Ask HN: What can we do to show we don't support the response to Aaron Swartz?
It's clear that petitions are useless, but it's even more egregious when they're promoted by the government and left out to dry for 2 years.
We shouldn't accept this from our government.
I don't want us to be a community of sheeple who complain a little bit, but ultimately just shrug our shoulders. We shouldn't have to stand for reckless, almost-criminal, prosecutorial abuse. It's basically the same as a cop beating up somebody to "make an example"
Should we code something? Organize a rally in the major cities? Write code to make it easy to start rallies? What're some good ideas to show our discontent?
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 123 ms ] threadhttps://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-stat...
Being "apolitical" actually turns out to be a pretty naïve stance on politics. There's a great David Foster Wallace quote about "protest by non-participation" like this:
“If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.”
DFW wrote that 15 years ago at this point. Non-voting isn't some radical new way of showing your disapproval in politics. The fact that you're not voting means they don't have to give a shit about what you think.
Is it the same as voting for mtv awards ? If i don't like any of the "chosen" artists do I still have to vote ?
It can surely save me countless hours of mind numbing music.
Not being involved in the political process just completely removes any influence you have on the process and the outcomes. However, if your belief is that not voting is the right thing to do, then by all means, please abstain from voting. I'd rather only have engaged people vote anyway.
EDIT/Clarification: We don't have a pure democracy in the United States. We have representative democracy and a republic as pointed out below.
"Representative democracy" tells you how decisions are made--we select a few citizens to make decisions on our behalf. "Republic" tells you who is sovereign--in the U.S. the individual citizens have the right and power to rule, and have used that to construct our own government.
Counter examples:
The U.K. is a representative democracy, but not a republic. It's a monarchy.
North Korea is a republic but it's not a democracy. It's an autocracy.
Not very democratic eitherway.
I never claimed I wanted a pure democracy...
Trying to break a third party in any other way is remarkably difficult, as a result of the inertia caused by reasons I listed previously. It's been engineered this way for well over a century by now.
Until you reform ballot access laws, introduce proportional representation on the federal and state level (which will break so much shit it's not funny) and have fairer debate coverage, trying to wrestle in third party candidates through mere vote will be exceedingly implausible/impractical.
Entryism, I suppose, is another option, though it has not been used effectively at all thus far.
There are examples of this happening. Surprise progressive wins. The system doesn't make it easy, but it's possible. It will happen again. But it's a whole lot harder when their supporters choose not to vote.
A cynical potential voter may recognize that the net effect of laws and rules set up around the voting system is to alienate his or her opinion from the results of elections. In that case, declining to vote is a rational and reasonable decision. Most people judge the value of their votes by the perceived impact that their votes have on the results of the election. If you cannot detect a change in public policy as a result of your votes, your vote does literally have zero value.
In that case, you should be doing something else to effect a change in your own situation. I suspect that for most people, working during the time you would ordinarily spend voting then spending the profits on a lobbyist to directly influence an already-elected policy-maker for a specific issue that interests you would be more effective than casting a free ballot.
So the person who casts the deciding vote in a race decides 100% of the election and everyone else 0%? That doesn't sound right...
I'm all for making it easier to vote, though.
Every vote in the entire election could have zero value, if none of the winners change their political stances as a result, and public policy is essentially unchanged from the period before the election.
That's why I see votes on a binding referendum to have more value than races for office between two essentially indistinguishable candidates.
If you strike you probably have 200x as much impact on the political system as somebody who votes.
If you are ready and willing be tear gassed, arrested or beaten up for your beliefs you can help shape politics in a way no voter ever has or will.
Non voting isn't some radical new way of showing your disapproval in politics. It doesn't show that they don't have to give a shit about what you think. It's just tacit recognition of the truth. Individual votes are close to insignificant. Real politics happens elsewhere.
I don't think that's true in the slightest.
