Help Kiera with her legal bills | Hacker News Reader

Help Kiera with her legal bills

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241 pointsajaymehta113 comments

To all the people who are towing the "this was inappropriate/unsafe behavior and she deserves her punishment" line, fine, but at most a suspension from school would seem fitting. Expulsion and 2 felony counts is ridiculous. Ruining a young girls life because of a mistake in which no one was hurt, whether she should have known or not, is not the answer.

To put this in perspective, she's charged with possessing and discharging a weapon on school property. That is a class 3 felony in Florida, if she is tried as an adult then she could receive up to 5 years in prison. Compare that to the Steubenville rapists who received sentences of one to two years. And here nobody was harmed nor was there even a high likelihood of anyone being harmed. It's just ridiculous.

I also think that the charges here are too severe, and the Steubenville rape sentences were too light. But they are not comparable. The rapists could have received far more than two years and Kiera Wilmot will probably receive less than five.

Even a day would be an absolute travesty of justice for this. She's getting the book thrown at her, not for reasons of safety, or education, but simply because the book exists to be thrown.

Yes, she did something stupid. But if stupidity were a crime, we'd all be doing time. I can't see how society would be safer... Or better off, by destroying this woman's future.

This is a great way to put it. I agree, this is only happening because administrators see a way to use their "book."

Disclaimer: the same thing happened to me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5637272

She's being charged with essentially the same crime as entering a school with a loaded gun and shooting inside the school. The fact that jail time is even on the table is a problem, even if she is likely to receive less jail time than convicted rapists (isn't that comforting?)

"probably receive less than five"

In a UK school that would be 'probably less than five minutes in the head teacher's study being told off'

I'm sure a proper telling off could go as long as 20 minutes with a probable preamble of the student standing in front of the head teacher's desk in silence for a good five minutes while the head teacher collects his/her thoughts, but that would be the end of it.

Yes, true. And in these days of 'safeguarding' there might be half a day suspension or Mum might be phoned.

As an outsider viewing this kind of thing in the US from the media (like the wrong end of a telescope) it seems as if there is a huge legal machine that just crushes away irrespective of the need and actual severity of the case. Am I wrong?

You're not wrong. "Zero tolerance" swept the land and there is precious little the average person can do to change how schools work. Running for school board requires a commitment that most people cannot accept (need to feed the family).

This whole thing is pretty much why I support parents picking the school the kids go to with the money following that choice. It is really the only way that parents will be heard.

It's not fair to compare to the rapists because they were severely under-penalized. You can't say person x deserves a lesser sentence than person y, because person y's crime is more heinous. Person y may have gotten off easier than they deserved.

But yeah, 5 years for a toilet cleaner bomb is nuts. You can say that.

That sort of logic is what allows our flawed judicial system to continue with arbitrary and/or discriminatory sentencing. Yes, the Steubenville Rapists were under-penalized. And yes, this student was over-penalized.

To me, this seems like both data points illustrate the lack of true equality under the law (in the United States, at the very least).

Guns and bombs threaten the state monopoly on power, violence and punishment.

Rapes not so much.

The body of law (and the sentences it produces) move in a direction that may meander and have inertia, but is ultimately predictable.

Guns and bombs threaten the state monopoly on power, violence and punishment

And this is a good thing as long as citizens have control of the state. In fact, it's one of the chief functions of the state.

It's when citizens get lazy and allow themselves to be manipulated that this goes bad.

But here there's another irony. The state is crying about a personnel shortage in STEM, yet simultaneously threatening ridiculous punishment for the very same characteristics that lead to excellence in STEM.

The irony is sickening.

In middle school, I brought firecrackers to school and set them off deliberately in some other kids locker. There was no scientific motive or youthful curiosity. It was pure mischeif.

My punishment? I was suspended for a half day. And get this: I learned my lesson.

The school's reaction is truly ridiculous. I remember telling my grandfather about the explosives my friends and I would make when I was ~13/14. He responded with "You ever see what happens when you mix sodium and water? There's that, then there's magnesium...haha my science teacher wasn't too happy about that explosion." (It's hard to convey his jolly "ah good times" tone with just text)

Sure, I wasn't around but it sure seems like people were way less of a tightass back then. I got threatened with a lawsuit because I remotely controlled a teacher's computer. Just a prank!

