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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Lawrence Lessig is an amazing person, and this piece underscores that. I really hope he will find that a time-out will help to heal these wounds and will begin to close the gap. Of all the words written about Aaron's plight these hit closest to home for me and I am halfway torn between following his example of tuning out and re-connecting with those around me (who I've been somewhat neglecting in the last week) and switching into 'action' mode from idle.

If there is one thing that all this has done it is that it has shocked me like not much has done in the last couple of years and I thought I was pretty tough. Lessig is a giant, imagine how much it would take to hurt a man of such stature that he needs to recover incommunicado and contrast that with the piece written by Mrs. Ortiz.

Worlds apart.

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"Lessig is a giant, imagine how much it would take to hurt a man of such stature that he needs to recover incommunicado and contrast that with the piece written by Mrs. Ortiz. Worlds apart."

Come on. One was a close, dear and personal friend of Aaron's for many years, the other was someone who saw him as the defendant in a prosecution.

It hardly dehumanizes Ortiz to react and respond differently to Aaron's suicide than Lessig, and is something of a pattern in your posts over this week dehumanizing and demonizing her.

I work in EMS. I see death regularly, including suicide. Though I see (however fleetingly) the pain of those surrounding the deceased, including their loved ones, I don't feel it. The person is, to me, a person and a patient, but I cannot be expected to have the same dark despair as I would, had I lost a long and close friend, and it makes me no less emotional or human to not have that response.

Feel free to compare MITs reponse to Ortiz response if you feel that Lessigs response as a personal friend is a bad comparison.

I have not dehumanized Ortiz, she did that to herself, she wrote that piece. It feels insincere and her husbands response seems to confirm that it is insincere.

I fully respect your professional detachment, but if you go so far as to make a public statement about a person you lost, possibly through your own actions then you should really mean it and get out of CYA mode, even if that's a life-long ingrained instinct.

I'll give you that. Ortiz's statement is impersonal. But on the flipside, any acknowledgement of any impact that the prosecution may have had in Aaron's suicide could be instrumental in a suit, so her hands are somewhat tied.

Certainly, though, I'm not disputing that the default mode of many in law (when acting as an attorney) is CYA.

> But on the flipside, any acknowledgement of any impact that the prosecution may have had in Aaron's suicide could be instrumental in a suit, so her hands are somewhat tied.

I fully agree with that and noted exactly that earlier in another thread. And because that risk exists it would be a real breath of fresh air if she had accepted the possibility of responsibility. At a minimum she could have asked for an external party to investigate if this was all done properly. Categoric denial was exactly the wrong thing to do.

There is not the slightest chance that the U.S. government would be held liable for Swartz's death in any fashion. Prosecuting someone is not going to be held illegal in any U.S. court, ever.

Even if that zero chance somehow came true, Ms. Ortiz has absolute immunity from personal consequences, as she was acting as an agent for the government in the course of her employment.

She can write whatever she wants with absolutely zero fear of any adverse legal consequences against her, and you should not make excuses for her on that fictitious basis.

The difference is, you disconnect emotionally for the purpose of saving lives.

Participants in the overzealous legal system, however, disconnect emotionally in order to ruin lives. While there are some violent psychos that need to be put away, and occasionally a low-level criminal straightens their life out as an accidental side effect, a huge number of punishments are cruelly disproportionate to the actual harm to society, all for the benefit of the prosecutor's career. (And indirectly to prison guard unions, police, etc.)

Ortiz only carries a small part of the blame for this. She is only able to do it because it is normalized and systemic, in the legal system and in society at large. I guarantee that if she herself spent "only" six months in concrete cage, after 2+ years of the fear and stress of prosecution, followed by a lifetime of being stigmatized as a felon, she would feel differently.

Jacquesm, I've seen a lot of your posts in the last week and can see you're pretty cut up about this whole thing.

I think it might be a good time to follow Lessig's lead and give yourself a little time off to reconnect to your own family and life.

The fight for Internet freedom etc is not a sprint but a marathon.

His eulogy at Aaron's funeral was utterly heartbreaking. His post underscored it for me.

Yes, Lessig is a real human being, and it's good that people like him have reach and audience. Not quite sure how that happened! :)

I like your posts, Jacques, so I vote that you switch into action mode.

> I like your posts, Jacques, so I vote that you switch into action mode.

I'm thinking of something a bit more substantial than a blog post.

> I'm thinking of something a bit more substantial than a blog post.

What do you have in mind? Someone needs to mobilize the little guys and get something done.

> What do you have in mind?

All in good time.

> Someone needs to mobilize the little guys and get something done.

What's stopping you ;) ?

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