The suicide of famed programmer and free access advocate Aaron Swartz shocked the world. However, the underlying story of the how the Obama Administration prosecuted — and, in the eyes of many, persecuted — Swartz for seeking to publish academic papers which were later released by MIT without charge. Nevertheless, United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and the Obama Administration relentlessly pursued Swartz and sought an absurd 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines before he took his own life. His family blames the Justice Department and Ortiz for his suicide. Swartz opposed the Administration’s fight against public access and particularly President Obama’s “Kill List.” The Swartz prosecution was widely criticized for months but the Obama Administration and Justice Department remained committed to putting him in jail.
Swartz was one of this country’s most extraordinary individuals. At age 14, he helped create RSS, the tool allowing people to subscribe to online information. He later was a founder of a company that merged with Reddit where we get many of our daily stories.
Swartz, 26, hanged himself and appears to have suffered from depression. Thus, the prosecution cannot be entirely attributed with his death. However, the Obama Administration hammered Swartz for months over his downloading of academic articles. Swartz has long been an advocate for public access to information. Like many of us, Swartz was critical of increasingly stringent laws balkanizing information in our society from works to words to even common images. He however took that crusade to extraordinary lengths.
In 2008, he took on PACER, or Public Access to Court Electronic Records, for its charging of 10 cents a page for documents. I agreed with Swartz about this charge as being a barrier to public access to our courts and important cases. He argued correctly that there should be free access. He co-founded Demand Progress to seek online access and fought for social reforms. The federal government, at the behest of industry groups, shutdown his free library program.
In 2011, Swartz took on JSTOR, the academic repository of papers and research. It is a subscription based service. He broke into the computer system at MIT through a utility closet using a laptop and a false identity. He downloaded 4.8 million documents. Notably, however, MIT chose not to pursue charges — to its credit. For many years, academics argued that such material should be free to the public as a matter of principle. Two days before Swartz’s death, MIT releases all documents publicly free of charge.
However, despite MIT’s position that it did not want to bring charges, Carmen M. Ortiz saw her chance. 
Ortiz is the United States Attorney for Massachusetts and a graduate of our law school who spoke recently at our commencement. Industry groups and lobbyists have long gotten what they wanted from Obama on criminalizing trademark and copyright violations. States have shown the same capture by industry groups. Swartz was a prime target as an advocate of public access and the Obama Administration threw everything that they had at him.
There is no question that Swartz crossed the line and broke into the system. However, given MIT’s position against charging Swartz, it would seem a case for prosecutorial discretion or a deal with Swartz. After all, students commit such acts regularly (though certainly not to the size of this download) without charges. Ortiz, however, sought decades in jail and ruinous fines to the great pleasure of the copyright hawks that run throughout the Administration. To the Administration, Swartz was just another felon who needed to be jailed for decades for his crime.
It is doubtful that the Administration will take any action to reduce the stranglehold on creativity and discussion by these laws. The Administration has brought in copyright hawks into the Administration and appointed them to the courts in a windfall for industry.
MIT has started an investigation into any role the school may have played in the prosecution by the Obama Administration. What is notable is that Swartz’s treatment at the hands of the Justice Department has caused outrage. However, thousands of average citizens have been ravaged by the Administration or industry law firms like the U.S. Copyright Group under these laws without attention or concern.
The abuse of Swartz speaks of industry capture of our government that has now claimed the life of one of the brightest of our country. He is the ultimate personification of how our copyright and trademark laws have been flipped on their head. Rather than protect creativity, they now stifle such creativity. We now have prosecutors and lawyers pursuing people like Swartz to prevent public access to information. His tragic image hanging in his apartment speaks to the dismal state of information control in this country. His was truly a beautiful mind and his death should galvanize his cause to empower citizens in their demand to breakdown the rising barriers to information in this country.
Source: NY Times
ap,
Yeah … well we both know there are other possibilities but then you and I are somewhat cynical … though I think we’d both prefer the term, realists.
Blouise,
I fear I might also be “realistic” in the msnner you describe.
