Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal
falkvinge.net
falkvinge.net
The American people love tough-on-crime policies, and it's not possible to publicly shame a public official, or get her fired, for doing something that most of the public supports. If we want to make change, we need to move the needle on the public's perception of crime. That's a hard problem, and it's not as easy as signing a petition, but it's a problem we'll never be able to solve if we're blinded by trying to exact vengeance on a prosecutor.
Edited to add: if Oritz were likely to be fired, then I agree it would be a great starting point for a larger movement. But my point is that changing public opinion of tough-on-crime policies is a prerequisite for getting Oritz fired. A prosecutor is not going to be fired for engaging in normal conduct that is loved by the public, even if the outcome in this case was tragic.
If you think you have a better axis of attack on this problem, I beg you, please lead an effort on that axis.
If we waited for a consensus on the best manner to proceed before doing anything, noting would ever get done.
To make a comparison relevant to this community, imagine that HN was used to shame others starting businesses that don't use the best consensus methods or ideas. How many good startups would never see the day?
With startups, more than 90% of attempts fail. I'm pretty sure that attempts at changing the system don't have better odds. If we reduce the efforts to a single attempt, there is 90% chances it will fail.
Also, consider that special interests have probably built legal and political walls in the most obvious paths of change. It's worth trying all fronts to find a weakness especially the newer little known ones.
Yes there are, if you think that it's not going to work and that the attempt is discouraging people from looking for solutions that will.
You could make the same comment if someone attempted to prove P!=NP, and someone else said "your proof has a mistake here, and by the way, people have been trying your general approach for decades and it's never yielded anything".
(I do, however, agree that attempts to get officials fired are more likely to succeed than attempts to prove P!=NP.)
Exactly. Bottom-up action is strongest when supported by a diversity of tactics. Alice may not like Bob's methodology, and Bob may not like Alice's, but when they expend their energy discouraging each other from doing something they believe in, neither have a shot at advancing their shared cause. Gatekeepers are the undeclared allies of power.
Put your energy into action you believe in, and let the chips fall where they may.
There are many ways to approach the problem, but every resolution needs a beginning. That is how I view the Oritz initiative: a beginning. I'm sure that other government workers are taking notice and will likely adjust their behavior in the future, even if we can't quantify it. In that sense we've already made progress.
I only wish this effort could have begun under less tragic circumstances.
The two goals are not mutually exclusive. If she's fired that will help bring attention to prosecutorial abuse.
It'd be great to see the president forced to disown Ortiz; perhaps it'd make the rest of the DoJ afraid he wouldn't back them up on their similar adventures. Realistically, though, this is not (yet) a large political threat to Obama.
Man, mugging and extortion sounds so much better now that I realize how often it happens. Thanks, res0nat0r!
The 35 year figure came from the prosecutors. If they didn't want it circulated, perhaps they shouldn't have trumpeted it to the media.
Right here, in their own press release. http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/07/Swartz...
"If convicted on these charges, SWARTZ faces up to 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and a fine of up to $1 million."
If they're happy to use the figure when seeking media attention, they have to accept its use when they're in trouble.
Also, the practice of "admit you're guilty, else go to prison for (life|35 years)" is a common practice of totalitarian states used to crush dissenters and activists.
In the federal system, broad classes of crimes ("murder", "robbery", "wire fraud") have been assigned maximum sentences. For example, under no conditions can a sentence for wire fraud exceed 20 years (you get to the theoretical max of 35 in this case by adding the other charges, but they in the case everything would likely be folded into wire fraud on sentencing because all of the charges were based on the same conduct).
But most defendants convicted of wire fraud (even by a jury) don't serve 20 years. In fact, many first-time offenders don't serve anywhere close to that -- it's usually under a year.
Instead, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines [1] are a mostly-mandatory (there are constitutional reasons why judges are allowed to depart from the Guidelines, but it's rare and requires justification) system to calculate a range that a defendant will actually serve following a jury conviction.
Here, wire fraud is a "level 7" offense.[2] That offense level can be adjusted upward or downward based on other facts of the crime (e.g., was stock fraud involved? add 4). Assuming that Orrin Kerr was right and the total loss was $5,000 or less, there would be no adjustments and so Aaron's offense level would be 7.
