Prosecutorial discretion has a long history on the American continent.
Just in case you thought that the federal government would be satisfied with massively overcharging Aaron Swartz and Barrett Brown, we now have the case of Reuters social media editor Matthew Keys (@TheMatthewKeys).
Seems that a grand jury indictment has been filed in Sacramento, alleging that Keys participated in an online chat where he gave Anonymous hackers login credentials for his former employer, the Tribune Company, possibly in exchange for access to the IRC channel where Anonymous hackers were discussing future exploits, and possibly out of disapproval of the Tribune Company using paywalls. The indictment alleges that he told the channel to “go f*** some sh** up”. A hacker then used those credentials to alter, for about half an hour, a story on the Tribune website, so that it claimed that a hacker called “Chippy 1337” was about to be “elected head of the [U.S.] Senate”, to which Keys apparently responded “Nice”.
Enemy of the state #957,141
May I take a moment? [Sips glass of water] Thank you. [Deep breath]
There are no words to describe the loss to the world of brilliant technologist Aaron Swartz, who killed himself this weekend at the age of 26.
Aaron had already helped to develop RSS and Reddit, worked to stop the Stop Online Piracy Act, and was deeply involved in Internet activism. He could easily have devoted his extraordinary skills only to profit; instead, he committed himself passionately to openness and the spread of knowledge. Lawrence Lessig has summarized his work far better than I can. The creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, gave the eulogy at his funeral.
Aaron’s death teaches us an important lesson about how the law operates here in 21st-century America. He was not the only local activist to be unnecessarily persecuted by government agencies. Laws relating to our Internet activities have been drawn so widely and so poorly that eager prosecutors can find grounds for indicting more or less anyone, for things that in former times the law would not have defined as crimes at all. Government agencies can now open investigations on people, and subject them to the sledgehammer of the criminal justice system, on the strength of nothing more than unwise posts on Twitter or translating the wrong materials. Prosecutors answer to nobody regarding the fairness or proportionality of their investigations.
The result is that dissidents who hamper powerful interests can far too easily be investigated and silenced. The result is that brilliant, original and public-spirited souls like Swartz exhaust their energies on meaningless legal battles, rather than developing new and wondrous technologies to solve problems we all face. We’ll never know now what Aaron Swartz would have come up with next, thanks to the casual brutality of a criminal justice system that cares more for creating criminals than for achieving justice.
Know what side you’re on. Overcriminalization hurts us all. We need to stand together, and rein in this crazy system, before it chews us all up.
Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3Julian Assange of WikileaksBradley Manning, whistleblower on war crimesLeah Lynn-Plante, anarchist imprisoned for refusing to testify to grand juryTarek Mehanna, imprisoned for translating al-Qaeda materialsBarrett Brown, hacktivist imprisoned for annoying the FBI