Let me paint you a picture. Imagine all there is is the town you live in with your local community. All of a sudden a gang comes in and demands protection money from everyone once a year, or they will cage non-payers. This gang then champions an idea called "democracy" whereby the oppressed sometimes have a cathartic moment where they think they are telling the gang their opinions and making choices on how the gang will run their criminal deeds. Of course, the gang does all in its power, with a lot of rhetoric, to convince the oppressed that only through this "voting" thing that this gang made up, can you really change things in your town. The gang gets every townsfolk to believe it is their duty to participate in this ritual. More importantly, through this propaganda, the gang is able to inculcate in the oppressed that they must shun and mock those that see through the whole charade and refuse to be enablers in this act of submission to the wills of the gang.
You and DFW are both brain-dead.
On paper, voting for a president vs not voting increases your chance of changing the world by about 1 in 50 million. In actuality, no matter who you vote for, its essentially going to be the same type of person.
I think that we are at a point where its still useful to vote in local elections and even in the presidential primaries (in some states, only a few thousand people show up for presidential primaries), but after that, the odds of making a meaningful impact are astronomical.
I still vote in all elections, but when I do it I fully understand that I am wasting my time.
I think your attitude is what's causing the problem. Many politicians realized, decades ago, that fear and social issues could be used to redirect people's attention (abortion, gay marriage, flag burning, threat of terrorism). They also realized that frustration is an effective weapon to disarm the people--a frustrated population is much more likely to turn away from the process, like you have, and disengage. Once you disengage, you have no voice and no power.
They tell you you rule the country, but you have to tell them what you want, through these voting things.
Then they ignore those voting things and just do as they please.
Then the fools that believed they could change their oppressor's mind with voting things, get upset that the voting things didn't work.
The gang assures you that voting things work.
So you're left to believe that the reason the system doesn't work is because not enough people are using the voting things.
Yeah! They're the problem! Oh no, look away! - the gang threatening to throw you in a cage for not paying protection money isn't the problem, because you see, they are you since they have assured you that you are in control, through these voting things.
That's the circular reasoning they use to take down your thinking skills. I'm impressed it only took this much to fool you, as this is really basic rhetoric that most children can see through.
Yes, let's change our oppressor ways through oppressor-approved means, because there's no oppressor, as our oppressor keeps telling us. Genius.
The issue is that it is easier to say they are all corrupt than it is to go out, do the homework, speak to the candidates, and then determine which ones mean what they say.
Instead of complaining about the system, why don't you learn the system and then do something about it.
In the off chance you see this (since this post has been flag-killed), I'll answer this question for you.
I worked on the tech team of a well-known political consulting firm for a few years out of college. While I was not a consultant myself, nor have I run for office, I have seen up close what it takes to get elected.
First of all, by far most politicians are egoists to the point of being sociopathic. This is not a coincidence, this is who our current political system favors. It's not necessarily all the fault of our forefathers, however (who definitely had the right idea, just the wrong implementation). It's the particular combination of two-party democracy with mass media that has led to this state of affairs. To get ahead in this environment, it's a huge help if you believe that you are dramatically smarter, better-looking, and more charming than the next guy or gal.
Rational people, who are able to quantitatively and honestly say to themselves, I'm pretty smart, but X and Y are better analytic thinkers, and Z and W have better social intelligence, are at a distinct disadvantage in this kind of system.
And then, there are a handful of true idealists who have succeeded in this environment. Without exception, and regardless of party, all of these people have compromised at least some of their core values, and few of them are able to even accomplish the smallest of tasks to further their ideals, because of all the moral and ethical compromises that they have made to get to where they are.
And then there are a very small handful of idealistic people who hang on to most of their ideals, and manage to gain a respectable number of followers. When they move to make big gains, the system crushes these outliers. I give you Howard Dean and Ron Paul as examples of this phenomenon on opposite ends of the political spectrum.
So no, individual honest people, by their very nature, have very little chance at winning elections in this kind of system. Collectively, they have no chance.
The system is fundamentally broken, and the sooner smart, intelligent people are able to admit this, the sooner we can fix things.
Edit: I will add one thing that you're absolutely correct about. Local (county and municipal) government is the last bastion of honest people (and the only elections I still vote in), because it's the one place where traditional campaigns are not run. Particularly in small counties and cities, people are elected on their actual reputations instead of how they run a campaign.