Take that to the sentencing chart[3] and you can calculate that if Aaron had no priors he would be in criminal history category I and have an offense level of 7, which would be a sentence of 4-10 months. That's unpleasant, but it's a far cry from being "likely ... to get 35 years."
In fact, if you look at the sentencing chart, the only way for a first-time offender to have a Guidelines range of 35 years is to be above an offense level of 40. It takes serious work to get there: even a wire fraud of more than $300,000,000 in damages won't get you to that offense level. To get an offense level of 40, you're looking at first degree murder.
Familiarize yourself with the sentencing guidelines and you can see what was actually likely. A judge _could_ depart from the guidelines, but sentences significantly above the guidelines for a first-time offender are all but guaranteed to be struck down on appeal.
To take another example of the difference between maximum and actual sentences: the maximum sentence for murder in many states is death, but not everyone convicted of murder gets the death penalty.
[1] http://www.ussc.gov/Guidelines/2012_Guidelines/
[2] http://www.ussc.gov/Guidelines/2011_Guidelines/Manual_HTML/2...
[3] http://www.ussc.gov/Guidelines/2012_Guidelines/Manual_HTML/5...
Edit: Incidentally, the prosecutor is constitutionally _required_ to inform defendant of the full statutory maximum sentence, even if it's not realistic in a particular case. Failing to do so can be grounds for reversal of a plea or conviction. That doesn't mean the prosecutor has to tell the media, but he/she must tell the defendant.
If these numbers are really all just meaningless and in "reality" he was really only looking at...a year? why is it that nobody, even sources like Lessig, seem to be saying this.
Because it goes in opposition to the worldview they're trying to push...? Everyone has a bias, you, me, Dr. Lessig, aaronsw, the prosecutors, EVERYONE.
It's like when the music/movie industry tries to claim that an illegally copied media file costs them hundreds of thousands in damages.
In this case you could theoretically get to 35+ by taking up all the charges, handing down sequential sentences (as opposed to the more-normal concurrent sentences), and somehow making all of those individual sentences go to the upper range of the permitted scale.
I and a few others have been trying to point out that 35 years in prison was never an actual option for some days now but I think it's kind of gotten lost in the storm...
here's what would help. If you are in fact a criminal law attorney and know these things via practice, or if you can point us all to some links of well respected criminal attorneys, without a stake in the case, on the record saying "it's very unlikely he would get more than four years".
In 2009 fully 96% of criminal cases in our Federal court system resulted in a conviction. http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=7...
This situation would be absurd if it weren't so horrific.
If he willingly engaged in a jury trial and somehow still got convicted, with a strict judge, and a jury that hates him, and an incompetent defense, he still wouldn't get anything approaching a 35-year sentence.
Is it really too much to ask to not use hyperbole for matters as serious as this? You could just as well be saying that the taxpayers are paying for Sandra Fluke to have sex.
Please, please, I'm begging you all: By setting up an echo chamber and inventing your own "facts" and then taking action based on that made-up dream world, you're just as wrong as "the other side".
You don't know that.
As tptacek and an actual computer criminal defense lawyer points out:
Granick: Important to remember much lower burden on prosecution at sentencing; “reasonable” loss claims on “preponderance of evidence”. Net-net: If charged with 13 felonies, you can’t lose on ANY, because even if acquitted on 12, they strike back at sentencing.
From this I conclude the game-theoretic payoff matrix is the message: don't bet on a fair trial, even if you're completely innocent. Prisoner's Dilemma indeed.
ref: https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/291344549601742848 https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/291344675305037825
> You could just as well be saying that the taxpayers are paying for Sandra Fluke to have sex.
Now who's talking hyperbole again?
* don't bet on a fair trial, even if you're completely innocent. *
Hyperbole, and dangerous exaggeration. The "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard is a very high standard. I've won jury trials where the evidence all supported the prosecution's case (seriously, I had no evidence) but was not sufficient to reach this standard. Federal judges are even stricter at forcing federal prosecutors to satisfy this standard--they'll frequently dismiss the case without even letting the jury deliberate.
