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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

"Ending her career is necessary to send a lesson to every other prosecutor"

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.

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I signed, and posted on Facebook the following reason to do so: "Go sign this, if you haven't already. The description fits a lot of prosecutors, but this seems as good a place as any to start cleaning up." The job of a prosecutor is to prosecute, and if they aren't careful, they fall victim to the Iron Law of Bureaucracy (http://www.google.com/search?q=Iron+Law+of+Bureaucracy). Max Weber (1864–1920), a believer in the efficiency of bureaucracies, would also have a agreed with Pournelle; Wikipedia phrases it thusly: "Weber also saw it as a threat to individual freedoms, and the ongoing bureaucratization as leading to a "polar night of icy darkness", in which increasing rationalization of human life traps individuals in the aforementioned "iron cage" of bureaucratic, rule-based, rational control. In order to counteract bureaucrats, the system needs entrepreneurs and politicians." That's what this petition is all about. It's a warning to the politicians that the prosecutorial bureaucracy has gone too far.

As the author of the petition, the most I hope for is that it reaches the threshold to deserve a response. I do not expect Ms. Ortiz to lose her position, although I clearly do think that such an outcome would be salutary for the legal profession as a whole and the current DOJ in particular.

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.

You say that "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." The difference, of course, is that Aaron Swartz merely published documents, she was trying to send him to prison for almost the rest of his natural life.

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

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