The victims involved in this have specifically asked this to not happen. I'm sure you can understand why the members of a community like this would have personal or political reasons to avoid a judicial investigation.
If he did rape someone, no due process means we're treating rape as a mere HR issue, and he's free to go rape more people.
If he did not rape someone, then at least some of the allegations being thrown around are false. No due process means that someone unconnected with this may reasonably assume all of it is false.
What do you mean "against all odds"? Unless you're connected with this personally, all you have to go on is their internal investigation, which did not mention rape. So apparently no one is even claiming that anymore.
Again, they can either turn this over to the police, or I'm going to assume it's all made up and I'm not going to care. Not that my opinion is worth any more than yours, which is to say it doesn't matter at all.
I don't know what the truth is here, but I can't trust anyone who won't make the investigation public by that very fact.
And just for the record, I have been severely sexually harassed, enough that the person responsible was fired. So it's not like I can't sympathize with victims of harassment. Yes, it really is uncomfortable facing them, but it's also the right thing to do.
EDIT: Not clear why this is so controversial, but that doesn't beget trust, either. But it's true and I'll stand by it.
by requesting NOT to have a judicial investigation the accusers are effectively saying "we are content to allow for trial by torch-wielding-mob in the court of public opinion and reputation" instead of allowing for a trial by an institution established specifically for impartiality and upholding the rights of both the accusers and the accused.
What you are arguing is that, in the absence of a trial by a government, people have the active right to participate in an organization that doesn't want them. That goes against every bit of the ethos of a project like Tor. (And if you won't believe any other argument, keep in mind that it's not fair to him: why would the state be inclined to treat him fairly, for everything he's done to oppose the state?)
https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence
You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.
I think you may have missed what the front-page of HN looked like when this was first happening. I won't bother re-quoting/linking things beyond previous discussions (since those contain the information) but your comment is entirely out-of-sync with what was happening.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11845338 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11837901
If you're referring to the "DieJakeDie" account, I acknowledge that it existed, but it was very clear that it had no involvement with victims or (as far as anyone can tell) anyone involved in the Tor community. The integrity of the Tor process was not compromised by its existence, any more than the integrity of a government trial is compromised by protesters outside calling for blood.
I stupidly hadn't asked enough questions about the back story of how this guy got involved with the previous incarnation of the organization - he came in, stirred up trouble, drove out the existing leadership and due to their missteps, was able to portray his behaviour as reasonable... when it became apparent he was losing some level of control over the current org, he did it all over again. My fault entirely for being not cynical enough and the other people for believing in his bullshit.
I understand your point of view, but until you have been in a real world situation where the legal system is COMPLETELY USELESS, you will never really understand how the world really works (aka reach 40, not a conservative, no brain etc). The amount of ambiguity inherent in evaluating human behaviour is a lot more than you think, and people like this use it to their advantage. And the legal system is very expensive, so trying to use it to achieve 'justice' tends to be, overall, not cost effective. The legal system is ONLY about monetary issues.
And people like Appelbaum know this - they know how to skate the line and to use the weaknesses of society, social relationships, the legal system ... to their advantage. Reading about Appelbaum triggered all my triggers about people who should be avoided. I really "get" this ideal of Solomon-like impartiality, but facts / evidence / scientific-ish attitude... you have to also understand people as well besides this to grok the truth and that requires actual wisdom. And over 40, you begin to understand that an awful lot of people have zero integrity, especially those whose primary goal is power of some sort.
The fact that psychopaths exist is not evidence of Applebaum's guilt. This torch wielding angry mob might have a legitimate grievance, or they might be a spontaneous torch wielding angry mob, they might even be stirred up by a psychopath like the one you describe.
That's why we need a process better than the torch wielding angry mob.
Perhaps the global 'social networking' phenomena / the democratization of the media / etc offers something - all in all, all the discussion around things like this is ultimately useful; it raises people's awareness.
So, since I have no idea what your point was, can you rephrase your post? What was your point?
It isn't really "shitty" to be under 40 or conservative.
I mistakingly assumed everyone has heard of the maxim attributed to Churchill. It's a bit flippant, but there is some truth to it if you look past the surface meaning. The world is fundamentally run by money and power, two things 'conservatives' are stereotypically obsessed with. When you see that 'liberals' can be driven by those two things as well, then how society really operates becomes a lot clearer.