If you think jury trials are patently unfair, you need to actually go down to a courtroom and watch the jury trials. You'll learn a lot, and you'll discover that the justice system is not even remotely as lopsided as you think it is...once you get to the trial stage. (But yes, it's definitely lopsided in favor of the prosecution at every stage before trial.
But I didn't say "jury trials are patently unfair" or even that trials in general are impossible to win.
Aaron was weighing a guaranteed felony record and 6 months in prison against 0 (if acquitted on all 13 charges) to 50 years at some unknowable probability.
Clearly the prosecutor wanted him to think that invoking his right to a trial was a "bad bet".
What difference do you think this makes? Even a 1 year sentence will utterly destroy your life. And that's just your life outside. God forbid you get raped or something during that time.
In other words, this is the public perception of crime on the move. You can see this in other areas of discourse, like cannabis legalization, getting rid of red light cameras that have been shown to increase collisions, etc.
For example, gun violence has been a constant thing in the US. The crowds get tired of hearing about it and the drive for legislation goes no where. However, when something out of the "ordinary" happens, such as the grievous Newtown murders, the attention of the crowd has been once again achieved. Politicians know this and the ones pushing legislation know they need to act fast before fatigue and indifference kick in, and the ones against the legislation know it's a waiting game.
My point is that the process of crowds demanding the removal of an out of control prosecutor isn't going to get easier (aka more likely to happen) just because it happened this time.
We have a limited window to act based on the attention of the crowd that has resulted form Aaron's suicide. I believe when people say something to the effect of "your missing the point" when removing a specific prosecutor, they are trying to get this point across.
In our limited window of action, we can remove someone specific, or find away to address the more general problem of prosecutorial overreach while we still have the mic. Ideally that more general approach would not depend on the continual outrage of the crowds.
That petition is a flawed and bloody flag that many seem willing to follow for the moment. The question is, is it possible to take the momentary outrage at this one prosecutor and turn it into a forceful pressure for reform of a system that is deeply and badly broken.
And other than the above I agree with flyingRyan below http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5066292
Small steps, walk before you run, etc. I don't see any blinding here, just a common cause.
So they are quite effective. They're just also a little sneaky.
This is a silly article. There are actually steps that happen before the firing of an official, most notably an investigation. But this article reads as: "We got 25,000 signatures, if the President doesn't ax her then people will resort to armed revolt"
(I'll skip the debate on whether it's good for a government to be directed by the popularity of an online petition, unless people favor the country renamed to 'The United States of Bieber')
The main point is that action in government is slow. And for good reason. If people want to hold onto the fantasy that when a bunch of people get angry, the government will take drastic action...then fine...but people who really want to see change should be prepared to accept that the original problem (the case against Swartz) may not be satisfactory dealt with, but that attitudes change and reform can eventually happen, as long as the people who care continue to speak up and apply pressure.
Sandy Hook was one month ago and the President is having a big news conference tomorrow about the administrations response re: gun violence. Is that "slow"? "drastic action"? something else?
I think you need to calibrate your moral barometer a bit better.
GGP commment made an unqualified statement "action in government is slow" adding that the idea of "drastic action" was a "fantasy". I countered by noting that in the present day the government is moving very fast on at least one particular issue. We will know tomorrow whether the action is drastic. Full stop.
How many mass murders has it taken to get to this point? How is that "drastic" or "very fast"? Oh, wait, there's a commission that might "recommend" we re-enact legislation that expired a few years ago? How is that "drastic"? How is that "very fast"?
As the GGP said, what's gonna happen first is an investigation and a review. Why the need to jump to "vigilante justice"?
The end result of "vigilante justice" is going to be more young people squandering their careers and futures, creating further justification for harsh sentencing and prosecution of "hacktivists", and probably just more work and demand for the very people they are trying to unseat.
Blowing this situation out of proportion and encouraging rash behavior is not going to solve the underlying problems.
The same issue was addressed by the Brady Bill 18 years ago, so it's not like the issue hasn't been addressed before.
That response's effectiveness is another story, of course (hint: it wasn't).
Prosecutor overreach is a much more widespread problem, though absolute quantification is difficult. It isn't hard to rate it as a much bigger problem than mass murders, because mass murders are a very, very small problem right now. It may not rate next to our other problems we face right now, though.
