Whitehouse response to Aaron Swartz petition | Hacker News Reader

Whitehouse response to Aaron Swartz petition

petitions.whitehouse.gov

263 pointsbtilly106 comments

The White House's non-response on the two-year anniversary of Aaron Swartz's death shows why these petitions are not only flawed, but should be avoided by people who actually care about political or policy change.

Look at the nearby discussion: Instead of asking why Carmen Ortiz, who's been in her current job for nearly six years, is still there, we're debating the terms of use of the petition site. Instead of wondering why a law originally designed to protect NORAD was used to drive Aaron Swartz to suicide -- despite his JSTOR "victim" never asking for a criminal prosecution -- we're reminiscing about other, equally useless, petitions in the past.

I admit it's a brilliant move by this administration (to be sure, Rs would do the same thing). Instead of having people sign up to be members of EFF or ACLU or TechFreedom.org, which will send email alerts when legal fixes like "Aaron's Law" are pending in Congress, people slap their names on a petition that results in a committee-managed non-response on the two year anniversary of his death.

Imagine if even 5% or 10% of the 61,179 people who signed that petition instead organized rallies in their cities, or a kind of Leave The Internet Alone rally in DC. That might or may not accomplish something; it surely would accomplish more than signing the petition did. (You could wrap in a bunch of related topics: DMCA/copyright reform, NSA reform, CFAA reform and more.)

I'm sorry if I sound frustrated. I spent hundreds of hours interviewing folks involved in the case and reading court documents about the Aaron Swartz prosecution while I was at CNET before leaving to build http://recent.io/. What happened to him was a tragedy, but Carmen Ortiz will leave for a seven-figure law firm job at a time that's convenient for her, and an effort in Congress to fix things actually coughed up a bill to make current law worse: http://www.cnet.com/news/aarons-law-rewrite-backfires-reform...

If you're interested, here's a detailed piece I wrote about the federal anti-hacking law Carmen Ortiz wielded against Aaron Swartz, and how it was never originally intended to cover what he was accused of doing: http://www.cnet.com/news/from-wargames-to-aaron-swartz-how-u...

Well, but wasn't it actually exact purpose behind creating the site? So that people vent on it, instead of rallying on the streets? Of course, this is disgusting, but wouldn't surprise me...

> but Carmen Ortiz will leave for a seven-figure law

To those of us who believe in Higher Power, she will face much harsher consequences when she crosses to the other side.

I'm not a believer, like many others (especially in europe).

So... It would be nice to see her face harsh consequences on this side too. I'm pretty sure that we both can agree on that one.

> Imagine if even 5% or 10% of the 61,179 people who signed that petition instead organized rallies in their cities, or a kind of Leave The Internet Alone rally in DC.

Because the truth is that people generally don't care enough to do anything worth while ("signing" a petition is pretty minimal in terms of effort). There will always be the activists that are local to the cause who will do everything they can to fight, but everyone else, living their own lives, working, being parents, having hobbies or what have you have their own personal problems to take care of.

It's just routine. With the added regular news from the regular sources, who knows how manipulated they are, they're just so removed from what's actually going on. Not to mention, many people won't ask "What can the people do?" but "What can I do?" and their answer will be: "Nothing!"

We live in a world where people are told to live their lives, handle their business and the rest will be taken care of.

Maybe that's just common in Canada.

I don't like this situation, but this is what I'm seeing.

Exactly. This is called slacktivism. Which is also a major reason why none of these online petitions which require a simple mouse click and nothing more are not taken seriously by most folks.

Hm, we can all agree then that making an app for this and that won't change the world? Just don't tell Silicon Valley..

You can make money selling activism just as well as you can selling entrepreneurism.

Indeed. It took me over a year to get off Credo's mailing list. They even followed me to other addresses. I only stopped getting their ads in the mail after I moved overseas. No sense selling cut-rate "libwashed" cellphones to foreigners who can't use them, I guess.

But the people selling activism are not doing activism. Sorry.

The good news is, being an activist and being employed are not mutually exclusive! Activism is a way of life.

As long as we have internet, we will be complacent. I believe the internet has fragmented our minds so far and wide that with it, nothing will ever get done. The internet is the worst invention of the 20th century. I wish the internet was regulated purely for education, not gaming, not buzzfeed, or facebook, or any such bullshit distractions.

If interests were kept local, issues would become local, and communities form. The internet allows us to pick and choose our own communities, so while we're together, we're further apart than ever. We'll never have a common localized goal.

If we live on the internet, we do our "activism" on the internet, our communications, our entertainment, everything.

Until either the internet dissolves or becomes regulated/boring, and/or the governments policies physically affect us, nothing will ever happen.

I remember as a young boy my Grandmothers only wishes her entire life was to dip her feet in the ocean and see a mountain in person.

Our desires became more contrived with the endless information stream we experience every day. There's no communities. There's no real passion or ideology anymore. Just cynicism, ego, competition, and sarcasm.

The internet lets you vicariously live through every body, and we lose that essence of what it means to be human, the passion to discover what is unknown.

Once you are exposed to how truly chaotic everything really is, that everything operates under the illusion of a master plan but is really just one headless blunder, you realize you are completely helpless and stop caring, You seek to drown out that underlying passion for something with bullshit because you don't know what it is, because you haven't given yourself the time of day to try until one day you're nothing but a sum of your plugs, like a swiss cheese without the cheese, just the holes, just a skeleton of who you should have otherwise been.

This is a very extreme point of view. Asserting that education is the only worthwhile use of the Internet is dogmatic and an unfair generalisation. Is entertainment and pleasure not a worthwhile and fundamentally human thing to pursue?

