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"  The ongoing controversy into the draconian tactics of federal prosecutors concerning Aaron Swartz, the pioneering Internet activist who ultimately took his own life, took another turn at the end of last week when, in a piece for the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, veteran Boston civil liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate revealed that the office of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz only became involved with the case after the Middlesex County District Attorney&amp;#039;s office was prepared to cut Swartz a deal on state charges that would have involved no jail time, perhaps a fine, and a stern admonishment not to do it again, but to keep his genius within the bounds of the law. (This would seem to conform to the fact that JSTOR, the academic database that was the putative victim of Swartz&amp;#039;s crime, had recommended leniency, and subsequently released hundreds of documents from its archives.) (Here&amp;#039;s a news story about Swartz&amp;#039;s indictment on state charges. It also includes a mention that the Secret Service was investigating Swartz, which seems odd.) Silverglate argues that Ortiz&amp;#039;s office jumped the DA&amp;#039;s claim in order to &amp;quot;send a message.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s hard to see another explanation for it and, if it&amp;#039;s true, and against all possible odds, the whole sorry episode is even more disgraceful. On his admirable anti-gobshitery weekly exercise on MSNBC, Chris Hayes put together a panel on Saturday to discuss the ramifications of this case, and the consensus of the panel was that the federal government spends most of its time terrified that it is falling behind the curve on information technologies and the renegade culture of hackers and activists. There is nothing more dangerous than a law-enforcement establishment that thinks it&amp;#039;s outnumbered and outgunned. This case should have been left to the good offices of the Middlesex DA, which doesn&amp;#039;t much care about using the office to frighten the daylights out of bearded computer geniuses all over the country because...cyberterrorists, aieeeeeeeee! If the case had just stayed up in Woburn, both Aaron Swartz, and Carmen Ortiz&amp;#039;s promising political career, might still be alive. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a18457/more-about-aaron-swartz-012813/>