(If saying mass murders aren't a big problem right now bothers you, let me also make this observation, which is that non-mass murders are also a much bigger problem than mass murders. Just the murders that can be directly traced to our War on Drugs, many of which also hit school-aged children, is a much larger problem than mass murder right now. Murders in Chicago alone is a significantly larger problem than mass murders.)
Regulations mandating safer showers and bathtubs would save more lives, and far more hospital visits, than getting rid of all of the assault weapons in the USA.
As for prosecutorial overreach, I believe that it is part of the reason why the USA has a higher portion of its population in prison than ANY other country in the world. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rat... if you don't believe me. And our "justice" system is not race neutral. South Africa under apartheid did not imprison as high a portion of its black population as the US does now. In major cities about 80% of black males have a criminal record. This contributes to their difficulty in getting jobs. Which in turn contributes to the economic circumstances that perpetuate these shocking statistics.
We supposedly live in a civilised society I would say 1 death is 1 too many.
Violence as a cause of death has continued to drop in the US. It is no longer in the top 15 ways people die in the US[1]. The worst year for massacres in the US was 1929 and worst occurred in 1927 (45 dead by explosive).
Yet suicide is in the top 10 and mental illness is under funded. Risk factors are what the President should concentrate on, not the incident of the moment. A President coming up to the podium and announcing a serious attempt at dealing with mental illness in this country would fix more problems than something that is declining without the President's attention.
Citation needed.
2,996 people died in the September 11 hijacking, including the 19 hijackers. That is the worst massacre that I'm aware of in US history.
If you just want domestic violence, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing killed 167 people in 1995.
Prohibition era violence may have created more massacres, but they were much smaller. And the people killed were much less likely to be innocent bystanders.
Prohibition era violence had a whole lot of bystanders killed. 1929 had the most in number according to Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has done a lot of research in the area.
He also point out that although there was a rise in mass shootings from 1960 to 1990, a decline started in 2000.
I should also point out that neither incident you cited had guns involved.
There may have been a decline in mass shootings since 2000, but in the last several years there has been a cluster. Whether this is an anomaly or a trend is too early to tell.
I agree that Prohibition era violence had a whole lot of bystanders killed. But compared to the number of gangsters killed, the proportion was much lower than the massacres that I pointed to. For example in 9/11, hijackers and armed military personnel were under 2.5% of the fatalities.
My point, is that gun violence is not increasing, instead it is decreasing despite the media attention. If the media and people would look at actual risk factors in our world, we would be a lot better off. Mental illness is such a thing.
We are rapidly developing a "criminalized culture" to which the easy and popular response to everything is "put them in jail". Sandy Hook was a horrible tragedy, to be sure, but in my mind, our growing population of prisoners is a much more concerning problem.
Somehow, we need to get beyond the "I'm right so I'm right to nuke you" ethics that dominates our time.
If that's the case, threatening "vigilante justice" based on 25,000 signatures would seem to indicate those who want to see action against the prosecutors have failed to learn that lesson and are only interested in continuing the downward spiral.
In point of fact, it is the proper procedure to ask that someone who has abused the public trust and shown a lack of judgment be removed from a position that requires trustworthiness and judgment.
Vigilante justice would be hacking into her personal files and threatening her life; asking her boss to fire her is the furthest you can get from that.
Speaking of which; if anyone is thinking about acting directly against Ms. Ortiz or Mr. Heymann, I would discourage that as strongly as possible; it would be counterproductive as well as criminal.
My comment is not in response to the petition itself, but into the threats that are going around with respect to actual vigilante justice as described in the original article and by the original comment.
I'm referring to the threats of vigilante justice that seem to be going around, as mentioned by the linked article.
Imagine if he had made open information one of the "Campaigns" at Demand Progress instead of getting caught up with the law?
Even now, what was supposed to be the one issue that motivated Aaron to break the law isn't even listed as one of the Campaigns at Demand Progress:
http://blog.demandprogress.org/campaigns
Where is JSTOR and PACER on that list?
If you want to go and double down on his mistake, fine. Just don't expect a different response from the government when you do so.