My friend and I wanted to test out Final Cut Pro on his new Mac, so we made a little action short which included kicking a stuffed model of myself (half a day's work and a LOT of duct tape) off the school roof. Again, 15-year-olds threatened with a lawsuit for trespassing (I was under the impression my parents paid their state taxes?) A constructive activity is punished while drug deals go down in the guys' bathroom unnoticed.

What if someone was hurt by this incident? How would this change your outlook on the situation?

Yes.

"What if" is a pretty silly game to play, as the possibilities are infinite. That being said, the punishment would be more severe. We even have a crime called "manslaughter" for accidental deaths.

But no one was hurt. And she's being treated like a potential terrorist.

You're being ridiculous. What if she brought a nuclear bomb to school? What then?

As far as this specific case. Even if she had held the "bomb" next to another student's face the likelihood of any significant injury would be low. People have held dry ice bombs and draino bombs in their hands as they have gone off with the only consequence being momentary pain and perhaps some bruising. People get hurt worse playing school sports.

And in this case nobody was hurt, not even a little.

> People have held dry ice bombs and draino bombs in their hands as they have gone off

Drano contains sodium hydroxide. (Different amounts in different drano products.) Sodium hydroxide is really fucking nasty.

A chemical burn from sodium hydroxide is difficult to irrigate. Chemical burns need to be treated by a hospital. They may need skin grafts.

So, when making a "drano bottle-popper"[1] please please wear nitrile gloves.

I agree that it's ridiculous to call the police; charge her with a crime; try her as an adult on federal charges; try her for a crime that carries any kind of prison sentence. Any punishment should have been kept in school.

[1] Perhaps we need to define bomb a bit better. This reaction is just creating steam?

Please note it was not drano, it was HCl based toilet cleaner. The reaction of HCl and Al results in hydrogen gas and aluminum chloride salt.

Ah, thanks for the correction.

Then you respond as though someone was hurt. But since no one was, don't. Letting the law react to things that haven't happened as though they did creeping terror. Not to say no lesson is learned, but the damage is clearly reversible, since _none happened_.

You don't need to ruin someone's life to learn them some respect for safety.

Um, if the situation where different, then intelligent people would respond differently. This has do do with the definitions of "different" and "intelligent".

> but at most a suspension from school would seem fitting.

Yes. Asking her to write an essay about the chemistry of what she did, and another one about why people respond so poorly to this kind of experimentation, would have both "punished" her, and taught her valuable lessons, and not risked destroying her life.

I thought of this with the Aaron Schwartz case. This makes me think of it again.

I'd love it if there was a service named something like Karma. When something like this happens, I could register a name, a reason, and a frequency. With no more than that frequency I'll be sent information on stories involving that name, with my reason attached.

The idea is that in a case like this I could search, find that the prosecutor in the case is "Tammy Glotfelty", and until I lost interest in the case would get updated on what she's doing. That way if she ever, for instance, ran for election I could be reminded, and know that it is time to donate to her opponent in said race.

You could use Google Alerts (or equivalent), which gets you the name and frequency, then embed the reason in the search string in a way that won't match anything.

e.g: Tammy Glotfelty -"reason: keira science experiment"

This is nice, but Google Alerts is near the top of Gwern's list of "likely to be killed Google products." That gives me pause about relying on it.

Yahoo also has it- but, of course, there is the same danger there I suppose.

The negative comments here are a disheartening reminder of the Aaron Swartz defense fund thread before Aaron's death: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484

The negativity was unwarranted against Aaron. It is unwarranted against Kiera. Many of those posters apologized after Aaron's suicide, confessing ignorance of his case. Aaron's life was cast into perpetual depression from the extraordinary charges mercilessly sought after by U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz. Then Aaron killed himself. Kiera is facing a nightmare not unlike Aaron's, but we can help.

That's a great idea.

I hope you also web search her opponent before you donate. Maybe they're worse.

If the way this incident is described is accurate I definitely would like to support Kiera, but it's all been very one-sided so far. I'm yet to see anyone detail what the chemicals were or what the setting was in which this occurred. Those are important details to understand in order to tell if this really was something reckless or if it was just a proper science experiment. Anyone know of such sources?

I can't find the charging/etc documents that would give you the other side (or at least, some small part of it), but this may be because she's a juvenile (none of the sources mention if they are trying to charge her as an adult).