While I agree with your point of view that there is a lot of "bullshit", I don't believe it's for any one individual to control. You have to trust people to regulate their use.

Your post also states that all forms of entertainment are Internet-based, but this is simply untrue. What of people who read, cook, rock climb, play instruments. The list goes on.

Perhaps if your Grandmother had access to the Internet, she may be have been inspired by a "pointless bullshit" YouTube video to actually a climb a mountain, not just see one?

Additionally, you say that there aren't communities, but there are. Reddit, HN and many other sites connect thousands (and more) of people with similar interests, possibly more than could ever hope to meet in real life.

As I mentioned earlier, you have to trust people to regulate the balance of online and "offline" activity.

a) Yes it is, but when the never-endingness and unregulated internet is a thing, most people lack the self control to stop.

b) Nearly everybody I know wastes their time. I can’t find a single person who doesn’t go crazy on the internet. People are not to be trusted at the most basic level. They are duplicates of each other, consuming the easiest of material day in, day out, relaying it to each other, discussing it, embodying it. Questions like "what book did you read last?" and "discover any new albums recently?" do not exist in their universe. They have no concept of shame, only ego. If you asked them "why don't you read books?" the answer will be "because I'm not into books". The real reason is because they were distracted from the good things in life, to a point where the bar has been brought down so low that books become "hard" not "fun". Math becomes hard, doing anything exerting effort beyond consumption becomes hard.

c) Those are GOOD forms of entertainment. Reading false news, engaging in internet shit throwing, all things that don’t actively increase your “human capital” are detrimental.

d) I mentioned my grandmother and those simple goals precisely because she will never realize them or strive for them if she had internet, which she won’t, which is the whole premise of the hopes in the first place (meaning her situation is so bad that if she could enjoy even those simple pleasures everything would have been worth it).

e) That is literally my exact point, the fact these communities exist is awful, it dupes the mind into believing you are connected. You aren’t.

I don’t trust people at all until they give me a reason. We are all fundamentally scum. The only reason we aren’t is because infrastructure and quality of life fill our voids enough where we don’t rely on killing one another. Take a mans meals away for 3 days and he’s a different person.

We are fundamentally weak, and to break that curse it takes a lifelong journey of dedication and struggle. If you picture this journey on a timeline, the internet becomes a little hole early on in the journey, a booby trap of sorts.

I realize the irony in posting this, but HN is the only website I go on besides reading documentation directly related to my job + sideprojects.

Do you see where I'm going with this? The net effect of the internet is negative, not positive. You may say that everything is sped up, and everything is, but the side effect of that is that it made us shittier humans, not to each other, but just at being ourselves. Being comfortable in our own skin.

I find it hard to believe that the possibilities are purely negative, but I understand where you're coming from.

Coming back to the idea of personal connection and community - is this not connection right now? Yes, there are numerous things that a real-world connection has that are missing, but there is still a connection that allows two people to discuss their views. Nothing like real life, but still something, no?

Given that, would you agree that the Internet has increased the range of human experience at both the good and bad ends of the spectrum? As in, it has simultaneously increased an individual's options for both learning and connection (even if "virtual") but also indolency?

My personal take on the Internet and all the communication tools that sit on top of it are that they are just that, tools for communication. How people use those is up to them. And inevitably they will be used for both "valuable" and "invaluable". Value to one person is a waste of time to another, so judgement on what tools have "worth" ends up being a subjective personal view.

We are more connected than ever, but instead of in clusters, we're fragments of small communities existing within each other, unaware of each other.

If we can take a step back to before the negative/positive potential has taken effect on an individual, it exists purely in potential. It tilts either way with every click you make. You can endlessly consume garbage, or you can choose to grow yourself. The potential is there, but we don't grasp it for a variety of reasons, one of which is crap not being filtered.

The internet is like living in a society that has no rules. You wouldn't have the same conditions we're living in now in a lawless society.

I disagree. While there is no objective measure of "worth", you can quantify worth against any medium. If I asked you if buzzfeed had journalistic integrity, you'd most likely say no. Then I ask you why does it exist then? What would you say?

I see things like this as a mutation. A negative effect as a byproduct of not being filtered out. What that filter would be, or could be, I don't really have any idea.

On the other side of things picture what happens if 100 million people sign a petition. Realistically if < 1 million people sign something like this it's a political non issue that can be safely ignored.

There are only around 300 million people in the U.S., around 230 million of which are of voting age, fewer still being actually eligible voters, and far fewer still who would understand or agree with the importance of this particular issue.

I can't quickly find the all-time most popular petition on the site, but I'd wager it's well under 1 million signatures, which is probably at least partly due to how quickly the uselessness of the petitions site became obvious.

True enough, but 300+ thousand people have physically traveled to DC for some protests. Getting ~3x as many people to just sign a petition is a much smaller hurdle.

Granted, these are just focused on getting a response so people don't waste a lot of effort 'running up the numbers'. Still, I suspect if you combine similar petitions you will see large numbers of people supporting things like legalizing pot.

A slightly more charitable argument would be that people do care, but are currently under too much financial and day-to-day stress to simply drop everything and participate meaningfully in lots of political causes.

And in this particular case, there are ancillary issues too. The Aaron Swartz case doesn't immediately sound important to non-hackers, and there are no shortage of people who will helpfully point out, over and over and over again, that, "Aaron actually did break the law, and if he didn't want to go to jail, he shouldn't've broken the law, and he had a mental illness besides so the outcome is nobody's fault but his own." I disagree with those people, but they're still able to move the discussion away from where it should be: federal prosecutors acted absurdly.

Gay rights have only recently made serious political progress, obnoxious drug enforcement is being fought against, people are talking about the NSA in light of Snowden's leaks (and, fortunately, the law-worshippers' "Snowden is a traitor and a coward" position didn't stick).

