The point of this petition, and everything else done to remove Ortiz, Heymann, and Garland is that it is a repeatable process.
Making a spectacular example of Ortiz et. al. is a first step, but it's a fine first step.
Or put it this way, would we have as many lawyers willing to shield torture had John Yoo ended up delivering pizza for a living?
What's going on with these petitions is exactly the tactic politicians use to calm the populace down when they're screaming for something to be done after a scandal or catastrophe. Removing Ortiz would give everyone the vengeance they desire but it wouldn't do a damn thing because the people qualified to replace her are all just like her.
Indeed, they should be harried out of their professional and private lives as thoroughly and relentlessly as they drove Swartz to suicide. Their lives should be made not worth living.
The ones among us who signed the petition want to make AG Ortiz "an example" by asking for her head in a platter, so prosecutors think twice before using these tactics.
I was so surprised with the HN community's response. So many people saw that Aaron had committed suicide and thought, with their ninja-rockstar-hacker intelligence, that we should go on a witch-hunt and burn Ms Ortiz at the stake. Doesn't that seem like the worst possible thing to do in a time when we have very little facts?