This post says she'll be charged as an adult: http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/the-case-a...

Here's the police report: http://www.scribd.com/doc/138927259/Wilmot-Arrest

The chemicals were aluminum foil and hydrochloric acid. The setting was near an outdoors gazebo on school grounds. The context was, in her first version, a "science fair project"; in her second version, she was following instructions given by a friend, not aware it would explode.

Wow, the government's case, even if you accept it as true, doesn't seem to be a serious crime. She either was conducting a "science experiment", or screwing around with a small amount of chemicals to make a small bomb without threatening anyone, neither of which should be felonies.

A one-day suspension for doing this unsafely seems like about the limit of what's reasonable, and even that is questionable. The focus should be on making sure she knows about the accidental injury possible from this, not punishing her particularly, and encouraging her to continue with her interest in chemistry.

(The number of people I know who went to top-tier schools later who did crazy things much more dangerous than this, such as making fougasse, 5-10 pound black powder pipe bombs, ANFO, etc., is pretty high. They were all white or asian, though, which seems to be what this is about, as well as doing it off school property.)

I was initially a bit more suspicious of the story, assuming she was doing something actually dangerous and then explained it as "a science experiment" when caught, which clearly doesn't seem to be the case.

What you are missing is the policies of "zero-tolerance". Worried that lenient individuals might fail to enforce rules strictly enough and wanting to make a clear and unambiguous statement about behavior that should not be tolerated, many (especially schools) are setting up "zero-tolerance policies". These say that if you commit a certain offense, then certain consequences will be imposed regardless of mitigating circumstances. In this case, she did (even according to her own admission) create an explosive on school grounds. Now, the "explosive" was extremely mild (hydrogen gas can make a loud "popping" sound), she may not have realized that would be the effect, there was no malicious intent, and no one was hurt. But mitigating circumstances don't count with zero-tolerance policies, so she must be expelled.

The prosecution as an adult for felonies... for that there is ABSOLUTELY no excuse. I only hope that these threatened prosecutions do not materialize.

It said toilet bowl cleaner http://www.theworkscleans.com/toiletcleaner.html and aluminum foil.

Here's the MSDS data sheet for "The Works" http://www.chemtura.com/msd/external/e/result/report.jsp?P_L...

IIRC, that combination should release H2 and a little heat, but not enough heat to ignite anything. So the bottle basically went "fizz" and "pop".

Some of those plastic bottles can make a loud pop.

From the company's website:

"IT IS A VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW TO USE THIS PRODUCT IN A MANOR INCONSISTANT WITH ITS LABELING."

Clearly, then, school grounds fall outside this limitation.

Indeed. This mix doesn't sound too lethal.

In some other cases, "the penalty for violating labeling rules is death and the punishment may be carried out at the time of offense without benefit of a trial as a natural consequence of the laws of nature and chemistry."

Because the school is not a manor?

So... it turns out this has to do with Hydrochloric Acid being considered a Pesticide by the EPA since it can kill bacteria. This means they have to register its label for review and feedback with the EPA, as do companies that make bleach and a wide variety of other things.

http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/ppls/005185-00494-...

The "inconsistent with its labeling" part deals with using it as a pesticide.

If you are found guilty (consumers have never been charged under this that I can find a reference to) as a non-commercial user, the penalty for the first time is a warning letter. According to the controlling Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), fines can only be administered if you violate usage another time after receiving a written warning from the EPA.

And none of this has anything whatsoever to do with what she is being charged with. She is not being charged under the Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

Those concerned that the FIFRA means you must strictly limit use of EPA controlled pesticide products to specified uses only should consider the fact that since ordinary tissue paper is considered to control the spread of viruses when you have a cold, it is regulated as a pesticide as well under the EPA.

Notice this one allowing an exception - Kleenex will be allowed to remove the ordinarily required "Keep out of reach of children" warning for their EPA regulated pesticide known as Kleenex brand tissue paper.

http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/ppls/009402-00010-...

According to the theory that this act strictly controls usage, using Kleenex to clean your glasses is a violation of federal law as that usage is not listed on the label.

Of course we all know that is not the case.

It's a little more than a pop; the bottle builds up quite a bit of pressure before it ruptures - I know this because we use to make these quite a bit when I was a kid. That said, are they dangerous? Potentially. Does this merit the reaction taken by the school and prosecution? Hell no.

