It's a bit late to warm up this thread. But I had to drop this
follow-up, having caught up with my emails.
----
This is from an interview with Lawrence Lessig:
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/14/an_incredible_soul_lawrence_lessig_remembers
"""
Well, I have to be very careful, because when Aaron was arrested, he
came to me, and I—there was a period of time where I acted as his
lawyer. So, I know more about the case than I’m able to talk about...
JSTOR said, "We don’t want to prosecute. We don’t want to civilly
prosecute. We don’t want you to criminally prosecute." But MIT was not
as clear. And the federal government—remember, at the time, there was
the Bradley Manning and the WikiLeaks issue going on.
The federal government thought it was really important to make—make an
example. And so, they brought this incredibly ridiculous prosecution
that had multiple—you know, I think it was something like more
than—more than a dozen counts claiming felony violations against
Aaron, threatening, you know, scores of years in prison.
But, you know, it’s not the theoretical claims about what he might
have gotten; it was the practical burden that for the last two years,
you know, his wealth was bled dry as he had to negotiate to try to
finally settle this matter...
"""
This tells us that he thought it was a prosecution for political
reasons by the government. Yet Swartz had chose a purely
non-political response to it -- though he was perfectly capable of
mounting a political response (as he did with SOPA), involving
picketing the government Attorney's office, distributing "Free Aaron
Swartz" campaign buttons, speaking to the press who then try to take
awkward questions back to the Attorney that makes them look stupid,
etc.
There is every reason to believe that such a political response to a
political prosecution could have been effective. The idea would would
have undoubtedly occurred to him -- given his previous successes with
such action. You always do again what worked in the past.
Particularly if it has such an empowering effect. So somebody must
have dissuaded him of it. They must have been good, because the
Swartz would have been significantly smarter than almost any lawyer
you could pick, and he had already observed the process of the law on
many occasions.
We've had one of the professional expert witnesses to his case speak
publicly -- a rare event -- about the flimsiness of the government
case. No one seems to have found out who his lawyers were, and how
much they were bleeding him dry for. I think this is the crucial
missing protagonist in this story. I'd like to hear their explanation
as to how they were running this case. Particularly if they is
chasing up any legal bills from the estate.
Julian.
On 14 January 2013 18:55, James Cronin <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> Francis Davey wrote:
>
> I am really lucky to have clients with whom I can have that conversation.
>
>
>
> And we are very lucky to have had the benefit of your, and a number of other
> equally awesome people’s counsel (and I suspect also the arrogance,
> foolishness, bloody mindedness and good luck to ignore it on occasion.)
>
>
>
> Julian is absolutely right in the general case though.
>
>
>
> Bests,
>
> James.
>
>
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