People aren't totally inactive. They're just broke and stressed-out and overwhelmed by a relentless tide of political issues.

An even more charitable argument would be that people who care might happily put effort behind their convictions if a solution presented itself that had half a chance of working. There always seems to be at least one Gandhi/hippie wannabe in a discussion who thinks that a demonstration can magically solve any problem. This is foolishly simplistic and unconstructive.

And if you use the phrase "Take to the streets!" please be quiet while the big people are talking.

>people do care, but are currently under too much financial and day-to-day stress to simply drop everything and participate meaningfully in lots of political causes

I used to believe this was the case, but now I wrestle with it. I'm not sure what people think any more, but I find that a core problem is that too many don't tend to think critically or independently and are thus far too easily led.

It's partly implicit in the other points of your comment (e.g. the way the narrative around Mr. Swartz redirected away from the relevant discussion), but the whole of it is difficult to explain. It's very Matrix-like in that they seem to want to be misled, bury their heads in the sand, and pretend that everything is OK.

Maybe this is why people spend an inordinate amount of time on utter distraction, and seem to prefer that to addressing real matters, even when those matters directly affect them.

This has been a tenet of humankind forever, "...many don't tend to think critically or independently and are thus far too easily led.". My grandfather told me that it was the responsibility of those who did think critically and independently to lead others toward a better future.

Not surprisingly this is the core principle behind governing, a few who are willing to spend their time doing the work of leading while the rest just follow along.

The tricky bit though, is that the people need a choice of leaders. So it becomes incumbent on people who do think critically and independently to offer themselves up as leaders so that if they have a constituency that was looking for them, they might be found.

Well put.

>a few who are willing to spend their time doing the work of leading while the rest just follow along

That's the theory! And, it works, as long as the critical-thinking leaders are well-intentioned, are acting in an environment that allows them to effect change, and are acting in the interest of a better future for all; rather than a narrower set of interests for a few.

>The tricky bit though, is that the people need a choice of leaders. So it becomes incumbent on people who do think critically and independently to offer themselves up as leaders

I think it's trickier than that!

Of course, there are would-be leaders who are eager to capitalize on this human shortcoming for their own gain. Entire systems (including our two-party political system here) are devised and manipulated to leverage the tendency of the masses not to engage in critical-thinking. The current "leaders" aren't so much leading the masses to a better future as promoting an agenda that tends to serve the relatively few constituents who paid their freight.

So, there's a bit of chicken-and-egg here. Those leaders who truly want to implement change rely upon the masses to buck the well-heeled narrower interests and push it through. But, those masses are distracted and not engaged sufficiently in critical-thinking.

In other words, there's a minimum level of thought and engagement required on the part of the masses. Otherwise, they are just as easily led (or misled) by the critical thinking "leaders" who have in mind their own self-interest as by those who want to lead them to a better future.

Yeah, would you like a list of several hundred things I believe I should be protesting?

I go a couple two protests or demonstrations each year (fewer than I should), but not one every day, which is what I'd have to do to hit every issue I care about.

If we had a single issue in this country/world, I think people would be dealing with it. But we have hundreds.

"A slightly more charitable argument would be that people do care, but are currently under too much financial and day-to-day stress to simply drop everything and participate meaningfully in lots of political causes."

When has this not "currently" been the case? This is exactly the problem. You are always going to be under financial and day-to-day stress. Aaron is the only person I'm aware of whose reaction to the removal of everyday stress was to get more involved in politics and not become a venture capitalist.

There is time today, tomorrow, next week, and next month - not _only_ tomorrow, next week, and next month. The latter mode of thinking yields an infinite number of "todays" with no time for doing anything.

Do something! You can! Start small. Talk to a stranger about an issue of concern, and stop crying in the choir chamber.

Well, congratulations, I guess, to earning the title, "Dude who will probably piss me off the most today."

Listen.

Last month my personal account was overdrawn by $400 (people don't pay their invoices in December). It typically hovers well under $1000. Would you like screenshots, would that be satisfying in any way to you? I bust my ass all week long for an awful lot of other people and businesses in my area, including non-profits like Habitat For Humanity. I've been doing this for several years now. And somehow I still find the time and resources to be involved in other ways -- in my community.

And I'm not alone. A huge number of people are struggling really bad right now. It's been a frequent topic of journalism the last few years, maybe you missed it.

Aaron? With all due respect to Aaron, he had a family that I didn't have, that was financially well enough off to support him in whatever he wanted to do, and then he cashed out of a startup with more damn money than I expect I'll ever see in my life -- money that gave him the luxury of pursuing whatever subject interested him.

Good for him. I respect what he did, I do. But you deserve a punch in the face for trying to make someone else feel bad for not doing the same, especially when you can't even bother yourself to get to know anything about them.

You've still got a bit to learn about encouraging other people to take up a cause.

Maybe you could start with your Instagram profile, it makes you look a bit of a hypocrite.

> Maybe that's just common in Canada.

You should visit Montreal :-)

The next "Earth day" (April 22nd) should probably be an interesting festive day.

c.f. student strikes, petrol pipeline opposition, charter protests, mining projects opposition, urban cyclists, mesh networks, etc. There is a very big disconnect electorally, and with the rest of the province, but under the rug a lot of changes are happening.

I'm content with life, my ways have not been changed and I do not feel a threat, so I continue on with life. Only when my rights or way of life is altered will I voice or take action.

This is pretty much how the world is working.

> Because the truth is that people generally don't care enough to do anything worth while ("signing" a petition is pretty minimal in terms of effort).

Isn't the truth not that people don't care, but actually don't have the power to do anything?

