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Re:Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office by temphn on Saturday January 12, 2013 @07:11PM (#5049392)
A young man is dead because Carmen M. Ortiz unambiguously railroaded him. Frankly the ignorance and tenor of her prosecution in this area makes me much less likely to believe that all those other people she fined and jailed were bad guys.

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.

Re:Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office by drzaiusapelord on Saturday January 12, 2013 @08:05PM (#5049544)
>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.

Re:Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office by joslin01 on Saturday January 12, 2013 @10:47PM (#5049908)
You're being sensational and honestly rather rude. The left has dedicated programs just as the right does. If he was a tea party guy, he would basically be fighting for the same cause: an open government. You ought to keep in mind that the tea party started from the Ron Paul movement before it was, for all intents & purposes, hijacked by the traditional right.

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.

Re:Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office by noonespecial on Sunday January 13, 2013 @06:06AM (#5050531)
>something bad about Jesus.

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.

Re:Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office by temphn on Saturday January 12, 2013 @11:56PM (#5050019)
drzaiusapelord (great name, made me smile in spite of myself today) I think you have your heart in the right place. I'd ask you to hopefully see that at least some libertarians/Paul supporters are pretty different from your run of the mill corporatist Republicans, in the same way that the true left like Aaron Swartz or Alan Grayson is pretty different from run of the mill drone strike/drug war Democrats like Ortiz/Obama/Holder. I'm not saying there aren't legitimate differences here, but Rand Paul or Alan Grayson is a lot more likely to publicly condemn this travesty of justice than Obama or Boehner is. This is really authoritarians vs. civil libertarians, which is more cross-cutting than one might think.
Re:Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office by grogenaut on Saturday January 12, 2013 @07:46PM (#5049496)
Actually a young man is dead because he killed himself.
Re:Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office by rdtsc on Saturday January 12, 2013 @10:15PM (#5049834)
Actually if they drained his accounts and froze his assets and promised to shove in him a prison with hardened criminals for up to 50 years, where he could face assaults, rape and abuse (more so probably than the average hardened street criminal) killing himself didn't seem like such an irrational choice.
Re:Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office by grogenaut on Saturday January 12, 2013 @11:29PM (#5049973)
The point remains that the prosecutor did not kill him. He killed himself. Just trying to bring down the hyperbole on this thread... Speaking of which:

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

Re:Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office by temphn on Sunday January 13, 2013 @12:23AM (#5050068)
This is apologism for untrammeled abuse of power. He was being threatened with 35 years in federal prison for downloading some PDFs! He would have been 61 when he got out. They would have taken away 40-50% of his life.

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.

Re:Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office by Kylekramer on Sunday January 13, 2013 @12:42AM (#5050097)
And the hyperbole is back. He hadn't been convicted and would never have served anything close to 35 years even if he was.
Re:Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office by temphn on Sunday January 13, 2013 @05:01AM (#5050435)
Oh, right. He wouldn't have gotten 35 years, only a felony conviction with 5-10 years in federal prison for downloading some pdfs. So hyperbolic to be enraged about this!
Re:Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office by lclarkmichalek on Sunday January 13, 2013 @06:42AM (#5050575)
Get used to the hyperbole. This issue has made HN completely insane it seems.