, published, decision on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of what Aaron was doing might have been seen as a way to clear up a confusing pile of statutes and other decisions. An unambiguous marker between fair use and infringement, or perhaps a litmus test for intent. We'll probably never know.

If you look at Carmen's career you will find that she has actually done a lot of good, in getting bad folks put behind bars. She, or her staff, blew it on this one. I wish I knew why. I doubt we'll get the actual story there.

So to what end would ending her career advance Aaron's goal of getting copyright on public records overturned? Making people "afraid" to prosecute it is the wrong answer, making it "not a crime" is the answer. There are only two ways to do that, one is to repeal the statute that makes it a crime in the first place, the second is to litigate the statute and find that the statute is invalid.

Firing Carmen doesn't help, although I completely understand the emotional appeal of doing so.

[1] I know that would not have happened it is illustrative.

If you get drunk, hop in your car, and accidentally kill some people, then guess what? It doesn't matter if it was an accident. If your "accident" is big enough, it becomes indistinguishable from malice and you get held accountable.

Change the system.

I have a good friend whose father was abusive, and a perfectionist. My friend, as a consequence, holds everyone to an impossible standard - most of all herself - and it's sad to watch, especially given that she's one of the most brilliant, passionate, hard-working people I know. When you expect and demand perfection from people, you will only be let down.

I believe people are well intentioned, but fallible, and demanding retribution for every failing is just a pretty crappy way to go through life. I am very willing to forgive, and only hope that, in my life, others will forgive me when I don't do right (and I'm under no illusions that I always do the right thing)

If it was due to negligence, then there is the issue of to what extent it has a preventative effect.

I'm Norwegian. One of the aspects of the Norwegian legal systems is short prison sentences. The legal maximum sentence is 21 years with a recent modification that allows for extensions (this must be included in the conviction, and is restricted to particularly severe crimes) if the prisoner is considered to still be a risk to society. On top of this, a prisoner is usually let out after 2/3 is served, assuming good behaviour, and will get time limited parole even before that (such as weekends with their family).

So a few months ago, for example, a major newspaper published an interview with a woman convicted of a double murder a decade or so ago, carried out at a cafe while she was out of prison for the day on one of her first parole days. In this case still accompanied by a police officer.

And you know what? I'm happy about that, because we also have one of the lowest re-offending rates.

Vengeance is not a good basis for a legal system.

And if what you want is to minimize harm to the public (and that includes those you put in prison, before someone gets the bright idea that lifetime confinement is a solution), punishment simply doesn't work very well.

Nonsense.

This isn't like like murder or robbery, where the criminal can more or less reoffend at will. You can't prosecute unless you are an official, government-recognized prosecutor. If she is removed from her job, she won't be able to prosecute anyone ever again.

That will work just fine.

Let's say that you have a software project, and one of the engineers on the project is fixing bugs. His bug fixes generally fix the bug but often are found to have performance impacts, or later when another problem is found his bug fixes require complex refactoring.

This person is doing their job, day in and day out. Will firing them make your system any better? No, it won't.

This is a management problem, the manager talks to this guy and sets guidelines and standards for his bug fixes, the manager creates policies around how bug fixes are evaluated and the way in which engineers are evaluated that fix them. And then if this engineer can't do the job, as the manager needs it done, then you let them go because you really need a better engineer in that slot.

Its always the manager's fault if someone is let go for just doing their job. If how they did it is an issue, the manager should fix it, and if they are incapable of fixing it then you let go the manager and replace them.

Ortiz IS the manager in this situation, by the way.

Just remember this: this is a Prosecutor who went after Aaron Swartz, even though the alleged victim didn't want to press any charges and had dealt with the matter outside of the court system, in a way that was satisfactory to both parties (Swatz and JSTOR).

Accidentally convicting someone for rape with a life sentence (due to bad due process) is ALSO a mistake.

There is a big difference in magnitude AND consequence.

Unless you are willing to label Aaron as just "collateral damage"?

The law should not be made by prosecuting someone to see where the boundaries of legislation lie.

That said, I personally don't believe that was the case here. It seems that in many ways this prosecution was just a standard prosecution; prosecutors often ask for crazy sentences (and don't get them-, and I don't honestly believe that there was a particularly unprecedented amount of malice on the part of the prosecution.

Your response is neither relevant or useful.

Kindly go troll somewhere else.

Of course this would be little solace to Aaron, as he probably would not be made aware until afterward, if ever.

Also, federal cases usually get settled in pleas, so there's less actual precedent. Going all the way to court would have been painful for him AND would have increased the odds of conviction.

No, it isn't. Prosecutors need to be held responsible for their actions.

So in your view, employees should never be fired no matter how bad they screw up?

The system serves the people; the system's thinking should be subordinate to what the people think. Anything less is a sign that the system is broken and is immediate and desperate need of an overhaul (but that is pretty obvious at this point).

However, whether or not she is "evil" is irrelevant. She clearly went after Swartz with a self-righteous zeal that was far divorced from the seriousness of the alleged crime. I don't know if someone in the US Justice Department had beef with Swartz they wanted to settle, or if they just wanted to make an example of someone, but one thing is certain and that's that until these prosecutors face actual backlash to their jobs and reputation when they go so far overboard, nothing whatsoever will change. They simply have no disincentive for this kind of irresponsible and unprofessional behavior at the moment.