Democracy in Athens came about at a time when it was dependent upon its navy and thus its thousands of rowers.

Unions (for example) are destroyed, not by union busting, but by industry disappearing.

When the government is the largest employer, the people depend on the government and not the other way around.

The US no longer depends on the majority of it's voting population. The right to vote of any adult in the US at this point is largely vestigial, as is evidenced by the divergence of actual government policy from the interests of the voting public.

The majority of the voting population are voting one way it appears. I'm an outsider, but it seems that the issue is that not enough people are voting.

Apologies if this is ill-informed, I'm an Australian so I'm quite possibly wrong.

They are voting the way they are meant to vote. PACs exist for a reason.

Also, why vote? When democracy emerged in the U.S., the voting population was about 800,000. The current voting population is 206,000,000. The power of an individual's vote has decreased immensely.

I use federal numbers because the federal government has most of the power now, as opposed to the states, in which an individual's vote is worth relatively more, but still massively less than it was at the time the constitution was written.

> why vote? When democracy emerged in the U.S., the voting population was about 800,000. The current voting population is 206,000,000. The power of an individual's vote has decreased immensely.

I agree that the power to change the outcome of an election is minimal, roughly equal to every other voter.

Voting does much more than change election outcomes; it signals the electorate's priorities. Win or lose, every vote from your neighborhood, district, town, county, etc. signals that people there care, and pressures elected officials to pay attention to them. Every vote for your issues, win or lose, signals your priorities. Your representatives' jobs depend on pleasing voters. Democrats elected in districts where people vote for gun rights are not going to push gun control in Congress (and vice versa for Republicans). Counties where 75% vote will get politicians' attention and have their issues addressed; those where 30% vote will be overlooked.

And every non-vote in your neighborhood, district, town, county, etc. tells your elected officials that you don't care and that they can safely ignore you.

If what voters thinks matters, why is so much money spent on campaigns? Answering my own question, I would say that it is because votes can be bought.

Who is more powerful? Someone with $10M to spend on a campaign, or someone with the best political thinking who has no money to spend on a campaign?

> If what voters thinks matters, why is so much money spent on campaigns?

Hmmm... The obvious answer is: To persuade voters to think your way. But I suspect I misunderstand the question.

> Who is more powerful? Someone with $10M to spend on a campaign, or someone with the best political thinking who has no money to spend on a campaign?

Clearly the former. With $10M, you can persuade many voters to agree with you. But since that fits with my above post, I think I'm missing your point.

In the end, however they are formed, it's still voters' opinions (and actions) that matter.

The core issues here, as they seem to always be, are:

1. Getting people organized and calling them to action.

Frankly, Aaron got this, and he could blend code, politics, and organize people around causes. Down deep, I suspect some people who would not benefit from those attributes took notice. Call me out on that being a conspiracy theory, and I may not even argue. But, I found that aspect of Aaron compelling. Hard to imagine others didn't take notice.

He left some great models. There doesn't seem to be anybody out there picking up those pieces, or if they are, it's not apparent --or as apparent as Aaron's efforts were.

Maybe it takes a group to do what he did. I don't know, but I sure liked what he was doing. It got people thinking, talking, contributing, doing more.

Rallies and such get attention. I like seeing them, and I like participating in them. What I don't know is how effective they are in the current media climate. One distinctive aspect of how Aaron chose to move people and set things in motion is it worked through non-mainstream / traditional / old media channels.

I do know for sure that we need more of that. If it's connected to citizen action events, great! Maybe that helps actualize it for people or keep them motivated.

2. Money in the politics.

We've all hashed this out. Let's just say I agree with Lessig in that we are going to have to somehow work this system to change it. I don't know if Mayday is the right kind of effort, but I support it, because we will learn things from it at the very least.

Others differ in their goals, and again, it's really hard to get people centered in on this, and we need to. We need to, because darn near every issue we care about is linked to it, and we are always making trade-offs, instead of actually getting things resolved to a better state we all would live better with.

And living better is really the goal, isn't it? I don't care who is right, or who has it perfect. I just want things better.

Seems to me, we should be able to center in on "better" and not worry so much about perfect, or "right", just better and maybe keep doing that so that we get to "right" or "just" or "perfect" over time, incrementally.

Until we see significant and sustained action on these fronts, I'm afraid it's more deals, not any meaningful changes we can feel good about. And those deals can be really ugly, or somewhat ugly, or maybe just sort of OK too. Depends on our voice and who we've got in the legislative role at the time.

My .02 anyway.

Crap... I should add we also seem to be caught up in transactional politics.

Vote this, get that. When that breaks down, people do too, and we don't get movements moving.

We need movement politics, and the points I made in the parent post speak right to that. Significant, sustained efforts that don't go away easily and that can grow over time.

Movements, not transactions.

To me, the petition thing is just a warm fuzzy as declan put out there. "Hey, I did something, where is that beer and TeeVee..."

I disagree with your main point. The petitions are a good idea. We know that some petitions are not going to change the government's mind. But just having a mechanism for getting the government to consider something and provide an official response is a good idea. Previous administrations would simply ignore things they were not interested in. And journalists who get admitted to white house press conferences can often be counted on to completely ignore subjects that were of no interest to either political party.

That being said, petitions do not solve everything and the other political actions you mentioned may be called for. But even then the petition helps, as it provides an official government response which may galvanize other political action.

The existence of a petition site is better than absolutely nothing. I'll even grant that a petition response isn't the right forum for addressing a personnel question. But like user 'btilly' says below, "The wording of the petition may have been very specific, but it still provides an opportunity to address the issue."