Or, perhaps, instead of promoting "vigilante justice", you could make a rational argument and campaign with your local representatives to get these overly generalized laws and overly punitives sentencing guidelines changed.
When you’re upset with someone, all you want to do is change the way they’re acting. But you can’t control what’s inside a person’s head. Yelling at them isn’t going to make them come around, it’s just going to make them more defiant, like the GM workers who keyed the cars they made.
No, you can’t force other people to change. You can, however, change just about everything else. And usually, that’s enough. -- http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/nummi
You want to fix how she behaves. Instead, change everything else. Change the system she operated in. There's a way to do that without violence, either physical or "cyber".
Right now the only feedback these asshats ever see is positive. That leads to an unstable system.
Actually, if she's a political appointee, she can be fired at any time.
My recollection is the head prosecutors of each office are considered political appointees, but the assistant prosecutors are not. This has come up before. I could be completely wrong in this recollection, however :)
The standard procedure is to ask the official to resign.
There are plenty of other reasons to pass on this petition. That said, this displays less polish and thought than an email I typically send to my boss. I wouldn't blame the White House for ignoring a plea that reads more like a teenager's facebook rant. It certainly appears to have involved the same level of critical thinking.
Sorry.
I'm actually wondering whether a more considered phrasing would have done worse.
As it is the main goal of putting the headline into Barack Obama's eyeballs has been reached, and Ms. Ortiz knows that her boss is making the political calculation of whether she is a liability or an asset.
Doing nothing means nothing will get done. This is probably exactly what the government would like you to do.
"The people rose up and caused a sea change in Washington" ~ Aaron Swartz
This last part of his speech is so powerful.
I'm not so sure. Obama must have been aware of the protests over SOPA last year, because it was a major news item. Swartz' death is almost as big a news item; certainly the UK media have given it significant coverage[1].
I would imagine that Obama is aware at least of roughly who Swartz was and why people are angry, and so are most other US politicians. And we all saw how quickly they caved on SOPA.
1. E.g. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/15/aaron-swart... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2263084/Aaron-Swartz... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/technology-obitua... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/colleagues-...
Do your writing/editing in a separate app/editor window, and then copy/paste it in. This applies to important emails as well, to prevent hitting send before your final draft is done.
But certainly they are less effective than real protest, or real physical letters sent to lawmakers, so if done in lieu of those things then that's a problem.
That's why these petitions are an utter joke.
It's true, that these petitions are not big deals, but usually things don't change rapidly, it's a process, and cutting the arms that hurt us is it's first step. Obviously, most probably they won't get cut, but at least they won't get promoted, for God's sake.
Unless you have another ideas of what to do?
I suspect that the data driven Obama administration has full capability to estimate the likelihood of citizens rioting, and determined that providing a "lazy" outlet for frustration would undermine real protest.
It's like how facebook lets you complain about some horrible injustice, which makes you feel like you've done something even though you've done next to nothing.
Very worried.
Especially since I see it happening to me too. When we went to war in Iraq, I was out in the streets marching and holding protest signs. So was almost everyone I know. If we declared war on Iran, would the same happen? My bet is you'd see lots of complaining on facebook, and a petition to not go to war. Maybe emailed letters to representatives in congress. But actual street protests? No way, we can just let anonymous annoy some people for us.
Yeah, because we all know how well Obama's "change" went. How's gitmo going? What about those executive orders? Seen any drones in the Middle East or northern Africa lately? Surely there is no more cronyism in the White House or Justice Department. I realize not every promise can be kept, but I've never regretted a vote like I did the vote for him (not that I ever would have voted for McCain).
The point is this administration has shown it could care less about change. Don't expect anything, much less anything positive, to come of this.
So, in fact, they DO care about change then?
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?
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 doubt this "prosecutor" even knew the details of the "crime" or cared. I doubt she was ever briefed on the details of Aaron's life or cared too hear it. That's what she has assistants for.
And that's the problem with the system. Prosecutors don't take time (except on TV) to learn about the accused. They just go straight for the throat. Be dammed the circumstances.
It's not enough to go after one prosecutor. Change the system.
But we can do both.
Just something to think about here.
They generally do not improve from moral/character flaws like being a power-seeking career-ambitious-to-the-exclusion-of-all-else asshole political climber.
