Comments on: Aaron Swartz case dismissed posthumously by US District Court

By: Frank Stein

Frank Stein — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 20:53:00 +0000

what if the judge would have said, “no you cannot dismiss it. the trial goes on as scheduled”. Then force the Feds to come up with a case and try him. Let the jury decide guilt. It would be a great way to embarrass the inquisitioners.

By: J. Williams

J. Williams — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 05:02:00 +0000

I am one that does not need a lesson on Black history…I don’t really care about what he did. MY comment is directly as I stated it before, do not use her an example. Way off…have a good one.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 04:10:00 +0000

Um, the law (City Ordinance of Montgomery) stated that City Officials, represented by the Driver, could assign seating on the bus in order to maintain MANDATORY SEGREGATION. Rosa Parks, justifiably so, intentionally violated this law after repeatedly protesting it’s unfairness.
She continually violated and protested this LAW for at least 12 YEARS, before finally being arrested in 1955. She was also married to a ranking member of the NAACP and in 1943 she became an active member, promoting civil rights. Again, 12 years prior to her arrest on the bus. The law was unjust, she broke it.
This was never a case of someone who was just tired and being bullied, it was the case of a strong woman who was tired of being pushed around (not weary, fed up) and started fighting back… ending in a HUGE step forward for civil rights.
So I agree, what this guy did was not Rosa Parks… what this guy did was barely even wrong and should have gone relatively unnoticed. What Rosa did was somewhat heroic, even when you understand the context of her decades long efforts.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 04:01:00 +0000

If it’s so important to put white collar criminals in prison, lets start at the top. Make an example out of the shot callers.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 04:00:00 +0000

Damned straight. If the “victim” doesn’t give a shit, why should we waste tax dollars to persecute the “offender”? This was bullshit from day 1, and since when do we have excessive jail time for any white collar type crime? HSBC was not prosecuted, why is this guy singled out? This was at BEST as civil matter between him and the “victim” and they declined both civil and criminal litigation. That alone should have been a BIG clue to the prosecution.

By: miranda e

miranda e — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 16:29:00 +0000

You did really well Aaron Swartz. Now,you can rest in peace.

By: zeth006

zeth006 — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:56:00 +0000

>Like Rosa Parks, he took a stand. He broke laws.

I stopped reading after this line. Post after post demonstrates such shallowness of thought.

By: zeth006

zeth006 — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:55:00 +0000

I’m really glad people are starting to wake up to the reality of the justice system. It’s a two-track system where we give HSBC executives a free pass when we catch them laundering money for Mexican drug lords and countries like Iran but we threaten some techie bloke with 50 years for something like this.

I’m just waiting for someone to bleat “But he broke the law…” for the 100th time.

By: Vandana

Vandana — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:55:00 +0000

Thank you. Yes. Our standardized consequences of removing the crime-doer from society does neither side any good.
The goal of justice must to rehab a person for social good as in ‘serving community hours’ or better still:
learning manual skills that society will appreciate and rehabilitate a persons’ misbehaviors learnt in that same society.
What people must realize is that if a ‘village raises the child’ then the village has to deal with the consequence of raising a good or bad behaving citizen.
Not hold the person ‘accountable as a mature adult since he/she is 18 years old.’

By: zeth006

zeth006 — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:55:00 +0000

Yes, Mr. Obvious. We all know the purpose and function of copyright laws. Don’t go on and recite the ABCs for us.

By: Me

Me — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 07:00:00 +0000

50 years for a non-violent crime where the only loss is monetary, and of questionable value. If they intend to put this kind of offender in prison, it needs to be a special “thought crime” prison. A special prison where they do “manual labor” such as writing .gov web-pages, and creating software patches for the public good. Let the punishment fit the crime, not this sort of travesty. My heart goes out to his family.

By: aparent

aparent — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 03:50:00 +0000

How terribly sad.My heart goes out to the parents of this brave young man.

By: Vandana

Vandana — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 03:26:00 +0000

Who began copyrights and patent? Why? Most cultures used to be fine with passing on knowledge, stories, etc without care of ownership…just trade, etc.
What is ‘better?’ Better than what?
Creativity is ‘Priceless.’

By: J. Williams

J. Williams — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 00:16:00 +0000

DO NOT USE Rosa Parks as example, don’t do it!! WAYYYYYYYYYYY off, she did not break the law!

By: counsel

counsel — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 00:15:00 +0000

Chris… Like Rosa Parks, he took a stand. He broke laws. That they wanted charges dropped means little. The legal system gives the prosecutor the discretion whether to bring a case. If someone installed a camera and had naked pics of you that were not released… Prosecute or not? The ‘state’s’ interest and ours are not always the same…

Here, the prosecutor, IMHO, should have used his/her discretion to simply negotiate a plea deal such as making PSAs or helping MIT with security in return for the charges being dismissed after the terms of the plea were satisfied… Jail time for this was, IMHO, wrong…

By: counsel

counsel — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 00:08:00 +0000

Copyright has a place… Imagine you spend 3 years making a movie or writing a book… You funded the project and, now, have debt. Should that creativity not be encouraged through some protection?

You are right thawe can, however, do better…

By: rtqp

rtqp — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 23:37:00 +0000

it was not fair to threaten this lad with 50 years of prison time, unless you intend to threaten wall street with 500 years of prison time. disgusting.

By: Vandana

Vandana — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 23:35:00 +0000

Copyright, sharing info, free giving away of stories/books/literature is being challenged and questioned all over the globe.
I ask: According to present legal system, he may have done wrong. What about the future law? There is going to be a new law soon, eventually.
Think: How do you relate with literature which is past 40 years old and is free of copyright laws?
Where could the human race be if right now we decide free access and no copyright/patent laws for just plain good of humans?
Money pursuit seems to the only reason for territorial attitudes/laws and the consequent ugliness in our societies.

By: rtqp

rtqp — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 23:32:00 +0000

it’s also possible he decided he didn’t want to contribute any more to a world where work people put in the public domain is locked up and profited off of by corporate entities. call it OPTING OUT

By: Zebelious

Zebelious — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 22:53:00 +0000

Did you equally protest when the American Financial Institutions took your children’s future right out?

By: Kangta Talusan

Kangta Talusan — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 22:48:00 +0000

He fought for what he believed is right. It is sad to see someone pass away knowing he could provide so much more that what he has done. R.I.P. Mr. Swartz. People will remember you more and again in the near future when the government has taken our right to freedom of information.

By: Chris Burns

Chris Burns — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 21:59:00 +0000

What did he do that was wrong? The company whose files he pushed to the public domain didn’t want to persecute him. What harm did his lawbreaking do?

By: imaguy

imaguy — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 21:40:00 +0000

breaking the law is not the way to make what you did legal. do it right. i understand his passion but he did it all wrong and couldn’t face the consequence