EuroCoder

Steve Heymann is a murderer.

While I sympathize with the tragedy of Aaron's death, I have to agree that he is receiving a disproportionate amount of attention. Take away his association with the HN community and the Internet, and his case is not nearly as tragic as many others. Take the Guantanamo inmates who committed suicide. They were innocent and were imprisoned without any control over the situation. Aaron chose to break into the MIT network closet and JSTOR (though I agree that the punishment is way too harsh, there should be no punishment at all). But everything Aaron did was by his own choice. The people in Guantanamo didn't do anything at all. Their situation is much more infuriating, much more tragic, and deserves much more attention.

Good point, but what I meant is in the current era, after WWII. Since WWII the US has been the leader among western countries in torture and senseless wars.

“It is no accident that Silicon Valley is in America, and not France, or Germany, or England, or Japan,” Graham wrote. “In those countries, people color inside the lines.”

That may be true. But those countries also don't torture people, inprison people without charge, or start senseless wars. The US may make people richer, but it also has the highest proportion of its population in jail, compared to all other countries in the world. The US has a lot to learn from Europe.