This is a person who has been locked up into solitary for months now and is being treated very inhumanely. Is it because he hasn't written any Python libraries and isn't visible in Silicon Valley?
Even at the level of "oh those are just diplomatic cables", those cables could just as easily have been "we need to focus on these nuclear weapons assemblies in Fooistan next" and tip off Islamist elements as to where to find their first dirty bomb, as of gossip about Berlusconi.
So argue that we should help Bradley Manning, or the inner city victims of the drug war, or children starving in Africa. But argue it somewhere else at some other time. Right now we have a cause. There are a large number of good people who want to fix this now. Let them. Help them. Because this needs to be fixed, and having a singular cause gives us focus. It puts success in reach, more than it is at any other time. You are not helping by distracting people with other serious problems -- all you are doing is making it less likely that anything gets done, by disheartening everyone with the scope of the problems we face.
We do not have to fix every problem in the world at the same time. Now is the time to fix this one.
I'd rather people calmly review the facts about the people and things involved with the situation rather than do the standard internet mob thing and call for heads to roll and people to be fired. Wait to learn the details rather than rely on emotions before you get angry.
And if you have an idea how to do that, let's hear it. Because "heads will roll" is not wholly without merit in these situations, but neither is it inherently the best possible solution. So if you can suggest something better then let's hear it.
But we still need to do something about excessively aggressive prosecutors too, because they can still do plenty of damage with knives and guns even after we take away their nuclear weapons.
Bradly Manning has received plenty of attention in other circles. This site usually only deals with politics when it directly relates to tech.
There was always a way forward to achieving Aaron's goals that didn't involve sneaking around. Whether he was right or wrong, he knew on some level that what he was doing was, at the very least, inappropriate and potentially harmful. If not, then why attempt to hide his face? If not, why even do it at all?
It's a sad and unfortunate fact that Aaron didn't found Demand Progress before he decided to do what he did. It's a sad and unfortunate fact that he will never have his day in court, or the opportunity to plead for mercy by showing that he'd learned his lesson and founded Demand Progress in an effort to take a better, more rational path to achieving his goals.
And it's a sad and unfortunate fact that we are wasting time on silly petitions that single out individuals rather than investing all that time and effort into changing the laws they were using against Aaron so that this kind of abuse never happens again. Instead, a bunch of young people are going to go out and do rash and ill considered things in the defense of someone who did a rash and ill considered thing and likely end up facing a similar, if not worse fate than he did.
It's a sad and unfortunate thing that, despite all of the collective intelligence on this and many other forums, there are very few adults willing to stand up and say "don't do rash and ill considered things unless you are willing to deal with the consequences".
Young people are prone to making bad choices, we should neither encourage them, nor seek to punish them disproportionately.
Please elaborate on your track record in "investing time and effort into changing laws". Let these silly 30,000+ petition voters to learn from an expert.
If someone keys your car, and you spend $5,000,000 tracking them down to punish them, it doesn't mean they've wasted $5,000,000 of your money. It means you're a moron.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-stat...
But this particular prosecutor was just a bully, right? Who had it out for Aaron out of personal hate, perhaps the Illuminati are involved also?
The only other reasoning is she was just doing her job and prosecuting a man who broke the actual law, and showed traits of an activist who could be a repeat offender, and was trying to deter him from getting into more serious trouble in the future.
A suspended sentence and a felony doesn't seem too bad if she was deterring him from something that could see him in jail 10 years with a plea bargain.
The United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts is not someone just "doing their job", it is a very high-level position appointed to serve the public interest. What people want is to prevent this person from abusing the power entrusted in them any further.
Oh look, just last week Oritz declined to run for Governor. http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2013/01/...
http://twitpic.com/bvjjvz https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/posthumously-pardo...
It's a never ending war. We're all trying to punish people to give the exemple. Us trying to fire Ortiz is similar to Ortiz trying to prosecute Aaron Swartz.
This is a democratic country. We get to campaign to replace our elected officials, and even the appointed ones too. It's our civic duty.
Do you seriously think that's anything like a government official abusing their power in an attempt to imprison a highly-regarded citizen for years and years for downloading bulk articles from the university library?