But when they try to move up to Congress, they have little chance against a well-funded politician of the type I describe above (and absent self-funding by a wealthy candidate, the dishonest politician will inevitably raise more funds, since it's easier to raise funds if you have no moral or ethical boundaries about who you accept funds from, and how you raise them).
Because the way you put it makes it seem like you are blind to some of the most basic government propaganda. Of course oppressor gangs will want you to believe you can only change the way you're oppressed through their approved means. That's part of being an oppressor, lying to your victims to keep them from revolting, convincing them the only way to change is through these meticulous set of steps, that they have to talk to so and so, establish this and that, fill this form out, sign here, fingerprint this, get in line, come back tomorrow, we'll let you know when we've made a decision on your case, to finally tell you nothing will be done regarding your concern.
Wake up.
If that's the case, why not launch a petition to, e.g. require an investigation when somebody under investigation commits suicide? (not an idea I've thought through, btw, but my point is there's ways to address this within the terms)
Firstly, please spell his name correctly. It's Aaron Swartz. That respects him and makes sure that your audience isn't distracted by that tiny detail and can focus on your message.
Secondly, the petition was too narrow and targeted the individual prosecutor for that case. Even if she was removed, it wouldn't prevent the same sort of thing happening again.
The larger issue (and one closer to the point) is that the law is broken.
- There are overlapping laws such that Swartz was charged with several distinct offences for what was fundamentally a single (though repeated) action.
- Maximum sentences for such offences (crimes against property, in particular those that use technology, even crimes that are on the face of it relatively victimless) are grossly overstated when compared to violent crimes.
- Prosecutors are permitted to present the charges in a way that maximizes the sentencing, by adding them consecutively.
- All of the above points join together to maximize the number of cases where the defendant pleads guilty to avoid a court case, so there is a ridiculously small number of such cases that go to trial (and a correspondingly vast majority of cases of which the defendant is, as a result, convicted), even where the defendant is actually innocent of some or all charges, or when it is likely that a trial could result in a not guilty verdict.
No reasonable person could say Swartz deserved 35 years in prison for what he is alleged to have done. The legal system that enabled Ortiz to present the charges as she did is much bigger than any prosecutorial overreach she is accused of in that petition. Let's not make it about one prosecutor. Let's make it about all of them.
The prosecutors threatened Swartz not with 35 years, but with ~7. 7 years is also a ludicrous sentence. But it was also an unrealistic sentence: under the sentencing guidelines, Swartz was likely to face (if convicted) a sentence denominated in months not years, and --- according to his own lawyer, and observable from the actual sentencing guidelines --- one that probably could have made the probation cutoff to avoid any custodial time.
So, your third bulleted suggestion isn't valid: CFAA crimes are already not sentenced "consecutively".
What seems clear now is that the prosecutors were determined to have Swartz sentenced for some amount of prison time (they offered a plea deal with a very short sentence, and rejected any deals that failed to put Swartz in prison at all). That is a problem. The first half of your comment captures it. Sentencing rules for individual CFAA charges scale up so rapidly, and people are so rarely charged under them, that CFAA cases are high-status vanity projects for the US Attorney's office.
Obligatory:
https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc...
From it:
> When the government quotes the maximum sentence, they are trying to scare you.
> When the press quotes it, they are uninformed or lazy.
The first is what I intended to imply: Prosecutors are permitted to scare the bejaysus out of defendants by quoting statutory maxima (not, as could be inferred, that they can present that to the judge.)
The second is what I was guilty of ;)
A 1-2 year worst case sentence follows pretty straightforwardly from the actual sentencing guidelines if you look at them. However, there are mitigating factors in the Swartz case: first-time offender, non-remunerative offense, unenthusiastic victims. Probation was a real possibility. 7 years was not.
The Federal Sentencing Guidelines work that way, but the federal sentencing guidelines are not mandatory (due to U.S. v. Booker) and sentences which exceed what the guidelines allow but which are within the range specified in law for the specific crimes the defendant was convicted of are issued and upheld. So unless there is some mandatory requirement outside of the guidelines for concurrent sentencing or grouping, the maximum potential sentence is, in fact, not the maximum supported by the guidelines grouping rules, but the maximum supported by adding up the punishments for the individual offenses.