If there was one, I trust it has been secured by the family. -Blouise
Blouise, I hope that’s the case…
“(It seems odd to me that he didn’t but, absent any other information, … )” (ap)
If there was one, I trust it has been secured by the family.
Aaron Swartz’s FOIA Requests Shed Light on His Struggle
Wednesday, 16 January 2013
By Jason Leopold, Truthout | Report
http://truth-out.org/news/item/13945-cyberactivist-aaron-swartz-legacy-of-open-government-efforts-continues
Excerpt, but recommending the entire article.:
“Rankled By ICE Domain Name Seizures
Morisy, the Muckrock founder, said Swartz was particularly disturbed by actions on the part of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that led to the seizure of dozens of Internet domain names. He filed a FOIA in December 2010 with the agency in hopes of prying loose documents about its actions.
“That really bothered him,” Morisy said about the domain name seizures. “He felt it was politicized. He was just really upset that the government could come in and do this.”
ICE turned over to Swartz last October about 100 pages of heavily redacted documents. But the materials do not help explain the government’s actions.
Morisy said he was working on an appeal for Swartz to send to ICE, a draft of which was ready at the time of his death last week. He added that Swartz expressed some interest in working with advocacy organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), to “raise awareness about these issues and effect change.”
“It wasn’t just a curiosity for him,” Morisy said about Swartz’s FOIA requests. “He wanted to see something done differently.”
Free Speech Advocate
Swartz also sought government records related to Pfc. Bradley Manning, the intelligence analyst accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of State Department cables and other documents to WikiLeaks. Specifically, Swartz’s December 27, 2010 FOIA request asked the Marine Corps to “please process as quickly as possible a request for the government-curated audio tapes created in Quantico brig visitation room #2 on December 18 and December 19 2010 from 1:00pm – 3:00pm.
“These tapes may also contain a recording of David M. House; I have permission from David House under the Privacy Act to request these records,” Swartz wrote. He filed the same request with the Army Criminal Investigative Service on February 9, 2011. Both requests were denied because the “requested documents are part of an ongoing Army court-martial litigation are not releasable to the public at this time.”
House is a founding member of the Bradley Manning Support Network who helped raise awareness about the conditions of Manning’s detention, which a military judge recently ruled was illegal. In June 2011, House was subpoeaned to appear before a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, which is reportedly investigating Wikileaks and associations a group of Boston-area hackers may have had with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and/or Manning.
House declined to comment about Swartz’s FOIA.
Morisy said Swartz “was very interested in due process and the freedom of speech issues.” That certainly appeared to be the common thread in all of his FOIA requests.
But it was also deeply personal for Swartz.
Indeed, one of his FOIA requests sought from the United States Secret Service, “Any records on the procedures the Secret Service uses for reading encrypted hard disks.” Swartz, who filed the records request on February 28, 2011, was still waiting for the Secret Service to locate responsive records at the time of his death.
In an article published Monday, investigative blogger Marcy Wheeler reported that two days before Swartz was arrested in January 2011, the Secret Service took over the investigation.
On Monday, in what is considered standard procedure when the defendant in a case has died, the Justice Department announced that it had dropped its criminal case against Swartz.”
——
From the Leopold article:
“He did not leave a suicide note, according to police.”
(It seems odd to me that he didn’t but, absent any other information, … )
“Yesterday, Ortiz’s husband, IBM Corp executive Thomas J. Dolan, took to Twitter and – without identifying himself as the US Attorney’s husband – defended the prosecutors’ actions in response to prominent critics, and even harshly criticized the Swartz family for assigning blame to prosecutors: “Truly incredible in their own son’s obit they blame others for his death”, Ortiz’s husband wrote. Once Dolan’s identity was discovered, he received assertive criticism and then sheepishly deleted his Twitter account.” (from Greenwald link posted by ap)
Ortiz is obviously feeling the heat as her dufus husband tries to spin the blame back on the Swartz family. ( http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeednews/prosecutors-husband-defends-push-to-jail-internet )
As Pierce wrote: ““Good luck running for office, Carmen, with every hacker in the known universe targeting every campaign you ever run for the rest of your life.” I suppose that goes for your husband too when he attempts to put the blame on the Swartz family but fails to identify his close relationship to you.