There are smart people at the White House and they understand the intent and emotional response behind the petition. To lean on the TOS to avoid a substantive response to issues raised by Aaron's case is callous disregard for the 60,000 people who signed.

I would say a petition site that almost always results in nothing changing is worse than absolutely nothing. People signing a useless petition makes them feel as if they've done something, which usually leads them to do nothing more on the matter. When, in fact, they've actually done nothing to help the cause they think they are helping. Without the useless petition some of these people might have done something else that might have actually helped in some way.

At the very least it provides a venue to gauge support, allows people to spread awareness of an issue, and causes the petition signers to think more about the situation than a passive dismissal.

Yes, those are wonderful best case examples. I, on the other hand, don't have much faith that those things happen all that often.

the petition site is nothing more than most manufactures support forums, designed to let people vent. The difference with manufacturers sites is that people can solve problems there as they become nearly self running.

The Whitehouse site was a trick, something to appease the masses who themselves wanted to feel good, feel like they were being heard, fool themselves into thinking they mattered. As in, another use of effective marketing which this Administration was very good at during elections

> Imagine if even 5% or 10% of the 61,179 people who signed that petition instead organized rallies in their cities, or a kind of Leave The Internet Alone rally in DC. That might or may not accomplish something; it surely would accomplish more than signing the petition did. (You could wrap in a bunch of related topics: DMCA/copyright reform, NSA reform, CFAA reform and more.)

Because Slacktivism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism

What if 10% of those 61,179 signed the petition because they couldn't travel to DC or take time off work to rally? What if they have kids, a second job, or an ailing relative they care for?

And suppose they could rally. If it was big enough to garner media attention, it might keep the issue in the spotlight a little longer. But it alone wouldn't change much. During the occupy protests, people rallied for months, and nothing happened.

Protest has no teeth if separated from action. We need to get organized, pressure legislators, support specific policies, and get the right people in office.

I agree that the petitions site is never going to create real change in the government, but I disagree that it is harmful.

Grassroots action is not a zero-sum game, in which a petition steals energy from a rally (or whatever). People do not have a fixed amount of "grassroots energy" per person.

Activism is more like building a bank account in each person, in which you have to make regular "deposits" by reminding each person of the issue, then re-reminding them, then engaging them, then re-engaging them...until finally there's enough personal interest that they will begin to take more effective action like calling Congress, attending a rally, etc.

This petition was never going to do anything about a particular US Attorney...but it's providing a great platform to remind everyone of what happened, and why, and how things could be different.

Basically: without this petition response announced today, you wouldn't have posted about Swartz today, and many thousands of people would not have read it--a net negative.

and this is the state of the world. you talk about how the white house is curtailing the issue of problematic staff by mentioning how that an online petition is not the correct place for that and everyone responds to you about petitions. to be fair to them I guess you even jumped on the bandwagon within your own comment. still no talk about overzealous prosecutors.

Declan, I respect the work you've done, but this is a bad argument:

> despite his JSTOR "victim" never asking for a criminal prosecution

Law enforcement and prosecutors have to take the responsibility, and not put the weight on the victim's shoulders.

You are implicitly advocating a system where the victim can be intimidated out of prosecuting.

There are many, many crimes where the victim has to press charges for any prosecution to happen, and copyright infringement most certainly should be one of those.

Those are crimes where the victim's testimony is core or critical to the successful prosecution.

In cases where, as this, the government has access to material evidence that doesn't rely on requiring someone to want prosecution or having to testify, then this is not the case.

<crucini>, thanks for your kind words. I may not have been as clear as I should have been, so let me try again.

Let's look at what JSTOR itself said: "The case is one that we ourselves had regretted being drawn into from the outset... JSTOR settled any civil claims we might have had against him in June 2011..." http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz

You're right that if victims can be intimidated into asking for non-prosecution, that would be a problem! But what JSTOR said above is precisely not the language of an organization that's been intimidated.

More broadly, the problem lies with the over-criminalization of everyday activities, especially in federal law, as Harvey Silverglate has documented in "Three Felonies a Day." And, if you want to go back further in history, the modern police-prosecutor, victim-has-no-say approach to criminal charges is a relatively modern phenomenon. There are other ways to approach criminal law; I'd refer you to Bruce Benson's "Enterprise of Law" for more on that.

> "Look at the nearby discussion: Instead of asking why Carmen Ortiz, who's been in her current job for nearly six years, is still there, we're debating the terms of use of the petition site. Instead of wondering why a law originally designed to protect NORAD was used to drive Aaron Swartz to suicide -- despite his JSTOR "victim" never asking for a criminal prosecution -- we're reminiscing about other, equally useless, petitions in the past."

As an interesting aside, I was reading the article about the internal communications of the Chinese communist party's propaganda machine (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856218) and one of the internet commenters on the payroll for the Party had this to say:

> “When transferring the attention of netizens and blurring the public focus, going off the topic is very effective.”

I find the USG response to this petition laughably transparent in the same way, but it will still be effective in general.

> "The White House's non-response on the two-year anniversary of Aaron Swartz's death shows why these petitions are not only flawed, but should be avoided by people who actually care about political or policy change."

This has always been true; it's not just in this specific case or with respect to whitehouse.gov. A petition is a slightly more sophisticated form of the "like" button, invented in a pre-internet time. Intelligent, directed actions sustained over a period of time cause changes; a boolean expression of opinion without the threat of some undesirable (by those perpetuating the status quo) action behind it is just a way of venting.

So, I am the person who wrote that petition. (and yes I'm aware of the issues with the wording )

The decision to name Carmen Ortiz was deliberate; she is a political appointee and thus could be dismissed at the administrations pleasure. That they chose to hide behind the 'cannot discuss personnel matters' figleaf is to put it plainly; bullshit. Political appointees are just that, political; and the fact that the administration is too cowardly to defend their choice in this matter speaks volumes.