Is there a chemist in the house?

AFAICT, it's not a deflagration, it's not a detonation, it's not an "explosion" in any technical sense.

It's a loud noise produced the same way as a popping balloon, it's just at a higher pressure. Plastic bottles are designed to contain the maximum amount of pressure for the amount of plastic they consume, so they don't crack and fizz out like a punctured soda can. They fail all at once.

It's true that we don't have enough information to tell what was really going on, but I donated anyway. What the kid appears to have done—mixed stuff together to see what would happen—falls in the "moderate" part of the spectrum of things that curious teenagers do. A lot of significant contributors to society, not to mention a lot of people on this site, have similar episodes in their past. I figure the least we can give her is the benefit of the doubt, and we live in a system where the benefit of the doubt has a price: adequate legal representation. Let her have a good lawyer and let's see how long those felony charges last.

One thing's for sure, that lawyer will be able to call on a long list of prestigious expert witnesses.

Who is Angelle Stromeyer and why should I trust that the money will go to Kiera Wilmot?

Crowdtilt's official twitter account has posted that the campaign is verified [1], and we'll handle disbursements of the funds directly to Kiera's family (I'm a representative). Angelle is a Crowdtilt user who was touched by Kiera's story, and wanted to do something about it!

[1] https://twitter.com/Crowdtilt/status/330475205183012864

Hi Ajay - I just sent you an email.

Why there is no anonymous donations with guest account?

I want to contribute to the cause, but don't care about letting "the campaign admin and others know who is making this contribution".

Contributed, but I too would have like to have seen an anonymous contribution option, also I'd rather not have to use my creditcard directly, either Paypal or (ideally) Bitcoin.

Regardless of her outcome with her current school, people in the future will respect her curiosity. This experience could shape into an awesome college application essay.

Regardless of her outcome with her current school, people in the future will respect her curiosity. This experience could shape into an awesome college application essay.

Not sure if that's the case if she is branded a felon /criminal. They put those applications on a different pile for "other student's safety concerns" and all. Once she is labeled, very few might care that she got a raw deal.

And a felony record is, in many cases, an instant stop for many employers, even if the felony is completely unrelated to their future job

And, apparently, for many colleges.

I thought experimenting with mixing household chemicals was just ordinary. When we were kids we were encouraged to be interested in chemistry. Back then we had these things called "chemistry sets" for kids that contained actual chemicals.

Looking at the modern ones http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2C... it doesn't look like chemistry sets come with much more than stuff to make pH measurements (if you supply the vinegar).

It would make it very difficult to study (or work) overseas, at least.

Better would be finding a lawyer in Florida willing to take this pro bono. Maybe figure out a way to countersue the school.

At least 50% of the teenagers in this world who have access to products X and Y would mix them up if somebody told them that mixing X and Y will create an explosion.

That's the nature of being a teenager. As far as I'm concerned teenagers are showing more signs of mental health than adults these days.

When I was a kid/teenager I blew up everything from large condensators, old TV sets, pet-bottles and one time there was even a broken window.

I didn't end up as a criminal or a terrorist .... I got and engineering degree.

Society need to reacquire common sense and a sense of humour.

I've contributed. I once shocked my high school physics teacher (literally) by messing with an electric motor we'd made in class. If I'd done that in Kiera's school I'd probably have been waterboarded by the principal or something.

http://www.change.org/petitions/state-attorney-jerry-hill-dr...

to anyone who thinks Kiera's charges should be dropped, sign this petition on change.org...it still needs over 5,000 signatures. we have to save her.

Updated info about the case, from Kiera's lawyer: http://www.businessinsider.com/kiera-wilmot-lawyer-hoping-to...

Donated. I often wonder what the motivation is behind charges like these. It's often political, as in the Swartz case. But I think usually, it's simply that the DAs get satisfaction from being bullies.

Finally someone is actually doing something about this!

Seriously though, which federal could sleep at night nay live with themselves for prosecuting on this one?

Even if you still think she's guilty as sin, ask yourself whether you trust the American justice system enough to let her go through the ringer without financial support.

Surely for crimes there has to be motive.

I'm not trolling.

Why does this girl deserve attention? Why did she get it? I genuinely can't come up with a reason.