By the way … Ortiz has been criticized for going easy on corporations and executives caught in law breaking. Wonder if her husband’s executive status has anything to do with that prosecutorial compassion?
Darren,
Right on. To do a psychological autopsy evaluation correctly, a full review of all records, including all the accident scene reconstruction data would have been required. Since I balked at doing that, I really had no opinion to a scientific certainty. I would not have touched that stuff with a pole of any length, and neither the insurance company or the Feds had enough money to hire me to do so. It was just an unfortunate coincidence that I was the only person in the entire state with the skill set to do that kind of evaluation. 🙄
GGreenwald, today:
Carmen Ortiz and Stephen Heymann: accountability for prosecutorial abuse
Imposing real consequences on these federal prosecutors in the Aaron Swartz case is vital for both justice and reform
by Glenn Greenwald,
Wednesday 16 January 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/ortiz-heymann-swartz-accountability-abuse
Mike/Mark
Re diagnosis. A coworker of mine killed herself about 20 years ago or so. She was a high functioning, very good therapist. Her mood appeared good, and was stable. She had a great husband and a pleasant life. She suffered from severe pain for which she found no acceptable way to manage. She decided to take a 6 month leave of absence to deal with it, a reasonable thing for a woman in her late 50’s with a secure financial picture. She parceled out her case load judiciously and staffed each case with the receiving clinician. She was in good spirits at the anticipation of the leave of absence and those of us who were closest to her wished her well and affirmed her decision. Less than a week later she walked into the river and drowned herself. None of us had seen a thing.
“Less than a week later she walked into the river and drowned herself. None of us had seen a thing.”
DonS,
One of the problems with being in constant pain (I’ve been there) is that it overwhelms you mentally and you feel you will do anything to stop it. You can’t think rationally. The other problem is you can’t adequately describe it to others.
Now for those who are in psychological pain the same truth holds. To be honest, the only time I’ve ever really felt clinical depression was after taking Ambien for two days for sleeping. I felt that my life was worthless and I had nothing to live for. Lucky for me my wife saw the state I was in and figured out it was the Ambien. I stopped taking it and the fog lifted.Just from that small instance I have an intimation of what true depression might feel like, but I can never really know what it is like to suffer from Major Depression.
Mike S and Elaine,
You have certainly hit some 10 pound nails in target. Depression is one of the most underrated and misunderstood illnesses that has ever existed. The causes are as many things under the sun. One thing that will send some over the edge is blantant dishonesty…..
Mike S:
Like so many things, hard cases make for tough decisions. Folks with extreme cases of Major Depressive Disorder requiring hospitalizations are usually properly diagnosed. The problem comes with those with mild or transient symptoms bordering on normal. Under current thinking having 5 of 9 factors suggests such a diagnosis but having four won’t get you anything more than a diagnosis of Depressive Disorder NOS. What about 4 or even 6? Why is 5 the magic number for concern?
As for my suggestion that some courage was lacking here, I want to clarify that I easily accept that depression is in fact a disease and there is no shame in being a victim of it. It exists in most families including my own. The issue is your response to the disease which is both manageable in its mildest forms but does require some courage.
“Like so many things, hard cases make for tough decisions. Folks with extreme cases of Major Depressive Disorder requiring hospitalizations are usually properly diagnosed. The problem comes with those with mild or transient symptoms bordering on normal. Under current thinking having 5 of 9 factors suggests such a diagnosis but having four won’t get you anything more than a diagnosis of Depressive Disorder NOS.”
Mark,
The problem is twofold. The first is that even the best clinicians sometimes are unable to diagnose the suicidal ideation in a particular individual. Secondly, though second hand I was aware of a situation in my extended family where the person killed themselves. Since I love the people involved I won’t go into further details. Suffice it to say that even with the best of psychiatric care and loved ones in close proximity, this beautiful persons suicide was not prevented.
