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I think people on HN don't fully appreciate the extent to which prosecutors and judges take the law seriously.

On the other hand, a relative is a DA. She has explained how around the holidays, she collaborates with the prosecutor to ram cases through the system or slap people on the wrist and send them home. This way all the noble guardians of the law can take an extra few weeks off between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I said they were people, and people who had dedicated their lives to the idea of the law. I did not say they were superhuman. They can be wrong and have faulty judgement. In fact, I feel like I went out of my way not to ascribe moral judgement on their worldview; I simply wanted to point out that their worldview exists and shouldn't be ignored if you plan on operating at the frontier of the law.

It's good of you to point out the limitations of that worldview. I don't mean to criticize you. I'm just saying, be careful if you think that a charge of "hypocrisy" is going to help here. The real world is not an Internet message board argument. Lots of prosecutors, all of them riven with human frailties, nonetheless believe passionately in the law. You're not going to talk them out of it.

I am for the most part happy about this. Unlike a lot of HN people, I think that the law by and large serves the common good, and protects the weak far more than the powerful.

(My uncle was/is? an ADA. I didn't hear any stories like this, but didn't ask. Totally believe it though.)

My point is not a charge of hypocrisy, I just think the language you are using imparts a phony gravitas. I'm a systems engineer but I would LOL if I read that someone wrote I "dedicated my life to the spirit of the command line." Likewise, many lawyers are just in it because it's something they are good at and it pays the bills. Not every lawyer is Harvey Silverglate.

I'm really not trying to impute gravitas. I am being completely serious. These people we're talking about at the DoJ are different people when matters of law come up. They are not kidding around about it.

That doesn't make them granite monuments to justice. But it might mitigate the concern that they're being petty. There is a reasonable narrative here in which Swartz is purposefully causing harm to the social good. I don't really agree with that narrative (based on what we know now), but I can see it.

If it helps, think about pro-life people (I'm pro-choice) and their attitude towards abortion. They are not kidding around about that issue. Do they have a lot of gravitas to you? Maybe not! But they believe human beings are being killed. So I can see where they're coming from, even though I disagree with them.

Yes, in this particular case you are right. This case is interesting because Aaron is doing this as an "activist" and as such it becomes political-legal theatre. He is friends with a bunch of lawyers and legal researchers who are working at the intersection of IP rights and freedom of information rights.

If he was just some nobody kid in Schaumburg stealing PDFs from Motorola, he'd either be in jail already or slapped on the wrist and sent home. Nobody would have heard about it, and there'd be no internet dialectic about it.

We don't really know if this was an "activist" crime.

It's very possible that he just intended to analyze the documents and publish aggregated results. If that's the case, I think this prosecution is a mistake; an extreme overreaction. Scholarly analysis of JSTOR documents is not a criminal intent. His actions may leave him culpable to a variety of minor crimes, but his impact on the social good is minimal at worst.

On the other hand, it's possible (though less likely, I think) that the intent here was to mirror JSTOR onto BitTorrent. I might sympathize with this goal, but I don't think its prosecution as wire fraud is an overreaction. I'll root for Aaron at trial, though.

The problem with that analysis is that there's nothing criminal (or even illegal) about sharing public domain works over BitTorrent. So whether he copied the documents for personal use or distribution, it was still the initial copying that was at fault.

It's a little like someone broke into a library every night for a few months and scanned a bunch of public domain books.

The only actual crimes are breaking and entering, and using the scanning equipment without authorization. What he intended to do with the scans is irrelevant.

JSTOR's particular collection of documents is protected by copyright and has been valued, by virtually every one of the most learned and respected educational institutions in the country, at millions of dollars annually.

Let's say I come into possession of a trove of public domain documents from the 1800s, and I take the time to scan every one of them painstakingly and from those scans to assemble an academically useful database, for which I charge $100/person/year for access. Your contention is that because the underlying documents are public domain, you are entitled to unfettered access to my work product, despite the fact that I took steps to gate access to my work product.

The law isn't going to see it that way, I don't think. But maybe you're right. I'm not a lawyer.

Like everyone else on HN, I wish all these documents were freely available too.

> JSTOR's particular collection of documents is protected by copyright

We've discussed this on HN before. Reproductions of public domain works are not protected by copyright.

Edit: Of course a significant portion of JSTOR's archive does consist of copyrighted works.

I thought collection copyright applied, but am happy to be wrong about that.

There is a "collective works" copyright, so I guess -- I am also not a lawyer -- that if one made a copy of some database, it may be infringing on the creator's rights even if the contents of the database consisted solely of public domain works.

So I think you are correct.

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/...

>You are free to copy and use individual images but copying and distributing the complete collection may infringe what is known as the “collective works” copyright. Collections of public domain material will be protected if the person who created it has used creativity in the choices and organization of the public domain material. This usually involves some unique selection process, for example, a poetry scholar compiling a book -- The Greatest Poems of e.e. cummings.

I don't think JSTOR is using what could be described as a unique selection process.

Copyright protects creative work. If you used creativity (as defined in case law) in choosing documents for your compilation, or got creative with your scanning, then you can claim exclusive rights.

Look for links in the phrase "such scans are often considered uncopyrightable" in the original article for more on this topic.

JSTOR is not just public domain works, and there is no indication that the downloading was limited to public domain works.

I found this comment greyed. How does anyone downvote this? It's a single sentence with two clauses both of which state objectively verifiable facts relevant to the thread and responsive to the parent comment.

People downvote things they don't like, including the truth. They are also generally unable to distinguish between "this is how things are" and "this is how things should be", and will generally downvote as if you'd written the latter.

Our country is ruled by laws.

