Swartz

I would like to reiterate my stance on the highly illegitimate and overshot lack of proper judgement that was the sentence of the federal prosecution of Aaron Swartz. So basically, the verdict is that if I was at MIT, and I made a script that downloads files from JSTOR or Springer and tried to make them open access, I am liable ot 33 years in prison? There's two really amazing things about this: first, not even near-homicide statuses reach this level and if they do, I leave it up to you to figure out which was an actual crime. Second, journals that make money off people's research are somehow being considered mainstream in this case? Because they do NOT own the research. Some of you douchebags may go "but isn't that exactly what journals are supposed to do?" -- to an extent, yes, but if I publish in JHEP or something, that does NOT mean that Springer OWNS my paper. Because my research is fundamentally owned by me and I am essentially paying journals open access money to promote it further. I am presuming arXiv was a thing but to access papers earlier than arXiv he had to do the downloads, which is reasonable. I commend JSTOR on not making things worse but my central issue is with the prosecutors.

The idea that Aaron's script and "actions" are computer fraud is an incredibly funny term that I realised these people like to use. And as far as I can remember, Mark Zuckerberg's trial, Sundar Pichai's trial and many others have firmly shown that the people in charge HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. And the fact that they are the people who are giving the conviction sentences is definitely corruption at the highest level. And if they can get away with this, they can get away with anything and this is not acceptable. At some point we have to address this case.

To be clear at who I am blaming, it is Carmen Ortiz's office that had this incredibly overshot judgement with no understanding of why the prosecution was necessary. And I stand in opposition to people saying that "that is the law and they are merely exercising their rights to legally pursue a case against Swartz". I'm sorry, but this is bullshit and there is no case needed here. Worst case if JSTOR wanted to be an assbag about it they could have settled easier with just all of their "intellectual property" being confiscated and revoking Aaron's JSTOR account, which is also an entirely illegitimate thing. But this is acceptable. What is NOT acceptable is prosecuting with 13 counts of charges and 33 years of imprisonment for something that not even MIT or JSTOR had a big problem with. And I have no siding with any particular political prty so much as to say that "obviously she was appointed by the Democrat side" which is something that one of my friends said.

Interestingly, Ortiz's husband Tom Dolan had the nerve to comment saying that [quote] "Truly incredible that in their own son's obit, they blame others for his death and make no mention of the 6-month offer", and such is the mindset of people who get to exercise this false power of "prosecution" as they term it. So I ask if he is willing to do the exact same 6-month offer which seems so light to him, to show that indeed the blame was on Aaron. If he can do the 6-months and have his property confiscated and is alright with everything, I (and many others) will consider the 6-month offer as being a "good" offer that Aaron did not take. In a later hearing on Ortiz's prosecution, Eric Holder defended her with her case being [quote] "a good use of prosecutorial discretion". Had the federal intervention not happened, Aaron would still be alive today with at most one legal case pursued. And if Ortiz's decision making was "a good use of prosecutorial discretion" indeed, do tell me why Aaron Swartz is not alive today doing things that none of those cunts would have been able to even think of.

And later, the White House declined to act on a petition requesting to remove Ortiz from the office, which is such a bad decision that my belief of the system being at least residued with some hope of ethics and morality is broken.

For those of you interested to look at Aaron's repositories, here is his GitHub profile: https://github.com/aaronsw.