What I can say is that even if there is no provable tort liability against the governments actions, the stress involved in having a federal prosecution such as this is incredible. Perhaps no one can collect tort damages, yet the ferocity of this prosecution in inexcusable given the offense. It is the rough equivalent of Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread.
Most importantly the law involving the government in criminal investigation and prosecution of copyright violations is a travesty. This is a civil matter and the only reason it became criminal was due to the ministrations of corporate lobbyists.
Memoir of Madness : William Styron Details the ‘Horror of Depression’ in His New Book
August 28, 1990|ELIZABETH MEHREN
http://articles.latimes.com/1990-08-28/news/vw-189_1_william-styron
Excerpt:
VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. — To those who have been there, lived through it and dared to talk about it, the very word seems quite inadequate. Depression suggests an indentation, a rut in the road or a hole in the earth. It recalls foul moods, bad days, fights with the family, economic decline.
“It’s such a catch-all phrase,” said William Styron, the novelist and survivor of what he would prefer to call madness–depression that nearly cost his life. For such a major illness, Styron said, depression is “a true wimp of a word.”
For as Styron discovered, true depression swallows its victims entirely, devours them in one huge gulp, then spirits them to an otherwise unknowable nadir.
“To most of those who have experienced it,” Styron writes in “Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness,” a slim volume Random House is publishing this month, “the horror of depression is so overwhelming as to be quite beyond expression.”
But if there were a single designation for this disorder, a word or a phrase, Styron believes it would be something like \o7 brainstorm\f7 , meaning not some burst of intellectual inspiration, but “a veritable howling tempest in the brain.”
That is how it felt to William Styron, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Lie Down in Darkness,” “The Confessions of Nat Turner,” “Sophie’s Choice” and other books and plays. At his year-round home in Roxbury, Conn., five years ago, Styron’s family watched helplessly while he moaned and shouted from his bed.
“My head is exploding!” Styron cried. “My head is exploding!”
The next day, he entered the psychiatric unit of Yale-New Haven Hospital for the treatment he believes saved his life…
Five years ago, as he battled the demons of depression, such comforts were of scant consolation.
This is what happened. Five years ago, at 60, Styron’s body and mind staged a revolt. A legendary drinker, a man who had been able to consume alcohol “abundantly, almost mercilessly,” Styron became unable to imbibe even the slightest quantity of alcoholic spirits.
“My system became unable to absorb even the slightest amount of alcohol,” he recalled. “I would drink a little wine at dinner, and then all night I would be up going to the bathroom.” Soon, Styron said, “even a single drink would make me feel rotten.”
In retrospect, Styron thinks the symptoms had actually begun sooner. “I felt maybe that previous spring,” the spring of 1984, “that I was having a little trouble,” he said. “I wasn’t feeling too hot.”
With his wife, and with their friend Kurt Vonnegut, Styron took a trip to Poland. “We were supposed to be doing things with the dissidents,” Styron said. “But my heart wasn’t in it.” While Vonnegut and Rose Styron pursued political activities, Styron holed up in his hotel room. He felt listless, unenthusiastic, unwilling to participate.
“I felt there was something happening, a slight aberration in my mind-body relationship. I felt it would go away.”
But it didn’t. With the link to alcohol, the “aberration” was no longer slight.
“I was not, and I am not, an alcoholic,” Styron said. “But I had a huge capacity to abuse alcohol–and I now realize it was abuse.
“Drinking was built into my behavior pattern,” he went on. In “Darkness Visible” he elaborates, explaining, “I used alcohol as the magical conduit to fantasy and euphoria, and to the enhancement of the imagination.”
But “suddenly,” Styron said, “it went away.” Just as suddenly, Styron found himself faced with trying to “alter the habits of a lifetime.”
Over a beer, a physician whom Styron knew socially offered to write him a prescription for medication to help with Styron’s sleeplessness. The physician had never examined Styron as a patient, and did not ask his weight or age. He handed Styron a prescription for a drug called Ativan.
