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Comment by pygy_ | Hacker News Reader

The petition asking for Steve Heymann's firing still lacks 14.500 votes, and it won't make it in tome at the current rate. From what I read he was more instrumental than Ortiz in the aggressiveness the prosecution.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-... No need to be a US citizen to sign. An email address is enough.

Once again, sorry for insisting, but I think it's important.

Not that the witch hunt is very useful in itself, but it keeps people involved and the more shit we stir, the most likely things will move.

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This doesn't solve anything. Most people could give a crap about Ortiz getting fired. She's a symptom of the problem. Firing her doesn't cure the disease.

To say the prosecutors directly involved in this case do not hold any responsibility is quite shocking. Throwing your hands up and saying "it's not my fault it's the system" is a complete BS excuse in my view.

These prosecutors and even MIT staff (among others) had on multiple occasions the opportunity to alter the course of this case. Law enforcement and the justice system is not, and in my view should not be a massive array of machines coldly executing laws and prosecuting offenders without any variance.

Sometimes while seemingly unfair to the individual simply "doing their job", prosecuting a "cog" or part of this apparently flawed system of justice can be the impetus for change and send a message to the others to use proper judgement when deciding to pursue cases and what charges they actually bring.

I didn't say that at all. I'm just more interested in real change vs. a witch hunt.

Firing her would give other prosecutors a reason to think twice about aggressively pursuing a case. Something along the lines of, "Ortiz was fired over this sort of thing; maybe I should not try to abuse the law the way she did."

It might be overly optimistic to think that, but really, the government needs an occasional reminder that it serves the people and that angering us is a bad idea.

But you have to start somewhere. There's never going to be a silver bullet that fixes the system. Because some people (the ones in power) do not consider the system to be broken.

> Most people could give a crap ...

I suppose you meant "couldn't".

As written above, I'm well aware that getting rid of them will not solve the problem. It's more about making noise (which is all I can do from Europe regarding US politics).

Yes, thanks for the correction.

Just as the government can make an example of a person -- the people can make an example of a government representative.

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