It doesn't really matter; Aaron is still dead, Carmen Ortiz still has her job (although hopefully her political career has topped out) and we carry on.

Honestly, the fact that she's a political appointee is what makes your petition moot. They'll just appoint someone else. She was following directives from the DOJ based on the law. The petition should have called for end to the acadmic papers paywall racket. If you call for a rule that any research receiving government (or at least NIH or NSF) funding must be made freely available upon publish, that is within the purview of the executive and would solve the root problem once and for all.

> If you call for a rule that any research receiving government (or at least NIH or NSF) funding must be made freely available upon publish, that is within the purview of the executive and would solve the root problem once and for all.

That already happened --

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/increasing-public-...

> the fact that she's a political appointee is what makes your petition moot. They'll just appoint someone else.

If they had sacked her, that would have been an important signal to other prosecutors as to the limits of what is appropriate.

And mootness or lack thereof is irrelevant in this context. It was a petition for redress of grievances not a pleading in court.

That the grievance is still not redressed does not make the petition invalid or irrelevant.

And the larger point here that should concern us all is that prosecutors have unchecked power and regularly exercise it in unjust and corrupt ways. If you draw the attention of a United States Attorney; it does not matter if you committed a crime or not, you will be ruined financially and most likely put into a position of pleading out so as not be in jeopardy of multiple lifetimes of prison.

Does it make me too cynical that my initial reaction to anything on petitions.whitehouse.gov is "Who cares?"

Can someone point me to a petition that actually made a difference?

The SOPA petition drew a clear statement from the White House that they would not support any bill that messed with DNS. That was a win for the anti-SOPA folks because DNS redirection was a key part of that bill.

IOW, it happened to be one of the few cases where the White House's intentions were already aligned with the public's wishes.

Yes, I agree that the SOPA petition did not change the White House's mind on DNS. But it did provide a good PR hook for them to put a stake in the ground, and clothe it in the veneer of public support.

It's probably best to think of the petitions as a PR tool, not a policy tool. Getting a petition over the signature threshhold, or getting a response, is a great news hook that activists can use to generate press coverage of their issue. For example: this discussion would not be happening today if this response had not been issued.

It's also possible that a petition can help affect policy over a long term. In general, people outside of government greatly underestimate just how long it takes to go from an idea or complaint, to a policy shift, to a change in the law. It's not uncommon for it to take a decade or more. For example Silent Spring was published in 1962, but DDT was not banned in the U.S. until 1972.

I was thinking the same thing, but thinking about it more I only get angry (which I suppose is constructive because anger can lead to the drive to do something instead of shitposting on the Internet).

This government would be tripping all over itself to comment if Aaron Schwartz was a police officer that had shot an unarmed kid, although he likely wouldn't have been indicted.

This government would be tripping all over itself to comment if Aaron Schwartz had released data from a private, multinational and said it was about an upcoming movie, although his actions would likely be blamed on what this government considers a rogue state.

This government stands silent and swings its righteous hammer of legalism without concern for harm and proportionality since Aaron Schwartz committed a victimless crime that in no way would change the political party affiliation of anybody voting in the upcoming presidential election. Maybe if he had actually killed somebody or massively hurt the bottom line of a multinational company it would be different...

I thought the site was really cool when it launched which looking back seems pretty naive. Nowadays I see is a way to make people think they have a say in something that they don't and way for the WH to pick and choose petitions to respond to that already align with their stance on things. So in short it's a PR machine for the WH and a blackhole for citizens.

Federal prosecutors always throw the book at people. That is their job, that is how the legal profession works - 2 sides come at a case from the most extreme positions, knowing that the end result will fall somewhere in the middle. Of course they found inappropriate laws to throw at him. Of course it seems over-zealous. That is how our system works. But people need to realize that prosecutors do not expect every charge to stick. They do not expect to actually get the horrible sentences that they threaten.

Because this case never went to trial, any decisions or reactions based on the worst-case scenario threats of prosecutors are unfounded. Any criticisms of laws being unfairly applied would have been argued in court.

The tragedy here remains that Mr. Swartz needed professional psyche help, and did not get it. A smaller tragedy was that he needed better legal help.

Across the board, this is a horrible story. But people continue to focus on the wrong points. Petitions to fire the prosecutor? Really?

We should be working towards better mental health in our society. I would also love to see a change in our legal system, but that one seems a tougher nut to crack.

Even if it's just a 'day on the job' for the prosecutors it's not for the people they accuse and prosecute. Although I understand that that the prosecution in America seems more like bargaining than real justice and that you should always ask for more than you can reasonably achieve in bargaining, I think that the threat of years of your life wasted in prison is not acceptable. I agree with your point about better mental health-care, but the fact that Aaron needed, and did not receive, care does not redeem the prosecutor who drove him over the edge in my opinion.

Saying that it's unfair to challenge the prosecutors behavior because the case never went to court does not seem relevant in light of the consequences the threats have had.

It is unfair to act like this was a singular effort against one man. This happens every day in every court case. I think we agree on that.

I'm not condoning it, I'm saying cherry picking one case to fight is missing the point. His real story is one of a failure in our mental health system. This focus on the prosecution is twisting the story into areas that are harder to change, and had a smaller impact on the end result.

This is not the story of a good guy being pursued by a bad prosecutor. This is a story of someone who did commit criminal acts, did get caught and prosecuted, and then did not have the personal capabilities to deal with the consequences. Yes, the story includes a bad legal system. But focusing on the prosecutor diminishes the actual problems in our legal system, diminishes the problems with our mental health system, and diminishes Mr. Swartz own responsibilities in his own story.

