> For downloading academic papers, he was facing a punishment that could have gone to literally millions of dollars in fines and up to 35 years in prison
He wasn't realistically facing 35 years. He could not get anywhere near that under the federal sentencing guidelines. See this prior discussion for details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7996807
Prosecutors in the Swartz case were actually asking for about 7 years, which was still much higher than they were likely to get. Swartz's own lawyer thought that he'd probably just get probation if convicted.
The DOJ really needs to stop using this stupid method of writing press releases. They wrote the indictment and so they sure as hell better know exactly what they are charging and what facts they are alleging, so they should be able to figure out the guideline sentence that would result if they won on all counts. That's what should be in the press release.
> Now you're being dishonest. The 6-month sentence was a plea deal he declined. It was a 35-50 year sentence if he fought and lost all charges
No, it was not a 35-50 year sentence. That's the theoretical sentence one could get for those same crimes if all the sentence enhancing factors that can apply do apply. Repeat offender, part of organized crime, massive monetary damage, drugs involved, things like that. Swartz didn't have any of those factors.
Here's an article on how DoJ press releases ridiculously exaggerate potential sentences [1].
If the prosecution has been able to prove everything they alleged and the judge decided to make an example of Swartz it might have been up to 7 years, but that is unlikely. Swartz's attorney said that if they had gone to trial and lost he thought it was unlikely that Swartz would get any jail time.
> Had he been convicted, he would face 1 Million USD in fines as well as 35 years in prison.
That's a common misconception, largely due to the ridiculous way the DoJ writes its press releases.
Each Federal crime carries a range of possible prison time. What you actually get depends on a large number of factors, such as how much damage you caused, whether or not your crime was a drug crime, past criminal history, and many others.
When the DoJ writes press releases they just add up for each charge the maximum that it is theoretically possible for someone to get from the crime if they hit all the factors that push for longer sentences and none of the factors that push for shorter sentences.
So when they arrest you for crime X and write their press release, they don't actually tell what you, the first time offender who committed a mild instance of the crime with no aggravating factors and several mitigating factors is facing. No. They tell what the Voldemort or Moriarty or Hitler of whatever activity you were doing would face for crime X.
It is even worse, because they actually even exaggerate what Voldemort or Moriarty or Hitler would actually face, too! If a person is charged with multiple crimes from the same underlying act, say crimes X, Y, and Z, and is convicted of all of them the crimes are grouped together into one for sentencing, with the sentence for the group being the sentence you would have received for whichever for X, Y, or Z you would have gotten the longest sentence for if that was the only one you were convicted on.
Here's a good article on this in general: "Crime: Whale Sushi. Sentence: ELEVENTY MILLION YEARS." [1]
Here's a couple articles specifically on the Swartz charging.
This one covers the charges themselves: "The Criminal Charges Against Aaron Swartz (Part 1: The Law)" [2]
This one covers the prosecution, including a look at probably sentencing: "The Criminal Charges Against Aaron Swartz (Part 2: Prosecutorial Discretion)" [3]
>I can simply refer you to Wikipedia, where it states that he accessed
Accessed a controlled access server room to attach his computer to so he could download from the JSTOR repositories. Learn to read.
>Incorrect and inflammatory; again, a simple check of Wikipedia suggests that you don't have your facts right.
Again, learn to read. "Cumulative maximum" means that if every single crime, which he admitted to committing I remind you, was given the maximum sentence he would have spent 35 years in jail.
Except he was never going to get 35 years or anything even close to it. Its just disingenuous jackoffs such as yourself that propagate this number because you can't fucking read and can't be bothered to learn facts.
Swartz was offered six months. He killed himself instead. Swartz was a fucking privileged pussy that likely never had a hard day in his life and bailed the moment reality hit him.
> "Swartz accessed a system he did not have permission to access. He did so by entering a restricted area he did not have permission to access."
> These two sentences appear incorrect. I can simply refer you to Wikipedia, where it states that he accessed "JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT."
He was not a student at MIT and was initially looked at for trespass, though the Institute declined to prosecute.
If trespassing is _not_ "entering a restricted area he did not have permission to access", what is?
> "Swartz was never going to get anywhere remotely near 35 years and people need to stop spouting this nonsense as it makes them look completely ignorant of every single fact in the case."
> Incorrect and inflammatory; again, a simple check of Wikipedia suggests that you don't have your facts right.
Being theoretically possible to be sentenced to 35 years in jail does not in any way say that it is assured that you will. You willfully ignore context in the posts that discuss the difference between what a realistic sentence is, and how it differs at times from the sensationalist maximum sentence.
Just yesterday, a man was sentenced to 12 years jail for rape, despite there being a maximum sentence possible of 72 years. It is not incorrect or inflammatory to say that it was unlikely that person was ever going to get sentenced to 72 years in prison.