“The great thing about Ativan,” this doctor told Styron, “is that you can take as much as you want without ever worrying.”
Styron’s mood darkened. His body became stooped, like a very old man. On Martha’s Vineyard, he responded indifferently to the friends and fellowship he had previously treasured. “I felt a kind of numbness,” Styron writes, “but more particularly, an odd fragility, as if my body had actually become frail.”
With this sense of physical debilitation came “an immense and aching solitude.” Styron could no longer concentrate. “The act of writing became more and more difficult and exhausting, stalled, and then finally ceased,” he writes.
Over and over in his mind he heard a line from Baudelaire, “I have felt the wind of the wing of madness.”
More than once, Styron had written scenes of depression into his novels. In “Sophie’s Choice,” the heroine is assaulted in New York, then takes to her room for days. She is unable even to lift her window blinds. This was fiction, Styron told himself as he wrote it. But now he shudders at how accurately he portrayed the depressive state of mind.
“All that was written out of intuition,” Styron said. “I had no idea what a depressive mood actually was.” While he knew on one terrifying level that his own center had lost its bearing, “what astonishes me now is that I had only the most rudimentary knowledge of this thing called depression. I had no awareness, none at all, of the really pathological meaning of this thing.”
One thing Styron has since learned is that the roots of this disease, depression, can run very, very deep. Some cases of clinical depression appear to be hereditary. In other cases, they may be linked to childhood traumas. The death of a parent in early adolescence seems often to bear on cases of depression in adulthood.
Styron was barely 14 when his mother died of cancer. A year later, his father was hospitalized. Styron was not told why, but it now appears his father was treated for what was sometimes called “melancholia”–depression.
“If I were to accept this theory, and I tend to do so–although I do not accept every psychoanalytic theory that comes along, I would have to say that this is a profound idea, the idea of incomplete mourning,” Styron said…
Ultimately it was not drugs, not doctors, but good friends and family who helped Styron through the murk of his depression. Every day, Styron’s friend Art Buchwald, a neighbor on Martha’s Vineyard, would call Styron to offer encouragement. Buchwald also promised Styron that hospitalization would not ruin his career–that on the contrary, it might save it.
As he writes in “Darkness Visible,” kitchen knives attained a new allure as Styron’s suicidal feelings increased. He contemplated inadvertent suicide, walking in front of a truck, for instance. His conversation reflected his mood. “I kept saying, ‘I’m finished,’ ” Styron said. “I kept using the phrase, ‘I’m a goner.’ “
Mike S.,
“Finally, some have implied that suicide is taking the “coward’s way out” and to that I would reply that it is an unfair characterization. I’ve been in quite a few “hopeless” situations in my life and suicide has flashed across my mind at times, particularly when ill health and pain had me in despair. I never, however, did more than briefly contemplate and reject that solution. I am not a person who lapses into despair and depression though and I have had 10 years of intense psychotherapy and psychotherapy training to at least have fortified my personality against the depressive youth I experienced. I cannot and will not judge others tolerance of hopelessness. I certainly wouldn’t disparage their desperate choices by accusing them of cowardice.”
*****
I agree. It may be hard to understand why people contemplate, attempt, or commit suicide. I was close to two people who attempted suicide. One was a dear uncle who was one of the kindest, funniest, and most generous individuals that I have ever known. Depression is a terrible disease. I have a good friend–a brilliant woman–who has suffered from depression for nearly a decade. She never leaves her house now–even to go for a walk or to visit with close friends.
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Otteray Scribe wrote:
I refused to testify at the coroner’s inquest, telling them I had no opinion to a reasonable certainty.
~+~
Honourable. Of course I am speaking strictly about your following the scientific and legal basis for not being able to testify with certainty. I’m not talking of any other acts or omissions that might be considered the “right thing to do” or “real justice”. No sir, nothing of the kind.
mespo,
Perhaps the system has a better chance of being right when stupid antagonists are not part of the prosecution’s team.