Are you guys prepared to contribute to the legal funds of everyone who is expelled and charged with crimes for unfair reasons? Because this is absolutely not out of ordinary, and I've personally seen a 12-year-old expelled and nearly charged with a crime because his mother packed him a steak knife without realizing the school's zero-tolerance policy.

I wish this girl the best and she deserves a fair trial, but sometimes I wonder if society's tack of showering money on people's legal fund merely because they made news puts incentives in the right places...

If you down vote, can you explain why? I'd like to have an objective conversation about this without drive-by downvotes to shut me up.

There are grave injustices every day in this country (or any country, really). It's impossible to give everything the attention it deserves without solving systemic issues. However, that doesn't mean people should ignore any one particular event because other bad events happen in the world too.

If you notice, I never advocated for ignoring it. I wondered why we're aware of it in the first place.

The campaign is currently at $1332. That hardly counts as "showering money" upon someone who is facing two felony charges and needing legal representation.

This girl does not deserve a fair trial. She deserves an apology.

The responsible staff at the state attorney's office deserve to be laughed out of office.

And you reached that conclusion based on what evidence? Good thing we don't need evidence to determine guilt in a court of law, since it sounds like you've got the findings figured out already based on what you've read in the news and in statements.

I'm not saying anybody is lying. There is just usually more to these stories.

Based on the police report and media interviews with the school officials.

Even if you assume she did everything in the most damning interpretation of all accounts, she is guilty of enclosing toilet bowl cleaner and bits of aluminum foil in a small plastic bottle and observing that the slowly released gases cause the bottle to rupture.

The facts, as best as any of us can tell, are that no one was hurt and no property was damaged. That alone is enough for me to conclude that the penalty is WAY out of line with the "crime", and that this girl deserves our support.

Now if all the various media reports are actually wrong, and somebody was injured, then fine... somebody shows me some evidence of that, I'll accept that she deserves a harsher punishment. But if that had happened, I find it very hard to believe that it wouldn't have been widely reported already.

Curiosity is not a crime.

Court is a resource war. The true cost of a legal defence can easily get into the $100k range

I donated to make sure that their was a fair trial, or else we will have someone pleading to a felony early for a school science experiment.

> Are you guys prepared to contribute to the legal funds of everyone who is expelled and charged with crimes for unfair reasons?

Yes, if I am aware of it & can afford it.

I'm not sure where you pulled that number from. I've successfully defended against multiple charges in my life, unsuccessfully others, and the only money I was out was a couple forms and bail, which I got back. The charges I got out of involved a public defender. When I hired a lawyer, I was convicted.

I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about the criminal system from people that have never been through it and, by the very nature of how the criminal system works -- especially if you end up in front of a jury -- it's impossible to predict how anything will play out.

I'm more concerned that people are donating to a legal fund after reading news statements and, possibly, the police report.

> I'm not sure where you pulled that number from.

I have never been convicted. I have been through 5 court cases in my life time, including reaching the Supreme Court both as a plaintiff and as a defendant. I am 26.

So one's civil -- a completely different ballgame -- since you don't reach the Supreme Court as a plaintiff for a criminal case. Is the other civil or criminal?

Are you saying that your appeals to SCOTUS were heard both times or that they were merely considered and later rejected?

I'm far from a legal expert, but here's why I'd do it:

I don't like to see this kind of abuse by people like the school administrators, etc. If this case is well-funded and successful, it might become precedent for many others, and thus weaken the whole concept of "zero-tolerance" by providing a relevant case for future victims to use in their defense. If she loses, then the opposite will be the case (there will be precedent for draconian punishment) and it'll grease the skids for future convictions.

That's my (possibly ill-informed) reason, I'd be interested to hear if other people here think it is valid or not.

>>> Why does this girl deserve attention?

Because injustice is being done to her and we know about it.

>>> Why did she get it?

No idea. Luck?

>>> Are you guys prepared to contribute to the legal funds of everyone who is expelled and charged with crimes for unfair reasons?

Not all of them. But probably some of them.

>>> she deserves a fair trial

Actually she doesn't deserve any trial. What she deserves is a talk with her science teacher about how to conduct experiments safely and maybe two-day suspension for scaring the crap out of couple of adults and wasting police's time. And a subscription to a couple of science magazines from her parents.

