Linus is dead wrong on this. We have independent confirmation of everything that Ortiz said from the Boston Globe's interview with Aaron's defense attorney.

The maximum statutory penalty for the original 4 indictments was 35 years. The prosecutor was planning to seek 6-7 years. There were two plea bargains offered, one was 4 months and no disputing the period, the other was 6 months but the defense attorney would be allowed to try to convince the judge to lower it. (The judge, of course, is not bound to follow the plea bargain.) And the average cost of defending one of these is $1.5 million, which is money Aaron did not have and could not raise.

Ortiz is just doing her best to make us think that Aaron wasn't being threatened with massive jail time the same way she lead Aaron to believe that he was. By not saying it directly and letting innuendo and suggestion do the talking.

Linus is a programmer. Booleans can't have the value "dishonest". False is the closest approximation. Cut the man some slack.

Well, he's wrong about this. Quoting the maximum statutory penalty is the standard in news releases, but tells you exactly zero about the negotiations in attorney conferences. US attorneys don't write the press releases, those are done by the most junior lawyers and quote the statutory maximum because it's factual without giving anything away about the government's courtroom strategy.

Until Aarons' lawyer speaks up with evidence to the contrary Carmen Ortiz statement stands unchallenged. Much as I would like her to carry (or at least acknowledge) some actual responsibility for what she has helped causing there is a lot of room for interpretation here and saying 'she lied' in a legal sense is premature and may end up to be simply untrue.

Linus is a very clever guy but he's dead wrong about this.

I'm happy Linus is speaking out about this because he's a high profile person but it would be nice if he did his homework first, his words would then carry far more weight.

Ortiz has made several easily falsifiable statements, the fact that this has not happened - yet - means that at least in a technical sense she is possibly 'in the clear'. In a moral sense she has a ton of explaining to do and quite possibly some real culpability but law and lawyers deal in technicalities all the time.

She's attempting to weasel through a very narrow crack here but that's precisely what her profession and the eco-system she's operating in deal with.

For all the posts saying Linus is wrong, which he may well be technically, consider this from a layman's perspective.

Ortiz recently: "At no time did this office ever seek ... maximum penalties under the law."

Justice.gov previously: "SWARTZ faces up to 35 years in prison..."

At a minimum it's a bad PR screw-up on their part and they're backpedaling because their "make us look tough" press releases have backfired.

Most people vaguely familiar with the case would think there is a threat of a 35 year sentence, as many recent posts on HN indicate. Would Aaron & his legal team think so too? Probably not.

Sorry, but I can't go with Linus on this one. The purpose of that press release was to educate the public about the case, including the crime of which Swartz was accused, and stating the maximum penalty for the crime is part of that. It does not imply that the maximum penalty is being sought.

Swartz was a talented man, no doubt about it, but he became a zealot, and zealots do stupid things. When he realized that he wasn't going to escape justice because ZOMGAARONSWARTZ -which is basically what JSTOR tried to do, and the Justice Department wasn't buying that because it would have been, in a word, unjust- he did something rash, and that brings us to today. He was not a saint, he was not a "light of the world, put out too soon", and he certainly shouldn't be elevated to martyr status.

Removing / blaming one person without reforming the system is called a "purge" as in Stalinist Purge

Please fix the system not the blame

Suggestion: are plea bargains public record? If so can we parse and publicise them? Would it be interesting to know the ratio of years charged vs years pleaded - especially by race and offence and state?

Edit: no not trying to compare this in degree with marching thousands to death in gulags - just we should focus on fixing a justice system that basically tries to avoid the courts because of those awkward and time consuming human rights. I mean imagine if we had to deal with terrorists instead of copyright violators - we might skip plea bargaining and do something silly in Cuba. Luckily the rights of the individual are paramount in the worlds greatest democracy - otherwise we could all be in trouble

Google:

site:http://www.justice.gov "if convicted, * faces"

57,700 results.

There are many things to criticize about the universe, but the standard form language on US Attorneys' press releases is probably not the biggest thing we should be worried about. Linus, as he often does, is speaking too confidently and too hastily.

And the press releases always state the statutory maximum, which as I and many others have explained, Aaron was never actually threatened with. His lawyers knew that. He had to know it. Lessig either knew it or should have known. The only reason we're talking about "35 years" is because of Lessig's irresponsible PR.

I'm trying to think of a hacking analogy. Imagine if you write a routine for loop with an int increment and someone, trying to understand the code, asks "wait, how many times can this run?" And you respond with INT_MAX. In most situations, that would be a misleading, borderline autistic response, with no relationship to the real world in the normal case.