That is: in the one area we do know - computer science - we can see that she pursued trumped up charges. So maybe a forensic accountant would be able to explain that in her past rise to "Bostonian of the Year" she jailed some poor middle manager for making a mistake, or a legal aid guy could break down how she made some minority kid selling pot into a "mobster". Won't know till the Internet and the press does a thorough review:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5048632

Bottom line: she did not acknowledge any of Aaron's positive contributions when she decided to portray him as an evil hacker worthy of thirty five years in prison. Show her the same mercy she showed him by forcing her resignation. More, in fact, as I'm sure she'll be able to land on her feet as a high priced lobbyist. The RIAA/MPAA would love to have her.

She's way too toxic for business. She's got her federal pension and probably a long future in politics. Unless Obama throws her out, she's more or less set for life. Prosecutors don't get burned on stuff like this. Now if she cheated on her husband or said something bad about Jesus.

This is also further proof that you can attack leftist political activists with impunity. At his core Aaron was for liberalization of information and open government. If he was a Tea Party guy downloading PDFs from MIT to show "liberal bias" he'd be alive and have his own Fox New show and a book deal.

No one protects the left.

The right and left often come together when it comes to restraining the rights of citizens (patriot act?). Don't demonize the right and put a halo around the left, it only serves to propagate the right/left paradigm that the Americans are already trapped in. We need the right & left coming together on open government issues. I feel good when politicians such as Dennis Kucinich come together with the libertarian-wing of the Right to push for things like Audit the Fed.

Finally, I find your comment rather ironic since it was the left who put this woman into power in 2009 and God knows she is, as you say, "protected". If Obama ever does come about this (doubtful), he will have all the excuses in the book ready for her pardon. The right was vehemently opposed to just about anyone the left selected, but perhaps if the right had their way, it wouldn't have been Carmen M Ortiz in power and maybe Aaron wouldn't be dead. But that's the kinda what-if talk that's just immature at the end of the day.

She works for the people. If the people don't like her saying bad things about Jesus, Muslims, Jews or minorities, she gets the can. That's a good thing.

Lots of people in the USA like Jesus. If even a fraction of that number could be mobilized over this injustice, she's gone.

In reality he would have gone to a while collar prison and would have gotten the counseling he obviously needed. (edit spelling)

Sometimes it is better to live free or die. The people who need "counseling" are Ortiz, Heymann, and the inhumane who'd defend or excuse this travesty. Just following orders, blind legalism.

It's not as if she's a holdover from the Reagan years. She was an early appointment by President Obama.

I'll say for sure that a lot of the initial backing by legislators for SOPA/PIPA was just status quo informed by vague technical understanding of the issue, and not because everyone was in the pockets of the movie industry.

Looking at the way the prosecution built its case, the hyperbole, misdirection, inaccuracies dealing with the technical aspects at least, I cannot but attribute at least one of the above attributes to them.

The 9th Circuit (the best circuit!) ruled this was bullshit in US vs. Nosal.

Had the same action been done by a non-political individual who simply did he "because he could" there would have been a quiet, minor settlement.

Getting a DA fired solves nothing. What happens once you have achieved it? What have you accomplished? The law remains the same, and these type of cases continue to be brought.

Change is difficult. But I hope that if people really cared about this they would put as much effort as they can into changing the law, rather than trying to place the blame on a single individual - because the latter can easily result in even more misunderstandings.

At any given time, any person and any company could be easily convicted of enough serious crimes to put them in prison for life or out of business. Prosecutors don't pick cases; they pick defendants, based on what are hopefully well-intended criteria. They then go through the extensive but essentially mechanical process of the justice system, which hopefully at least serves to shine enough daylight on the matter that prosecutor misbehavior is hard to hide.

Saying we should not pressure them to pick in a way we would prefer is to abandon the only actual influence over the system we have.

Otherwise you'd more often run into situations where you couldn't prosecute someone because a statute didn't spell out their exact actions even though in spirit they had violated it.

Technically, President Obama has the power to install and remove U.S. attorneys at his discretion. Should we start a petition asking him to resign, too?

1. Obama appointed her, and by many metrics she is doing a good job.

2. The DOJ under Holder is anything but Liberal in it's outlook, a DOJ that's onboard with killing civilians who are American citizens without requiring even a closed hearing from a judge does not care what you think about prosecutorial overreach.

3. Using outsize threats and the power of indictment to coerce defendants into pleading out is policy, and goes well beyond an individual D.A.'s practices in a given case.

That said; the purpose of this petition is to raise embarrassing questions in a way that demands an answer.

Justice in this country should aspire to be more than "the shadow cast by the powerful upon the weak".

note: I'm aware that I should have had someone else proofread the text and that my misedit of the first paragraph is now unfixable.

Got it. Being a member of a "disenfranchised group" and "fighting corporations" excuses anything.

And the way this was handled, it feels more wrong than right, and she certainly had some considerable say in the way it played out.

Maybe she's had plenty of opportunities to reflect on the consequences of her actions, maybe not (if it was all mob bosses and drug companies, probably not). In light of what's happened, at the least, she needs to reflect and grow from this experience.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/harveysilverglate/2013/01/03/bla...

I've read somewhere she's was preparing for the Whitey's case mentioned in the article.

Screw that.