<story><title>Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office</title><url>https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jowiar</author><text>Which is a useless message to send. People make mistakes. Period. A system which is not robust to people making mistakes is disastrously broken.</text></item><item><author>w1ntermute</author><text>All the good she&apos;s done doesn&apos;t matter, because when you&apos;re a prosecutor, all it takes is one mistake and you&apos;ve could have blood on your hands. Firing her would send a message to other prosecutors that mistakes will not be tolerated.</text></item><item><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>Sure, but I don&apos;t know if it would move the copyright reform question along. Copyright is very broken in a number of ways but there is broad consensus in people I&apos;ve talked to that it is especially broken with regards to public records and science research. In the best of all possible worlds Aaron would have been acquitted with a landmark decision that said &quot;this use of copyright in rent seeking behavior on documents of public discourse is unconstitutional.&quot;[1] Aaron was doing perhaps more than he knew to push this conversation along, had I known he was in such dire straits in his defense fund I would have helped in any way I could have. Clearly others would as well.&lt;p&gt;If you look at Carmen&apos;s career you will find that she has actually done a lot of good, in getting bad folks put behind bars. She, or her staff, blew it on this one. I wish I knew why. I doubt we&apos;ll get the actual story there.&lt;p&gt;So to what end would ending her career advance Aaron&apos;s goal of getting copyright on public records overturned? Making people &quot;afraid&quot; to prosecute it is the wrong answer, making it &quot;not a crime&quot; is the answer. There are only two ways to do that, one is to repeal the statute that makes it a crime in the first place, the second is to litigate the statute and find that the statute is invalid.&lt;p&gt;Firing Carmen doesn&apos;t help, although I completely understand the emotional appeal of doing so.&lt;p&gt;[1] I know that would not have happened it is illustrative.</text></item><item><author>jordanb</author><text>Ending her career would set a very clear precedent that other prosecutors would have no difficulty understanding. N&apos;est pas?</text></item><item><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>My Grandfather, who was the US Attorney for west Memphis, once explained that prosecuting the law was messy. It was messy because there was rarely a case which hinged on exactly one part of the law or that had circumstances that nicely isolated the principle at stake. He was talking about pornography, and the difficulty of a general consensus that pornography was &quot;bad&quot; and should be outlawed, with the challenge of defining exactly what it was and the actual &quot;bad&quot; part of it.&lt;p&gt;I see a lot of parallels between his struggle to enforce pornography laws with the current struggle to enforce copyright laws. These situations seem to arise when there is a fundamental disconnect between what &quot;the people&quot; think and what &quot;the system&quot; thinks. &quot;The system&quot; is represented by a codified set of strictures that are put in place by a variety of people representing what they assert are the best interests of &quot;the people.&quot; Whereas the people themselves, act in what they consider a rational way given their understanding of or perhaps agreement to, the laws of the land. Finally our system of laws are a combination of written text, and argued cases, and the sum of those is an emergent thing thought of as public policy. When the rational acting people don&apos;t consent to the public policy, there is a rash of disobedience, and whether it is alcohol, porn, or copyright, the process of emerging to a consensus is challenging at best.&lt;p&gt;One possible explanation for the zeal in which this case was pursued may be the lack of confounding factors with respect to copyright infringement, as codified by law. I don&apos;t know of course so this is just speculation. Having a clear, published, decision on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of what Aaron was doing might have been seen as a way to clear up a confusing pile of statutes and other decisions. An unambiguous marker between fair use and infringement, or perhaps a litmus test for intent. We&apos;ll probably never know.</text></item><item><author>danso</author><text>Some more context about the prosecutor:&lt;p&gt;She was named &quot;Bostonian of the Year&quot; for her successful cases against mob bosses and drug companies:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mainjustice.com/2012/01/03/massachusetts-u-s-attorney-carmen-ortiz-is-bostonian-of-the-year/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mainjustice.com/2012/01/03/massachusetts-u-s-atto...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Out of the 94 U.S. DA offices, her office alone collected ~67% of the total criminal and civil fines in 2012, mostly owing to the successful prosecution of drug companies. Her success led to speculation that she would run for higher office:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mainjustice.com/2013/01/07/mass-u-s-attorney-carmen-ortiz-says-no-to-run-for-higher-office/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mainjustice.com/2013/01/07/mass-u-s-attorney-carm...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;She is no stranger to being part of a disenfranchised group, as she was the first Hispanic and first woman to hold the position of U.S. attorney in Boston. Her first internship was with the DOJ&apos;s public integrity unit, created after Watergate:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/12/30/bostonian_of_the_year_carmen_ortiz_2011/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;She&apos;s not of the &quot;evil prosecutor&quot; mold as is commonly thought and her background, particularly her history of fighting white-collar crime and corporations, doesn&apos;t strike me as someone who is intent on screwing the little guy over. That said, the seemingly-excessive charges could stem from a result of misconception and, let&apos;s face it, technological ignorance (hacking sounds bad, period). But in solving the overall problem in the justice system, let&apos;s not attribute to malice what can be attributed to other issues just yet.&lt;p&gt;--
One edit: a link to a piece by Aaron on yelling at the machine, rather than the person:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/nummi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/nummi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;My intent is not to say that the petition is wrong, but to argue that if people are going to call for action, call it for the right and &lt;i&gt;productive&lt;/i&gt; reasons, rather than simplifying cause and effect to just one main person (even if the buck technically stops with her).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jlgreco</author><text>Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.&lt;p&gt;If you get drunk, hop in your car, and accidentally kill some people, then guess what?  It doesn&apos;t matter if it was an accident.  If your &quot;accident&quot; is big enough, it becomes indistinguishable from malice and you get held accountable.</text></comment>
