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Comment by rscale | Hacker News Reader

I also find the sentence Aaron faced to be excessive.

For additional context, David Headley received a 35 year sentence for his active participation in the Mumbai bombings which killed 160 people.[1] The median sentence for murder and non-negligent manslaughter in the US (effective 2000) is 24 years, 3 months.[2]

I can't help but find Aaron's prospective punishment to be far more abhorrent than his crimes. It continues to sadden me that MIT used their influence in such a hurtful manner.

[1]: http://www.propublica.org/article/david-headley-homegrown-te...

[2]: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/Fssc00.txt

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There is no sensible way in the U.S. to talk about a sentence without reference to the Sentencing Guidelines. Any number not based on the guidelines is effectively fiction.

If he got more than the one or two years guideline range they would be in danger of being overturned on appeal. That's still excessive of course. The CFAA is a misdemeanor, and the provision allowing it to be enhanced to a felony in conjunction with another crime is misguided.

It continues to sadden me that MIT used their influence in such a hurtful manner.

I don't think this is a fair description; it would be fairer to say that MIT failed to use its influence in a helpful manner. (Even then I'm not sure it would have made a difference; it seems to me that the prosecutors were intent on "getting" Swartz and weren't listening to reasonable arguments for backing off.)

Whether it would have made a difference or not, the institution had the chance to act for what was right, and they did not.

True, but that's failing to use its influence helpfully; it's not the same as using influence hurtfully.

No, in this case it's the same. MIT is not average Joe, it's one of the top Universities in the world. I believe people on the board understand repercussions of taking and not taking action and the responsibility that comes along and if they don't they are not suited for the position.

I've always thought it a nice feature of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (bear with me here...) that the general confession covers "those things which we ought to have done" before mentioning "those things which we ought not to have done".

All that is required for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.

All that is required for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.

That still doesn't make doing nothing identical to doing something. You may consider them morally equivalent, but that doesn't make them identical.

My point was about how to correctly describe what MIT did. If we start muddying our language because, oh, well, it's all morally equivalent anyway so it doesn't matter how we describe it, we end up not being able to think clearly. And if we can't think clearly, we can't tell good from evil, so we end up doing even more evil.

If you see a drowning man and do nothing you are guilty of inaction. In this case they knew what was happening and before issuing an informal warning went for the nuclear option.

If you see a drowning man and do nothing you are guilty of inaction.

Yes. But if you take a man and throw him in the water with chains around his arms and legs so that he drowns, you are guilty of something worse. I'm not saying MIT is blameless; I'm saying that there are degrees of blame, and the prosecutors deserve more than MIT does, because MIT failed to help but the prosecutors actively sought to harm.

In this case they knew what was happening and before issuing an informal warning went for the nuclear option.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. What "informal warning" could MIT have issued? They didn't know who had broken into their network until after Swartz was arrested. As for "the nuclear option", see above.

The article implies that MIT knew that students were downloading JSTOR files illegally.

Swartz wasn't a student, so even if MIT had issued some sort of warning to students, he wouldn't have seen it.

No, in this case it's the same.

Saying that MIT didn't do something it should have done, is not the same as saying that MIT did something it should not have done. The fact that you appear to consider them morally equivalent does not make them identical.

"Evil triumphs when good people do nothing"

See my response to simpleigh upthread.

So you want to avoid muddy language. Fine. Do you think MIT have any moral responsibility for what happened?

Yes, but the prosecutors have a lot more. Using muddy language obfuscates that.

No more than pedantically shooting down slightly muddy comments about it does.

It is tough to comment on MIT, since there may be parts of their side of the story that we don't know. On the surface, it is hard to view 35 years as anything but excessive. It is certainly well above anything that fits the crime, and anything needed as a deterrent.

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