And you have all the facts, then?

We have enough to conclude that with a high degree of confidence, yes.

I don't know "all the facts". No any person does. I know enough to make my conclusions. You want to challenge them? Be my guest, but do bring your facts and arguments with you.

At least some of the facts, as noted above: http://www.scribd.com/doc/138927259/Wilmot-Arrest

The report is sketchy, which is good: not a lot if contamination, and no one's had much time to get their 'story straight' yet.

My impression is that see knew something was going to happen, but did not think it through. (If it smokes in a closed bottle... Where'd that pressure go?) that at least jives with the testimony, but there's no evidence for criminal intent there, so more testimony is needed to confirm her character.

> If you down vote, can you explain why?

I always downvote comments that contain complaints or predictions about potential downvotes. Your opinions should stand on their own merits, and let the upvotes or downvotes come as they will.

What a great blanket policy, regardless of the rest of the comment. On the accounts I've had downvote privileges with, I've reserved them for cases where the comment doesn't contribute anything or is disruptive to the discussion; no wonder I get downvoted a lot, there must be a lot of people misusing downvoting as you are. And yes, I'm aware of the guideline. That you've turned a guideline into a blanket downvote-all is pretty depressing, particularly since I didn't complain or invite, as the guidelines specifically say.

I made a request since I've left comments before that have hit the toilet bowl rather quickly, merely because I went against the grain of this sort of feel-good philanthropy. There was no other reason to downvote those prior comments other than disagreeing, which I think is misuse of downvoting. I've already accrued more downvotes on the comment than there are followup comments, so people are ignoring the request anyway, and probably not even making it that far in the comment before clicking the button.

I wish pg would implement a feature where a downvote costs you a karma point. That would be great. Between refreshes I can watch every comment I've left in this thread lose another point, because someone comes through and blanket downvotes everything I've said. Which, obviously, I interpret as trying to shut up (now that graying has been implemented) an opinion that people find unreasonable, rather than letting their own opinion stand on its own merit, as you say, as a reply to mine.

According to pg, it has always been OK to down vote comments you disagree with:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

> I've already accrued more downvotes on the comment than there are followup comments, so people are ignoring the request anyway, and probably not even making it that far in the comment before clicking the button.

You can make whatever requests you like, but people are not obligated to accede to them, and I'm letting you know that such requests are generally counterproductive.

I had an account when pg left that comment. That was five years ago, long before grayed-out comments were even implemented. Now, if enough people disagree with a comment, it turns gray and is never seen again. Which means the only comments that will survive now are the ones that everybody considers agreeable enough to upvote or leave alone.

There's a word for that. Several, actually. Because of that, I now think that pg is even more wrong than he was at the time.

>>> the only comments that will survive now are the ones that everybody considers agreeable enough to upvote or leave alone

That's obviously not true, in "everybody" part. True statement would be "the only comments that will survive now are the ones that are not disagreeable to substantially more people than agree with them". I.e., comment that 51% like and 49% hate would still have positive points.

I have no idea what you just said to me, but it sounded like you were nitpicking my point.

No, I was disagreeing with your point that on HN you need to agree with everybody. Since there are both upvotes and downvotes, only prevalence of downvotes leads to a negative rating, not any disagreement.

I didn't make that point.

I downvoted one post. I'm not blanket downvoting everything you say. That is an odd accusation.

EDIT: the accusation in the parent seems to have been removed without comment.

>Are you guys prepared to contribute to the legal funds of everyone who is expelled and charged with crimes for unfair reasons?

Hell yes. We should get involved. Every. Single. Time. This stuff thrives on people just shrugging their shoulders and moving on, reminding themselves to keep their heads extra down. If we made a stink every time, there wouldn't have to be many times.

When you donate, or even just take the time to get involved, think of it as raising your own taxes just a smidge to actually make the system better.

I don't think of it that way. I think of it as giving money to someone I don't know, so that person can forward (with my trust) it on to someone else who didn't ask for it and potentially doesn't need it (what if her family are billionaires?), to defend against charges that I don't have the full story on (and it's part of my DNA to wait for the facts, sorry if you guys are a little more hasty), for a person I'll never meet and who will be fine from this either way.