This sounds indeed defamatory and Linus was once again too impulsive. Not sure if the target will be as complaisant as his other victims.

However the situation is indeed very shocking and Carmen Oritz's public reaction is also in my view extremely disappointing and shocking.

Apparently all this was an attempt to use a "big mistake" [1] of Aaron as a leverage for her self promotion with political goals and it backfired in a way she didn't anticipate.

This demonstrate to the whole world the internal "corruption" of the American justice system. Apparently there is no shame about it and no intent to change it. Probably too many influent people profit by various indirect leverages from this "state of art" and money is probably not the least of them.

Her childish response and pseudo justification it's not my fault, I didn't do anything wrong is appalling from a person with such high responsibility.

A more appropriate response is the one from the MIT director: what happened is a catastrophe and wrong because it should not have happened, we start an investigation to clarify our role in it, what we may have done wrong, what we can do to avoid that this happen again and we will make the conclusion public.

In her public comment Carmen Ortiz demonstrate her lack of honesty, objectivity and sense of justice and in short intelligence. Unfortunately it seam that people can get along with the claim she made by the benefit of complaisance of other mediocre people. Mediocracy: +1, Democracy : -1

[1] It is suggested it was a conscious disobedience meant to be a provocative political act to draw attention on a society problem without intent to harm anybody or for selfish interests like money or a political self promotion

Just a few months ago, Linus Torvalds urged "mentally diseased" people to kill themselves over printer security and now, he is a Crusader Against Bullies Who Make People Kill Themselves. Bacteria have more self-awareness than this.

In Linus's own words, "here are the sources, so that people can compare them for themselves".

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+LinusTorvalds/posts/1vyfmNCYpi5

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+LinusTorvalds/posts/ggzfzKyrcRQ

[someone who has no inside or even detailed knowledge of the case] says Carmen Ortiz is lying.

How does this advance the debate?

I don't understand why people don't get the LAW should have been on trial, not Aaron's actions.

Aaron was an activist. He purpose broke what he considered unfair laws and tried to set free information he thought should be free (or was technically free in the first place).

I think he committed suicide because he thought he was going to be Bradley Manning-inged. I wish he would have waited a little longer and had a little more hope but it's easy to be cool and logical from a comfy chair, meanwhile his mind was facing darkness.

I like Linus and think Ortiz is an idiot[1] but he messed up on this one. The "faces up to 35 years" is obviously not a quote from Ortiz.

[1] Did Ortiz really not understand that pretty much everything Swartz did in in the second half of his life was both prolific and for the greater good on a very large scale?

I suspect Ortiz's statement was absolutely true but missing the point to the extent of being misleading. No they may not have sought the maximum but in trial they would still have sought years in jail so the threat of 7 years is still terrifying, harsh and unjust.

Don't let the discussion get too focussed on the maximums as you will give Ortiz a way out. The real threat was still too much (More than twelve times what Ortiz says is reasonable as the offer) and the idea of pleading guilt to 13 felonies possibly as unappealling as the 6 month prison term attached.

A more charitable (and possibly more far-fetched) interpretation is that Ortiz has a different agenda in talking to the press than she does when negotiating with opposing lawyers.

Maybe she intended to make herself look merciful when agreeing to the much smaller punishment. The argument that the experienced defense lawyers were influenced by press releases rather than what they were actually being offered by the prosecution seems a little weak.

He's not the only one:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130117/02090421710/carme...

Anyone saying he's wrong about the intent and effect of the press release statement, do you think reading a statement like that about yourself isn't going to influence your thinking? Their press releases were intended to drum up public support and paint him in a certain light. That most definitely has an effect on a defendant, and it is most certainly intentional. Linus is right.

Further, when you're in the wrong (even partly), the only appropriate thing to do is to apologize. Not defend or justify or half-apologize with an explanation to try to gain sympathy, but to man up and say you're sorry. Anything less from this prosecution team is pathetic and sickening.

I really do not understand why people are trying to look at smaller issues such as who is right or wrong, whether she went back or not, whether its normal to follow such practices to extort plea etc.

I do not think (correct me if I am wrong) the laws ever say that lawyers have the permission to extort pleas even though that's what is going on everywhere.

And if as an appointed office holder and given such responsibility, you have to understand that nothing sort of extortion should ever undergo and if you could not do that, you are not fit to run the office. Simple. Period.

How hard is that for anyone to understand. Please don't give standard practices bullshit.

In my view, just because 'usually' they don't seek maximum penalty it doesn't mean he doesn't get it, as suggested itself by her office the final call is not hers.

I'm glad more and more people are coming out on this issue.

Ortiz is not responsible for Aaron's death, even if she lied.