I don’t know all the details, and probably never will. However, I have worked on a number of cases where suicide was the result of overzealous prosecution. Come to think of it, most were Federal cases. One was an older man, a physician, who the Feds had decided he had written too many prescriptions for pain medication. I testified in Federal court on that one. He told the prosecutor within my hearing that he would never serve a single day in jail or prison and the prosecutor could take that to the bank. I believed the old doctor. They did get a conviction, but a few days before he was to report to prison, he had a traffic accident and was killed. He pulled out in front of a big 18-wheel truck which impacted the drivers side of his car and he was killed instantly. Official ruling by the highway patrol and coroner was accident. Because he had a double indemnity policy, his wife was able to collect his insurance at a 200% rate. I refused to testify at the coroner’s inquest, telling them I had no opinion to a reasonable certainty. That, despite the fact psychological autopsy is one of my specialties. In that particular case, I had no intention of getting involved.
I have lost track of the jailhouse hangings I have reviewed.
There are four basic elements necessary for a suicide gesture to be genuine:
1. They feel hopeless. There is no future and no hope of changing the outcome. Going to prison for a substantial portion of your life expectancy, especially for something you did not feel was wrong would engender a hopeless feeling in almost anyone.
2. Anger. It takes anger for someone to engage in murder. Especially self-murder. There has to be hostility turned inward, which is what usually happens when one is helpless to lash out against those who deserve to be the brunt of the anger. Sometimes suicide notes explicitly express anger at someone or something. I would not be surprised to find a suicide note in the present case as being written in such a way as to try and make the prosecutor feel guilty.
3. Depression. People have to feel down and blue to contemplate suicide. A black hole so deep that all directions are up. The future is bleak, and there is no particularly good reason to keep living.
4. Suicidal ideation. This is obvious on the face of it. One has to think of suicide as the solution to the aforementioned problems, or the would not do it. Unfortunately, suicide is a permanent solution to what may be a temporary problem. Or not. There is such a thing as rational suicide, such as when the soldier throws himself on a grenade to save his buddies.
I liked Charles Pierce’s book, too, but he’s just plain illogical here. When the system acts improperly (as he proclaims in the Swartz case) and doesn’t correct itself it’s wrong out of vindictiveness. When it acts properly and corrects itself (as in the Nifong case) it’s also wrong out of favoritism to the rich, which incidentally also describes Swartz.
When, pray tell, my dear antagonist of the stupid is the system ever right?
Jeff Cox:
“I am a bit saddened by comments on here that suggest at best a lack of understanding of clinical depression, at worst a lack of sympathy and compassion for its victims. Swartz’s clinical depression should not be used against him. clinical depression should not be used against him.”
***************************
I didn’t read any comments that used his clinical depression against him. I didn’t read anything suggesting an ignorance of clinical depression (or more correctly “major depressive disorder.”) or about a lack of compassion for anyone that it would matter to. I read comments noting that Swartz had such a diagnosis though many practitioners con’t even agree on the criteria for what that means:
http://www.scid4.org/psychometric/scidI_reliability.html
I also read some conjecture that the condition may have contributed to his suicide. I said he took a less than courageous way to fight his case. No one here knows why young Mr. Swartz committed suicide and neither, my good counselor, do you. So please don’t go around being sad for no reason.
“I read comments noting that Swartz had such a diagnosis though many practitioners con’t even agree on the criteria for what that means:”
Mark,
You’re absolutely right, but miss the point. Having worked specifically with people with major psychiatric disorders the problem of mis-diagnosis was rampant, for many reasons including the diagnostic criteria, which can easily be misconstrued by a practitioner. However, since one of my parents suffered from Major Depressive Disorder, I personally became quite aware of its manifestation many years prior to my training as a psychotherapist. Then too I have been professionally involved in intervening in many cases of suicidal attempts and suicidal ideation. My thinking as a practitioner evolved to the
point where I came to try to treat the behavior of the patient, rather than be hemmed in by the narrow borders of the diagnostic criteria. In the end one doesn’t need advanced degrees and training to sense that someone has deep psychological problems.