The most likely sentence may be one within the range provided by the guidelines, but that's not the maximum potential.
Edit: here's one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7999002 --- 'pdabbadabba is a lawyer, I think. The author of that Popehat post is, FWIW to other readers, a former prosecutor.
I would have been chucked into jail for a year in theory, if they could get it past a grand jury, since there was/is sufficient evidence. The only reason it never went that far is because I cooperated with the FBI in other regards that I cannot disclose.
I can assure you that no harm was done to anyone. It was/is a technical violation of the letter of the law.
Targeting the individual is crucial.
Carmen Ortiz has already done significant damage to her career over this. She hasn't been fired (yet), but in all likelihood she is never going to rise above her current position. She's damaged goods. That's a good thing.
Any future prosecutor is already likely to approach a similar case with trepidation instead as they weigh up the risks of the public backlash vs. the possibility of making some powerful friends. That's a (small) measure of success.
>Let's not make it about one prosecutor.
To be honest, this is probably the lever that is most likely to achieve results. Indeed, it probably already has. Muted grumbling about 'the system' does not achieve results anywhere close to making a powerful individual fearful of a ruined reputation.
I don't agree with your general overtone. Is it fair that they can make an example out of us, but we can't make an example out of them? Should my ire really be with the law (a tool) or the person executing the law (using her tool) to aggressively vilify an innocent, bright kid? We're humans living amongst humans; let's not forget that.
Your assertion that "the larger issue is that the law is broken" gives us nowhere to go, no way to express our discontent, and really just supports the perpetual armchair bravado. How is the law going to change if no one does anything about it? Do you think having an intelligent debate right now will solve anything? As if some senator is going to catch wind of our discussion, and think he's found himself a calling. No, the government doesn't do anything unless you make a scene; I learned that from Aaron and SOPA.
Ortiz is not just some innocent victim who was blindly following the law. She made this her case and went after it vigorously. Ortiz is the representative we use to express our hatred on because it's impossible to "make it about all of them." There's plenty of good prosecutors out there who aren't scumbags who want to see a genius rot in jail to prove a point or make an example. What're we going to do? Point our finger at all prosectuors and say "Look what you did to Aaron!" No, there's one person here who's most responsible and all eyes are on her for a reason.
I argue we want to use Ortiz the way they wanted to use Aaron. We make an example. Hopefully then, people will actually work on changing the law.
EDIT: For what it's worth, I did still find your post very enlightening and informative. I'm just not convinced Ortiz is not to blame.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/439578912/nyt-ad-challe...
If there aren't any representatives that you support, run for office. Dedicate your life to making these changes. Convince others that these are important issues, convince them to donate to your campaign and to vote for you.
The problem is, this is a hard road to take. And, truth be told, people don't really care enough to do the actual, hard work. They'd prefer to retweet some quote, maybe change their facebook profile picture for a week, if they're really serious about something. But ultimately, that doesn't get people elected, it doesn't put someone in office working to make the change. Best-case scenario, it gets some lip service from a 4-term representative. How much do you care? Do you care enough to actually get out there and actually push for change? Or do you just want to sit on the Internet and complain, and do a little comfortable work that ultimately sits in a GitHub account and rots?
There isn't an easy solution. It's going to take a lot of work to convince people to collectively vote for change in this area. This is why the government is set up the way it is. Every 6 years, it's possible to replace essentially 2/3's of the government (Executive & Representative).
Unfortunately, I imagine that most people truly don't care about this "prosecutorial abuse". He knowingly broke rules & laws, and the government went after him. He had an opportunity to take a plea deal and chose to kill himself instead. Sad? Absolutely. But you'll have a hard time getting enough people motivated enough to vote accordingly. There are other issues that people care more passionately about: budgets, social issues, foreign policy, economic issues, etc. That's why I said at the beginning to start locally, because that's probably your best bet on this particular issue.