May I ask you what criminal acts he commited?

Apropos of your thoughts on copyright infringement, he at the very least committed trespass. Even if MIT had no interest in prosecution. That is undisputed.

> he at the very least committed trespass.

Which is typically a $100-500 fine, and classified as a misdemeanor.

Certainly. But the question was "May I ask you what criminal acts he committed?" which, in the context of this discussion, seems likely spurred by a belief that his offenses were purely civil in nature, or should not have been offenses at all.

I place no judgment. But misdemeanor, felony or otherwise, it's a correct and accurate answer.

If the system or process needs to change, why not change it directly? The prosecutor is irrelevant if the whole process is broken.

Federal prosecutors nearly never take cases to trial, because we provide them plentiful resources and allow them an absurd amount of leeway in threatening people who appear to be politically useful targets. We give their threats teeth by allowing them to say that the victim is liable for a nearly unlimited sentence should he fail to plead out. There are accounts that it's also common to seize a victim's assets to prevent him from paying a real lawyer to defend him. The judges actually recognize that this is cruel & unusual, and have formed an entire extralegal 'sentencing guideline' system for conventional crimes that is entirely at their discretion, separated from the maximum legal penalties by an order of magnitude; You only find out whether you're to be put on this if you dare to try and prove your innocence.

That's no way to run a justice system, particularly as without anyone claiming to have been wronged, and novel circumstances of the 'crime', this was an attempt to legislate / regulate through deterrence via prosecution, or possibly just to punish. Aaron Swartz had already been targeted by the American federal justice system for having the audacity to disrupt the PACER bureaucracy that was being run as a behind-the-scenes moneymaking operation.

Not to mention that even if the DOJ doesn't freeze your assets, defending yourself against the DOJ is an incredibly expensive proposition. It can deplete the life savings of even affluent people.

Overall this is a pretty good description of our adversarial system of justice, however it is important to remember prosecutors have special ethical obligations. Notwithstanding some creative and recent arguments by the Department of Justice that their prosecutors are not bound by state ethical rules (See e.g. The Thornburgh memo [1], but see 28 USC 530B [2]), most states have ethical rules which place special obligations upon prosecutors similar to ABA Model Rule 3.8 [3], which requires a prosecutor to, amongst other things, "refrain from prosecuting a charge that the prosecutor knows is not supported by probable cause" and "make timely disclosure to the defense of all evidence or information known to the prosecutor that tends to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigates the offense", as well as "except for statements that are necessary to inform the public of the nature and extent of the prosecutor's action and that serve a legitimate law enforcement purpose, refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused".

The comment to Rule 3.8 [4] makes clear a "prosecutor has the responsibility of a minister of justice and not simply that of an advocate".

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornburgh_Memo [2] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/530B [3] http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibilit... [4] http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibilit...

  "You agree to only create petitions consistent with the 
  limited purpose of the We the People platform, which is to 
  allow individuals to petition the Administration to take 
  action on a range of issues — to address a problem, support 
  or oppose a proposal, or otherwise change or continue  
  federal government policy or actions. To focus discussion, 
  the platform is limited to a discrete set of topics, which 
  may be adjusted over time."

I wonder how releasing the white house beer recipe[1] fits that standard any more than the Aaron Swartz petition?

[1] https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/ale-chief-white-ho...

That link, they put hours into writing those recipes and formatting... Aaron Schwartz got spin (which admittedly, probably took more work hours to not-create)

It's sad that the most on point response I have seen to one of these things was the response to the "Build a Death Star" petition. Everything else just seems like a media spin.

Link for the lazy: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/isnt-petition-resp...

It makes me wonder, what does the White House consider a suitable forum for holding appointed officials to account? Or more appropriately, holding the appointers to account.

It's voting! You vote in the folks who vote in the folks who appoint their friend to high positions! It's democracy...sorta...kinda....not really.

They should have at least called out which term of https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/how-why/terms-participation was being invoked. My best guess is the following passage:

To avoid the appearance of improper influence, the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government in its response to a petition.

If that is the case then I strongly disagree. Prosecutorial overreach and our broken plea bargaining system is a national issue that desperately needs to be addressed. The wording of the petition may have been very specific, but it still provides an opportunity to address the issue.

Another possible term that applies is this:

You agree to only create petitions consistent with the limited purpose of the We the People platform, which is to allow individuals to petition the Administration to take action on a range of issues — to address a problem, support or oppose a proposal, or otherwise change or continue federal government policy or actions.

In that case only the person who created the petition is in violation. The broad interest in signing the petition is a sign that there is an issue that should be looked at. And indeed there is - the undue impact that prosecutorial overreach can have thanks to our broken plea bargaining system.

I also note that 1.5 years to respond does not fit my notion of "timely" that the platform promised us...

(At a guess they waited to respond to a bunch of these until after an election cycle finished and new legislators were signed in. Best way to guarantee of both low publicity and that anyone outraged will forget about it before any future vote.

If that's the term then it's unfortunate that the will of many many people now counts as "improper influence", especially in a republic where representation is the result of a democratic process.

The influence of many many people is the most proper influence our representatives can consider.

I don't know what term this is, but We The People has historically refused to respond to petitions about specific individuals as opposed to systemic/generic problems.

I'm curious if the petition would have worked better if it were phrased as, e.g., "Direct federal prosecutors to be extremely cautious in invoking CFAA" instead of "Do something about this one person".

The election is the appropriate forum. Except that Americans somehow keep on voting for parties they don't want because they have silly idealistic rivalries.

Exactly. Unless there has been a crime, you vote these people, or the people who appointed them, out.