As OS, whose knowledge/experience is greater than my own stated:
“Depression. People have to feel down and blue to contemplate suicide. A black hole so deep that all directions are up. The future is bleak, and there is no particularly good reason to keep living.”
This young man was facing a potential 35 years in prison and fines of $1 million. I’m certain that the prosecution was aware of his psychological instability and used it against him by making such absurd threats. Make no mistake Swartz was being grossly overcharged in this manner and really do I have to tell you how good prosecutors are at scaring defendants, particularly those with no criminal background? One may respond to this by intoning “the law…is the law” and must be enforced. But really when has that ever been true? There are cases of heinous murder, where the prosecution to save energy, agrees to ludicrous plea bargaining of sentences of 15 years and yet this young man was being threatened with 35 years.
I recently wrote about the story of “Les Miserables” where a man received 20 years in jail for stealing a loaf of bread and was pursued for another twenty years by a zealous police officer. Valjean was indeed guilty of the original theft ad of subsequently breaking his parole. Javert, the policeman was a scrupulously honest man, who was in fact doing his duty in his pursuit. The problem back then in France was the draconian laws and that they were enforced only on those who had little power. The problem today in our country is a similar one, especially since 9/11, but one that goes back to our country’s foundation. Gaining fame as a “tough” prosecutor has always been a path to political success.
This case, were it not for Swartz prominence, would have been plea bargained out to perhaps a years probation and a small fine, but Ms. Ortiz had her own career to consider. Then too, what we often lose in our discussions of legal issues here, is the psychiatric bent of some of the people who become prosecutors or LEO’s. For some it is the feeling of power and that sickly sweet feeling of the sadist who can make their victim squirm. While you may be right in believing that no correlation between Swartz suicide and these charges may be proven, that doesn’t ameliorate the ridiculous retaliation of Ms. Ortiz in her prosecution.
Finally, some have implied that suicide is taking the “coward’s way out” and to that I would reply that it is an unfair characterization. I’ve been in quite a few “hopeless” situations in my life and suicide has flashed across my mind at times, particularly when ill health and pain had me in despair. I never, however, did more than briefly contemplate and reject that solution. I am not a person who lapses into despair and depression though and I have had 10 years of intense psychotherapy and psychotherapy training to at least have fortified my personality against the depressive youth I experienced. I cannot and will not judge others tolerance of hopelessness. I certainly wouldn’t disparage their desperate choices by accusing them of cowardice.
The final paragraph of the Pierce/Esquire piece (link and excerpt posted up-thread by Elaine M. ):
Back when rogue prosecutor Mike Nifong went crazy and ginned up a rape prosecution against several members of the Duke lacrosse team, there was a great deal of horror at how “the system” could have gone so horribly wrong. But it didn’t. It just got aimed for once at people with the financial and social wherewithal to fight back. There are minor-league Mike Nifongs in every precinct house and every federal law-enforcement operation and every DA’s office and all throughout the branch offices of the Department Of Justice. There are “Duke rape cases” happening every day in alleys and on streetcorners of every city, and on the dusty backroads on the outskirts of nowhere. They are there because we want them to be there. The cases happen because we want them to happen. Aaron Swartz ran into this culture here in Boston and now he’s dead, and people are angry at how the system operated in this case. They should be, but they should be angry not because the system failed, but because the system worked. It operated in exactly the way we have said as a society we want it to operate every time we cheer for “terrorist” arrests based on evidence produced by agents of the FBI. It operated in exactly the way we have said as a society it should operate every time we support warrantless wiretaps, or undercover provocateurs, or the denial of counsel to defendants who scare us the most. Our conduct, all of us, is accessorial to his death.
Read more: Breaking Someone With The Law – Esquire http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Case_Of_Aaron_Swartz#ixzz2I6xj21sC
(Thanks, Elaine M.)
Great links Elaine. Pierce is one of my favorites!