<story><title>Petition the Whitehouse to remove Carmen Ortiz from office</title><url>https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jowiar</author><text>Which is a useless message to send. People make mistakes. Period. A system which is not robust to people making mistakes is disastrously broken.</text></item><item><author>w1ntermute</author><text>All the good she&apos;s done doesn&apos;t matter, because when you&apos;re a prosecutor, all it takes is one mistake and you&apos;ve could have blood on your hands. Firing her would send a message to other prosecutors that mistakes will not be tolerated.</text></item><item><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>Sure, but I don&apos;t know if it would move the copyright reform question along. Copyright is very broken in a number of ways but there is broad consensus in people I&apos;ve talked to that it is especially broken with regards to public records and science research. In the best of all possible worlds Aaron would have been acquitted with a landmark decision that said &quot;this use of copyright in rent seeking behavior on documents of public discourse is unconstitutional.&quot;[1] Aaron was doing perhaps more than he knew to push this conversation along, had I known he was in such dire straits in his defense fund I would have helped in any way I could have. Clearly others would as well.&lt;p&gt;If you look at Carmen&apos;s career you will find that she has actually done a lot of good, in getting bad folks put behind bars. She, or her staff, blew it on this one. I wish I knew why. I doubt we&apos;ll get the actual story there.&lt;p&gt;So to what end would ending her career advance Aaron&apos;s goal of getting copyright on public records overturned? Making people &quot;afraid&quot; to prosecute it is the wrong answer, making it &quot;not a crime&quot; is the answer. There are only two ways to do that, one is to repeal the statute that makes it a crime in the first place, the second is to litigate the statute and find that the statute is invalid.&lt;p&gt;Firing Carmen doesn&apos;t help, although I completely understand the emotional appeal of doing so.&lt;p&gt;[1] I know that would not have happened it is illustrative.</text></item><item><author>jordanb</author><text>Ending her career would set a very clear precedent that other prosecutors would have no difficulty understanding. N&apos;est pas?</text></item><item><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>My Grandfather, who was the US Attorney for west Memphis, once explained that prosecuting the law was messy. It was messy because there was rarely a case which hinged on exactly one part of the law or that had circumstances that nicely isolated the principle at stake. He was talking about pornography, and the difficulty of a general consensus that pornography was &quot;bad&quot; and should be outlawed, with the challenge of defining exactly what it was and the actual &quot;bad&quot; part of it.&lt;p&gt;I see a lot of parallels between his struggle to enforce pornography laws with the current struggle to enforce copyright laws. These situations seem to arise when there is a fundamental disconnect between what &quot;the people&quot; think and what &quot;the system&quot; thinks. &quot;The system&quot; is represented by a codified set of strictures that are put in place by a variety of people representing what they assert are the best interests of &quot;the people.&quot; Whereas the people themselves, act in what they consider a rational way given their understanding of or perhaps agreement to, the laws of the land. Finally our system of laws are a combination of written text, and argued cases, and the sum of those is an emergent thing thought of as public policy. When the rational acting people don&apos;t consent to the public policy, there is a rash of disobedience, and whether it is alcohol, porn, or copyright, the process of emerging to a consensus is challenging at best.&lt;p&gt;One possible explanation for the zeal in which this case was pursued may be the lack of confounding factors with respect to copyright infringement, as codified by law. I don&apos;t know of course so this is just speculation. Having a clear, published, decision on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of what Aaron was doing might have been seen as a way to clear up a confusing pile of statutes and other decisions. An unambiguous marker between fair use and infringement, or perhaps a litmus test for intent. We&apos;ll probably never know.</text></item><item><author>danso</author><text>Some more context about the prosecutor:&lt;p&gt;She was named &quot;Bostonian of the Year&quot; for her successful cases against mob bosses and drug companies:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mainjustice.com/2012/01/03/massachusetts-u-s-attorney-carmen-ortiz-is-bostonian-of-the-year/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mainjustice.com/2012/01/03/massachusetts-u-s-atto...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Out of the 94 U.S. DA offices, her office alone collected ~67% of the total criminal and civil fines in 2012, mostly owing to the successful prosecution of drug companies. Her success led to speculation that she would run for higher office:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mainjustice.com/2013/01/07/mass-u-s-attorney-carmen-ortiz-says-no-to-run-for-higher-office/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mainjustice.com/2013/01/07/mass-u-s-attorney-carm...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;She is no stranger to being part of a disenfranchised group, as she was the first Hispanic and first woman to hold the position of U.S. attorney in Boston. Her first internship was with the DOJ&apos;s public integrity unit, created after Watergate:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/12/30/bostonian_of_the_year_carmen_ortiz_2011/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;She&apos;s not of the &quot;evil prosecutor&quot; mold as is commonly thought and her background, particularly her history of fighting white-collar crime and corporations, doesn&apos;t strike me as someone who is intent on screwing the little guy over. That said, the seemingly-excessive charges could stem from a result of misconception and, let&apos;s face it, technological ignorance (hacking sounds bad, period). But in solving the overall problem in the justice system, let&apos;s not attribute to malice what can be attributed to other issues just yet.&lt;p&gt;--
One edit: a link to a piece by Aaron on yelling at the machine, rather than the person:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/nummi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/nummi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;My intent is not to say that the petition is wrong, but to argue that if people are going to call for action, call it for the right and &lt;i&gt;productive&lt;/i&gt; reasons, rather than simplifying cause and effect to just one main person (even if the buck technically stops with her).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>randallsquared</author><text>Getting a prosecutor fired is orders of magnitude easier than meaningfully changing the system.</text></comment>