The real problem is the how the prosecution system is based on terror instead of on justice. Laws can be made less amenable to be used to terrorize, but as long as the deep roots of the system are based on terror, changing laws will not suffice.

The aim should be to fix the system and the laws that make the system, not only to fix each overreaching law at a time.

This besides the issue of whether or not making Ortiz pay is adequate.

i don't get all the fuss - and i've been following this story for a little while now, trying to work out exactly what is so important about this all... considering how many worse things are going on than self entitled pricks topping themselves to avoid being punished by law (whether excessive punishment or not).

this may be insensitive, but why don't school shootings result in the same kind of critical look at gun laws?

or killing pakistani civilians with drones in breach of international law

or the idf killing more palestinian /children/ than israelis have ever died at the hands of palestinians, which is indirectly funded by 'aid' money totalling some $3 billion from the US at a time when the country is suffering economic problems and is cutting benefits for its own citizens that cost a lot less.

trade embargo against cuba because of a revolution that installed a government chosen by people through a fight for freedom that happened to not align with the ideology of the administration in the 60s

pick one, they all kill more people and are vastly more important and worth spending your time being angry at your government for.

this is a piffling tragedy of people who can't deal with first world problems... i shed no tears for anyone involved.

downvote at will.

At least Linus commented on this very sensitive issue. Not sure why PG has not said anything publicly when he knew and has worked with Aaron during Reddit.

What I am struck with is the complete and total waste of my tax dollars. Academic journals? Funded by, overwhelmingly, public funds? The only people who read these are academics and they get them through University libraries. The whole business model behind these journals is to get money from the authors (essentially tacking on their publication fee to the grant proposal, thus more suckling at the Federal teet). These publications should be free. I don't normally like the idea of law being written from the bench, but where the hell was the judge on this?

I'm not an attorney, but I would imagine even if Carmen Ortiz were completely at fault she would never admit as much and would never apologize. Why? Because she could open herself up to a civil lawsuit.

This just speaks so highly of the state of our society. Even if you're at fault taking the moral high ground, owning up and apologizing means you could have the rest of your life ruined. Granted in this context it's a highly sensitive issue as Aaron lost his life, but the fact our culture is so highly litigious makes me sad.

A tactic used by lawyers is to emphasize the maximum so that the plea bargains will seem more attractive and be more easily accepted tod keep trials as short as possible. Are we that desperate to blame someone else? He killed himself.

This reminds me of how everyone was mad at Rumsfeld and how he shouldered most of the blame for the Iraq war, leaving Bush largely unscathed.

Carmen Ortiz was doing her job, the real problem is higher up.

I don't expect Ortiz to apologize for anything. You don't get to the position she got to without being good at politics.

I bet Carmen Ortiz has an opinion on the design of the Linux kernel and it would be just as relevant.

Linus Torvalds INAL.

Linus should stick to what he knows best - programming, rather than playing an armchair lawyer.

I tracked down Carmen Ortiz's personal information online. I'm sure she would love to hear from Us, The People who she represents, directly.

Name: Carmen Milagros Ortiz DOB: 01/05/1956 Address: 20 Herrick Dr, Milton, MA

This is how I found her info:

1. This article mentions that she's from Milton, MA: http://www.patriotledger.com/news/x655689172/Q-A-New-US-Atto...

2. Carmen Ortiz is married to Thomas Dolan according to Wikipedia and many news articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Dolan

3. If you search for her husband's name (Thomas Dolan) in Milton, MA on 411.com, you get the address 20 Herrick Dr: http://www.411.com/name/Thomas-J-Dolan/Milton-MA/2qgvqgn

4. Looking up 20 Herrick Dr, it looks like a nice house with a pool in a fancy neighborhood. Thomas Dolan is an IBM executive.

5. If you Google for: carmen ortiz "20 Herrick Dr" then you'll see a snapshot of a website on indybay.org, which has since been taken down for violating their terms of use. But in the snapshot provided by Google you can see the text "Carmen Ortiz contact. Name: Carmen Milagros Ortiz DOB: 01/05/1956. Address: 20 Herrick Dr Milton, MA", and Google shows this snapshot as dated Jan 17th, shortly after the Aaron Swartz controversy erupted.

6. If you then look up "20 Herrick Dr" on Yellowpages.com: http://anywhoyp.yellowpages.com/whitepages/address?from=AnyW... you will get a result that says:

Carmen M Ortiz, 20 Herrick Dr, Milton, MA 02186 617-698-1615

Bingo. That's her phone number. But it has been disconnected. Let's find her new number, or her cell phone number. Post it here if you can find it.