In the government, activism is the programming. The most effective way to get involved is to find a nonprofit or similar org that addresses your issue, and help grow their influence (donate, volunteer, etc). The EFF and CDT (Center for Democracy in Technology) are two groups that are working to adjust/clarify/fix the CFAA and how cybercrime is prosecuted.
Voting helps because activism is always easier if elected officials already agree with you. The threat of voting can also help get officials off the fence if they believe that they'll lose their office if they oppose your issue.
What are some of the causes of the problem?
What are some of the effects of the problem?
If the problem disappeared today, what side-effects would it have on the rest of the world?
What, given all of the answers to these questions, would be a solution that solves the commonly agreed upon problem (usually by solving the causes for said problem rather than the problem itself) with minimal negative side-effects?
"Should we code something? Organize a rally in the major cities? Write code to make it easy to start rallies? What're some good ideas to show our discontent?"
No, those are actions. What good is an action without a solution in mind? Plan then act. Don't act without a plan.
Symptoms include laws written for the rich and the corporations rather than for the people, causing the continued growth of inequality and a drag on the economy.
Support Lawrence Lessig in his efforts to solve this root problem!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g
He departs on the second of his New Hampshire Rebellion walks on Sunday.
He is also an idiot for killing himself. If he believed what he was doing was right he should have been willing to face the consequences. To me, killing himself is an admission that what he did was wrong and stupid.
Should he have been thrown in jail for 7 years? Well; he would have had more years alive after he got out then he does now.
Edit: Fuck Swartz. More clear?
Pirating is bad because it supposedly takes money out of the content producers' pockets (let's ignore the studies that suggest the contrary).
The people who produced the content for the journals he "intentionally [pirated]" were not paid for the content they created. They, the content creators, are not hurt by someone pirating their research (most of which was funded by taxpayers).
Additionally, society is benefited by more people being exposed to the knowledge of publicly funded scientific research.
Legally, you are correct, but outside that microcosm, conflating what Aaron did with piracy misses the point.
> He is also an idiot for killing himself
Oh just fuck off.
JSTOR are good guys, with the same mission Swartz claimed to have--they were making journals more available and at less cost than they would have been without JSTOR.
Most scientific research done in the United States is publicly funded and therefore should be publicly available at no cost to the public. Less cost might sound like a good idea on paper, but no cost is fair.
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23canhazpdf&src=typd
I support what Aaron wanted to do, and hope to dissuade as many people as I can from publishing their research in closed-access journals.
It costs JSTOR money to get permission to use the material from the publishers. It costs JSTOR money to digitize print journals. How would you suggest that JSTOR get the money for that?
Because of JSTOR, public libraries, community colleges, non-profit research institutions, and many universities outside of the top tier research universities can get organization wide access to large collections of journals for orders of magnitude less than it would cost them without JSTOR, and they can let the general public use their access for free.
Individuals can buy JSTOR subscriptions covering thousands of journals for less than it would cost to subscribe to one individual journal directly.
Yes, that's not as good as no cost, but it is a tremendous improvement over what the world would be like without JSTOR, and that's a good thing.
I agree, but that's not really my concern.
> How would you suggest that JSTOR get the money for that?
I don't suggest they get the money for that. I'm more of a "let's topple the giants" sort of guy.
JSTOR's survival/profitability is not my concern. The free diffusion of publicly funded research is. And, frankly, I don't care if that makes me a bad person.
I feel the same way about the for-profit closed-door academic research publishing model as I do about the fossil fuel industry. :)
> It costs JSTOR money to get permission to use the material from the publishers. It costs JSTOR money to digitize print journals.
JSTOR can keep doing what they're doing. I have no problem with their existence. I just want to stop people from publishing exclusively in journals that can only be made available to the public for a cost.
Then eventually we won't need JSTOR anymore.
> Because of JSTOR, public libraries, community colleges, non-profit research institutions, and many universities outside of the top tier research universities can get organization wide access to large collections of journals for orders of magnitude less than it would cost them without JSTOR, and they can let the general public use their access for free.
But it's still a cost that can be avoided by scientists boycotting the publications that JSTOR has to spend money to obtain permission from and digitize.