What a surprise. The response to the petition is meaningless dribble. I'm surprised they didn't reaffirm their commitment to using the Internet to further the cause of making politicians seem useful.

Here's a documentary about Aaron Swartz. https://archive.org/details/TheInternetsOwnBoyTheStoryOfAaro...

Edit: It was educational, emotional, and enlightening to see what he went through to make the world a better place. Also it's scary to see how much the government can get away with. .. Makes you think.

There's a feedback form here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/webform/tell-us-what-you-think-abo...

It's likely that nobody will ever read my feedback, but if enough people respond then maybe somebody will. In any case, here is my feedback.

Please provide any additional comments about the We the People petitions system:

The technology worked fine, but the response was utterly vacuous and without empathy.

Aaron Schwartz took his own life almost exactly two years ago. He was a leader, a visionary, and a friend to many of the people in our community. Most importantly he was a person trying to live his life.

Aaron was subjected to unjust and vicious prosecution for an act of peaceful civil disobedience. That prosecution lead directly to his death. He received a death sentence for downloading academic journals.

This is not a petition about "openness" and "economic growth". This is not about ensuring that "the Internet remains a free and open platform." Hell, it's not even about firing Steve Heymann for his actions. It's about the way we choose how to prosecute civil disobedience (and the way we choose not to prosecute murder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner). It's about a justice system that feels increasingly unjust.

Mostly, though, it's about the death of our friend. We'd like an apology for his death, but if you're not willing to do that, at least acknowledge the value of his life. Sympathy is not enough.

As frustrating as the lack of action by the white house might be, I think this petition accomplished something:

I can almost bet Carmen Ortiz' name has been thrown to the hat for career advance nominations (federal judge, justice department) only to be immediately dismissed by white house staffers because "the internet would bury us"

How adorable.

Carmen Ortiz is already a US Attorney of the District of Massachusetts, meaning that she is the head honcho for the DOJ in that state. There isn't much higher that she could go. A federal judgeship (to a district or non-appellate court) would actually be a demotion in pay, responsibilities, and prestige.

That said, the internet has very little to do with her future. The Schwartz case, legally and ethically will have little effect on her career. She has a long and sordid history of not respecting plea deals and of exaggerating drug ties in forfeiture cases. Consequently, she already faced an uphill battle in ever being seriously considered for a judgeship, and she had essentially no chance of receiving a recommendation from the ABA judicial candidate evaluation committee. Like most US Attorneys, she will either go into politics or into a very lucrative position with a law firm as a white collar defense attorney.

Someone should write a plugin or bookmarklet that adds an "official whitehouse response" to every petition which just reads: "Okay? Whatever, we're going to take no action on this." because that's been the response to every petition I've seen so far.

Do I get this right that this so-called response actually represents the absence of any response? And in good government manner it's phrased in a language that could mean anything and therefore means nothing at all. This just makes me want to barf.

Is anyone else embarrassed that the text of the petition is ungrammatical and contains typos?

Yes.

Originator of the petition. Pressed enter. When I thought I could edit after. So PEBKAC

The response is pretty shitty as well. They randomly capitalized several words and don't get me started on the last sentence. It hardly looks as if it was edited.

Hope and change

Whenever there's one of these petitions that goes nowhere, there are a ton of, "I typed my name into a computer and it didn't make a difference! This country sucks!" responses.

Look, I sympathize with this a little--these petitions imply more than they ever deliver. But realistically if you want to force any significant change it's going to take money, time, and a lot more effort.

It's weird. I truly believe that if this had happened to someone other than Aaron that he'd have found a way to marshall at least an order of magnitude more petitioners. He really had a knack for this kind of thing. Sad to see this blown off like that, adding insult to injury.

It seems that they think this moment is convenient with all of us being distracted, to push this through without too much of fuss.

I am not a president, so I can't publicly disgrace prosecutor, but if I was, I totally would, as her office bullied Aaron Swartz and pushed him over the edge.

That is all.

Expecting anything more than this kind of response from an online petition is naive.

78 comments here, 61k signatures, and nobody has pointed out the glaring grammatical error in the first sentence of the petition.

I reckon that the intern who read the thing got a laugh from it.

Posted 10 hours before your comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8855367

what third party org is used to validate the petition count number?

Being as it's a Drupal site, it's most likely a SQL query.

The question here is: what do we want as a nation?

When they decide(d) not to take any action, not even remove those one or two unnamed persons from their positions at the CIA (for all that rectal feeding, waterboarding stuff) why do you think any of this story would matter to them at all? It couldn't count any higher in their value system, could it?

Zilch.

This may be just my anguish but from where I stand and see things these tyrannical problems of our Government will only exacerbate, not subside. There is no reason for them to stop. Not until our citizenry becomes as powerful, empowered and weaponized as is the Government today.

Honestly, I felt that there would be a difference because Aaron is Jewish and attended a good University - while the waterboarded and tortured CIA prisoners were of "lessor" ethnic and educational pedigrees.

WOW. Depending on what side of the firewall you sit this act can be interpreted as either "out of the box thinking" OR subtle arrogance and desperation.

For those sitting on 192.168.* that thought this strategy up take note: Speaking of Aaron Swartz is about much more than internet freedom. His actions may relate to this topic closely but his death touches something much deeper. For anyone that cares about this person or his death it is about moral corruption and the hollow platitudes of accountability. You cannot just deal with his life without dealing with his death and attempting to separate them will be seen as arrogance to almost anyone aware of this persons name. In the future, when you're interns are throwing around ideas, take a moment to examine and better understanding of the market you peddle your next strategy to.

FAIL

impressed. are votes due to https://twitter.com/cyphunk/status/553116587071635457 ? whitehouse lurking around HN?

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