Making the system better isn't a legal fund for a kid. Making the system better is a legal fund for anybody that ends up in this situation. That's my point, but apparently I'm not allowed to share it since I wasn't educated in private school[1]. I'm not fiscally conservative, but donating to someone's legal defense personally doesn't sit right with me in the general, even more so if the only reason most people are doing so is because the news made them aware of it and dictated the story that you heard.

I think to a lesser extent there's a little bit of overcompensation going on here since it was revealed posthumously that Aaron Swartz needed money for his legal defense but couldn't ask for it. A Cmd+F of his name around this thread should provide that evidence.

All I ever advocate for is caution. If you see a news story and go "wow, that sucks, I'm going to give her some money," the news media successfully manipulated you. I used to work in print; there are Hollywoodesque people that will send press releases to news organizations on behalf of families in this situation, with promises of tearjerking interviews. I'm serious. I'm just advocating for caution, and in the more broad the trend of Internet lynch mobbing and culting that potentially cost a missing Brown student his life recently. The Internet is graduating into a much more powerful force, particularly here on Hacker News and other sites like Reddit, and I worry about the long-term consequences of acting without full facts of a situation.

I'm really tired of this thread.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5653912

> and who will be fine from this either way.

She's already been removed from school. That's significantly disruptive to her.

She faces criminal prosecution. That's significantly disruptive.

If convicted, as an adult, she'll have a criminal record. Of federal crimes.

I'm baffled how you can say that she'll be fine from this.

> That's my point,

Well, this is the first post you've said that, so you're not doing such a great job of making it. Instead of your strong positive point[1] you've attacked this girl, and the people who feel sorry for her and who want to try to help her.

Of course you're going to face opposition for your views if you go about it like that.

[1]Injustice is widespread. We've heard about this girl, but there are many other children facing similar injustices. It's great that she's being offered help, but we need to work as a society to temper our reactions to youthful indiscretions. Getting the police involved in stuff that can be dealt with by school is wrong, and we need to try to stop it happening."

I'm really tired of this thread.

Have you tried not reading it? When I don't like doing something, I find that the symptoms vanish when I stop doing it.

God this is what private school is for.

Come again? Can you elaborate on what you mean?

> I've personally seen a 12-year-old expelled and nearly charged with a crime

If you actually mean to compare "nearly charged with a crime" with "charged with two felonies," I don't see how we can have a productive conversation, because that is just too bizarre to wrap my head around.

Then it's good that I didn't mean to compare them, and instead illustrate that overreaction is common.

It's ridiculous to suggest that we should do nothing about an injustice that comes to our attention just because it's not the only injustice in the world, and we're not going to do anything about most of them (not least because we don't know about them). Some injustices we care more about than others, and we need not justify ourselves to you.

That said, if you see a news story about a 12-year-old expelled because his mother packed him a steak knife, feel free to submit it. I can't promise it will be upvoted onto the front page, but it's worth a try. I will probably read it if I notice it.

Not to justify myself, but to satisfy your curiosity, I will attempt to answer your question. This girl's situation attracts attention here on HN, I surmise, because her intent was scientific in nature. Okay, it's a teenager's science experiment, but still, she was exploring the physical world. This is something that a lot of people here can relate to.

It's ridiculous to suggest that I'm implying we should do nothing now that we're aware of it, since I damn near typed verbatim "why are we aware of this?" as the thesis point of my comment. Reactions to my comment are all over the place, this has been a net karma sink for sharing an unpopular opinion, and there's someone mocking my education for sharing it. So much for civil discourse, and congratulations on being on the "right" side of this opinion, I guess (as disappointing as it is that there is a "right" side).

I guess the same reason that everyone gave Aaron so much attention.

Over-reactions from political chest thumping ruins lives and damages society. The general public needs to understand that concept. The best way to communicate that to the primitive ape like creatures milling about on our rock in space is to tell them a personal story.

Basically, it's public manipulation, with blessing because it's manipulating the public in the right direction.

This:

http://www.atlassociety.org/sites/default/files/Unrugged_Ind...

"... benevolence is a commitment to engage with others, to participate in society, in order to achieve the values derivable from other human beings. This commitment is based on the belief that one’s interests are not in conflict with those of others, but in basic harmony. It involves the expectation that one will be able to like, respect, enjoy the company of, or at least profit economically from exchanges with, most of the people around one—that they will make a positive contribution to one’s life."

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