As for my post, I was trying to say the legal system is inadequate for some things. In a small community, there are social mechanisms by which the group can deal with problematic people, if the group steps up to the task. Western society today is not a "small community" but perhaps the rise of social networking etc allows for this. The problem then becomes acting with integrity, and trying to deal with the issue evenhandedly - I am of course assuming the Tor Board did its best here. It's unfortunate those that things needed to get to the point where there was enough of a public outcry to finally address the issue - as I understand it, people have been complaining about Appelbaum for years (same as for Jian Ghomeshi in Canada). But that is how it usually works - people "knew" about Bill Cosby and Jimmy Saville for years but the issue never got addressed.
How can communities police themselves without having to rely on an external authority or hierarchy? Always relying on the legal system as the external authority is impracticable.
communities can police themselves about how well their members fit in with the group and obey social norms using whatever tools they like, up to a point.
up to a point.
the point where self-policing must end and external authority must take over is when criminal allegations are made against a member of the community. if someone is accused of sexual assault, that is a crime they can face prison time for. it is deeply inappropriate for the community to try and self-police a criminal allegation of that weight.
if the accuser is not willing to let the criminal justice system investigate a criminal allegation then I think there's something else going on. using criminal allegations for social-normative or political ends is a dangerous game though.
I don't need the certainty of a court verdict to convince me a bozo isn't worth my time. When there's no shortage of good people to work with, anything less than a "yes" is a "no".
Conversely, I also choose my own friends. I've befriended social pariahs many times, because having played that role many times myself, I get it.
These accusers only become "victims" after an impartial jury of Appelbaum's peers weighs the evidence and pronounces him guilty.
Not every judicial system uses juries.
"Victim" is not a predominantly judicial term, unlike "defendant" or "felon", so the everyday meaning of someone who suffered something applies. That's a factual thing, not procedural as you claim above.
The vast majority of accusations in our lives have no place in court.
Only the very gravest ones find their way there. And we're under no obligation to refrain from drawing our own conclusions.
No, its how the justice system determines whether fact claims are adequately supported to apply legal sanctions.
Individuals are free to determine and speak on their conclusions as to the truth of fact claims independent of judicial conclusions; this is a fairly fundamental freedom (reflected in the first amendment) and essential to the marketplace of ideas.
It is the right of most organizations in most states/countries to exclude people of their choosing. They have verified a couple complaints and decided he was enough like a person they wanted to exclude. Which it sounds like he was doing from his side as well.
So I'd say that legally, he is being considered innocent.
This is like 'I can say whatever I want without the consequences of my peers because of the first amendment.' The right to free speech and the right to be innocent until proven guilty apply to a citizens relationship with the government.
It wasn't the event that made him look bad, it was his actions. Don't be passive about this.
It was what somebody else claimed his actions were.
"The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right...to be confronted with the witnesses against him.
...
The Confrontation Clause has its roots in both English common law, protecting the right of cross-examination, and Roman law, which guaranteed persons accused of a crime the right to look their accusers in the eye. "
There should be an unbiased mediation system available to resolve this, but the judicial system is not that. This is a shift in society as we begin to care more about these types of allegations.
Just as these things were often unfairly ignored before they may now be addressed in ways that are potentially unfair to the alleged perpetrator.
It's an evolution of our society away from bias towards the agenda of dominant men. Like it or not, this is the direction we're heading.
Occam's razor, and straightforward root cause analysis -- via the weight of numerous (largely very credible) statements from multiple witnesses -- suggest that he ultimately ruined his own life by choosing to engage in a persistent pattern of aggressive and uncivil behavior towards others in his community.
Not that it was ruined "because of" the statements the Tor project made about his case.
In either case, however, I don't think Tor's actions would be very professional. How often do you see a company blog about why they fired someone?
That's an interesting position which you haven't presented much reasoning for; its not, however, what the US has generally decided, so if you want it to change, you should probably say why.
The decision the US has mostly come to is this:
(1) You can't impose legal sanction without proving something in court.
(2) If someone is harmed (including by accusation of criminal behavior) by something you say, they can challenge it in court as defamation (e.g., slander, libel). and they must show evidence that it is false.
Your proposal is a fairly radical restriction on free speech.