Tag: Aaron Swartz

Aaron Swartz’s Lawyer Files Misconduct Complaint

In the ongoing Aaron Swartz case a misconduct complaint has been filed regarding the state’s absolutely barbaric behavior in its pursuit of nailing Swartz to the wall:

The complaint letter [PDF], which is dated January 28 but was just published this afternoon by The Huffington Post, accuses Heymann of withholding key evidence, as well as abusive behavior related to plea bargaining. The letter was sent to the Office of Professional Responsibility, a part of the Department of Justice tasked with overseeing its lawyers.

Specifically, Peters says that Heymann withheld a key e-mail until after a hearing in which it would have been useful. The e-mail “demonstrated that the Secret Service both had effective control over Mr. Swartz’s electronic devices and knew it needed to obtain a search warrant,” as of January 2011, according to Peters. That contradicted other government testimony about delays in searching Swartz’s devices. Heymann thus violated his “duty of candor to the court,” wrote Peters.

The plea bargaining abuse really lends precedence to the belief that the state was seeking revenge on Aaron Swartz for his perpetration of the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) incident. Not only was the state seeking insane charges but they also demanded cage time “>in order to justify those charges. I’m sure this case is going to get more interesting but no result will really matter since Swartz is no longer with us.

Eric Holder Believes Swartz’s Case was a Good Use of Judicial Discretion

Eric holder believes that demanding jail time to justify charges that were based on a document, not a crime, was a good use of judicial discretion:

Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday said the suicide death of internet activist Aaron Swartz was a “tragedy,” but the hacking case against the 26-year-old was “a good use of prosecutorial discretion.”

Holder, the nation’s top prosecutor, is the highest-ranking member of the President Barack Obama administration to defend the indictment and prosecution of the former director of Demand Progress, who committed suicide in January as his April trial approached. Holder’s comments come seven weeks after Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, whose office was prosecuting Swartz, said the authorities’ actions were “appropriate in bringing and handling this case.”

This isn’t surprising to hear from a man who believe it’s legal to murder United States citizens in the United States without due process. Still, you would think the man could show at least a little remorse for ruining a man’s life just to prop up a dying industry for a short while longer. Instead he came out and said his boys did a bang up job and that the ends (protecting the state’s cronies) justified the means (terrorizing a man and ruining his life).