Our country is ruled by people. Laws are one way in which we communicate what is right and wrong, but they are imperfect and inconsistently enforced. Laws can also be changed, turning what is legal upside down for better or worse.

We are ruled by people, and we should never forget this. Laws are a convenient means of justifying the power of certain people over others; one which without substantial insight appears more fair than it actually is.

[ http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm ]

Zzzzzzz. I exercise my right not to relitigate Aristotle on Hacker News.

Well then don't rant about how serious our laws are. I don't much care how stern your paternal figure was about having illegal fireworks - moral and legal are almost unrelated.

To be vocally unhappy about something immoral is to be lauded. To defend action based on legality is trite.

You've misread my comment and now have a faulty understanding of my take on the situation. :#>

I was spurred by a specific sentence in your comment. Honestly I'm not especially concerned with your take on the situation, but with the conversation as a whole.

Am I surprised that the Feds are seeking a criminal indictment? No. Am I unhappy at the expansion of Federal power both at the expense of State power as well as an independent authority? Yes. Do I think that the justice system takes its job seriously? Yes. Do I think they do this selflessly? No. Do I think their position will lead to a better future? No.

Do I think their prosecution of this case stems from a desire to assert the will of the people? No. I think it comes from their own selfish desires, and should not be defended.

If you don't want to be an example, avoid felonies.

This is the point where, on reddit, someone would post the image captioned "civil disobedience is still disobedience". And they'd be right -- activists who campaign for big changes often end up in jail (multiple times, or for a long time, or both) along the way. It's not nice and it's not pretty, but it's reality.

True, but I hope your position isn't that "the rest of us should sit on our hands and shut up while it happens." If it is... well, sorry, but I don't accept that. My chance of having any meaningful impact in terms of "changing the world" before I die might be small, but I'll never stop arguing and fighting for what I believe in. I mean, what would be the point in living if we did that?

It's more that I get annoyed when I see people doing things for whatever cause they support, and then being surprised when they discover there can be consequences, or that the big entrenched system they're fighting will act like, um, a big entrenched system.

About being made an example of: I guess what you say makes decent sense. I'm more worried about the sort of situation where many people could be prosecuted of a certain crime, but one of them gets picked on because they are the designated target.

Another habit that I really don't like (that prosecutors have no qualms with) is when people are suspected of a crime but there is not enough evidence, sometimes they'll be taken in for a lesser "orange juice" crime until the prosecution can come up with something substantial.

But I guess you're right, even though they are dedicated to the law, prosecutors and judges are only human, and most of the time things do turn out well. I just wish they weren't so overt about it, as if it were completely okay.

I mostly agree with everything else you are saying.

An over zealousness to punish others out of proportion with their alleged crimes is not something which we should make a virtue.

I agree that we should not make overzealousness a virtue, and will go you one further by saying that zealous or not, out-of-proportion punishments shouldn't be considered virtuous either.

I think people on HN don't fully appreciate the extent to which prosecutors and judges take the law seriously. They've dedicated their life to it. Our country is ruled by laws.

Here's how seriously your judges take your laws: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/matt-taibbi-courts...

  "the DoJ sees someone bent on forcibly publishing every
   closed database pertaining to the public interest, laws
   be damned.

  ...longwinded rather tangental story about your
  childhood...

  † I don't know Aaron Swartz personally and am not
  asserting any of this to be true."

classy...

Anyway, the primary issue with your little story here is you are taking a single encounter with a single person and making a generalization about an entire profession with it. A positive generalization sure, but still a generalization (and as someone who on occasion reads the news, one that does not jive with my perception of reality).

I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Are you offended by the idea that someone might have an interpretation of the actions of the DoJ other than mendacious pettiness? That literally seems to be the only point you're trying to make: "you said something positive about the DoJ".

If you read the comment more carefully --- I apologize for making that harder for you by being long-winded --- you'll see that I'm not even defending the prosecution; just offering a theory for it other than pettiness.

"I think people on HN don't fully appreciate the extent to which prosecutors and judges take the law seriously. They've dedicated their life to it."

That is what I object to. Your story is not evidence of that assertion.

The law is a big deal

The law is a form of social technology... and yes it's a big deal.

However, we get into trouble when we leave too much about the enforcement of laws up to the whims and discretion of the law enforcement officer... for very obvious reasons. If we simply want to let armed thugs wearing badges decide who gets punished and how much, there is no need for laws.

No reasonable person of any political persuasion disagrees with this.

Good :) I thought your comment did a nice job of humanizing the law enforcers... I was just intending to mention what I think the limit of my sympathy for the psychology of the enforcers is :)

>there's no statute against "public example making". If you don't want to be an example, avoid felonies. That's going to get me downvoted, so can we assume good faith and accept this new emoticon I just made up.

Don't be a dick. You yourself have undoubtedly committed dozens of felonies this year alone. The sheer quantity of criminal legislation makes it almost unavoidable, and nobody is in a position to hurl stones at the unfortunate who get caught in the crossfire.

legal != right

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870447150457443...

Swartz isn't accused of an "orange juice crime". But I agree that nobody should be throwing stones at him.

Nothing in the link I provided was about orange juice. It discussed wiretapping, linking to sites with potentially violent anti-American content and a variety of other issues.

You've commented repeatedly on this thread about how it's THE LAW and how certain people's brains essentially shut off when evaluating ethics vs legality. Furthermore the tone of your comments make it clear that you have some respect for this sort of non-thinking.

Bringing public stoning into the discussion is a ridiculous straw-man. Isn't the fact that over two million Americans are in prison, and over half of them on non-violent offenses staggering enough already?

Public stoning? What the what?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2804414