> is why this guy [not the hacker] is getting 25 years.
No, he is not getting 25 years. He is being sentenced for a crime whose statutory maximum punishment is 25 years, for an offense which, under the circumstances put forward by the prosecutors, has a base guideline sentence of about 5 years (which is also what prosecutors have said they will seek in sentencing.)
The defense is likely to, in sentencing, challenge the prosecution position on damages, which may result in the guideline range being substantially lower. There is, basically, zero chance of a sentence anywhere close to 25 years here.
> Aaron was facing a cumulative maximum penalty of 35 years in prison.
That's not true in any reasonable sense. And either way if you're just adding up cumulative values it was 50 years after the charges were amended, not 35.
From Jennifer Granick's post [1] decrying everything that the prosecutors did to Aaron:
> He would be looking at 15 to 21 months of incarceration. That number could get higher quickly. ... True, 35 years wasn't in the cards, despite the fact that's the sentence the government publicly waived over Aaron's head. Neither was a maximum of 50 years, which was what the government arrived at after its perplexing choice to get a superceding indictment. But Aaron could easily have come out to over a year in his guideline calculation.
Either way there were plea options on the table. Do you think there's any chance that Tsarnaev ends up with 6 months in jail for killing 3 people and wounding dozens more?
Don't muddle up the real need for CFAA reform with such shoddy logic and misleading statements, it only makes it easier for legislators to ignore you as a "mere extremist".
> Sentencing guidelines for his crime was 0-12 months.
There's obviously plenty of dispute between where particular situations fall on the guidelines, but his own lawyers argued that he should get 12-18 months (plus other penalties), as a downward deviation from 27 years calculated under the guidelines. [0]
So, I'm curious how you arrived at a guideline sentence of 0-12 months. That would seem to imply Shkreli’s lawyers were grossly incompetent.
> Having seen the way the law enforcement + prosecution machine works in cases like Aaron Schwartz, I would be surprised if these researchers did not spend time in jail, and didn't at least face charges of some Serious Nature.
Having considered how dangerous their little stunt was, I'd almost expect them to be sentenced to some gaol time. What they did was pretty darn Serious!
> Judge Norris said he was giving Sonderman the maximum sentenced allowed by law under the statute — 60 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, but implied that his sentence would be far harsher if the law permitted.
So, it seems like statute requires updating to increase the maximum sentence permitted for such crimes. Another question is: would that dissuade these attacks by these actors? I'm unsure.
Call your representative(s). While the American justice system leaves much to be desired, I don't think more time for effectively ordering a hit through social engineering is excessively punitive. Ross Ulbricht of Silk Road fame is doing far more time, in part, for paying someone to perform a hit that didn't take place (it was a factor in affirming his life sentence) [1] [2].
> I expect that any criminal defendant, including Aaron, would read her initial statement as "they're going to put me in prison for 35 years".
Absolutely not. I've been shocked to see how many geeks - including Linus, do not seem to understand the concept of maximum penalties.
This is not an obscure lawyer technicality, this something you see in the papers every day. Journalists like to quote the "up to" numbers because they sound dramatic, and as a functioning member of society you need to know what that means and doesn't mean.
Maximum penalties set an upper bound on sentencing based on the crimes you are charged with, to prevent abuses. The high maximum penalties in this case probably means the laws are overly broad, but say very little about what the actual sentence will be. Moreover, I do not think the items he was charged have a minimum sentence - he could have been found guilty, and still gotten off with a slap on the wrist.
> At any rate, presuming the evidence holds up, it's unlikely that this person is going to find any leniency at all. High profile is tough but survivable; monetized is tougher still. High profile and monetized? My guess is they're going to make an example out of him.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Look at Paras Jha, Zachary Buchta and Mir Islam.
All engaged in similar high profile crimes, all monetized. I think only Mir spent a little bit of time in prison.
I have a hard time thinking of any young, high profile offenders that were handed severe punishments for cybercrimes by federal courts in the past decade.
> serving a 25-year prison sentence for rigging computers to win lottery jackpots for himself, friends and family
This is outrageously absurd a human has been put in prison, let alone for 25 years, for such a bullshit reason. Many murderers and rapists in many countries get less.
For another, because the guidelines are pretty specific in this case --- that 2B1.1 crimes are charged according to --- well, here's the wording from the guidelines: "the applicable base offense level is determined by the count of conviction that provides the highest statutory maximum term of imprisonment.". So "3x20" seems off the table.
He wasn't realistically facing 35 years. He could not get anywhere near that under the federal sentencing guidelines. See this prior discussion for details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7996807
In particular, be sure to read this article linked to in the first comment, which explains exactly how the numbers given in DOJ press releases have very little connection to reality: https://popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-el...
Also see these two article if you want details specifically on how sentencing works on the specific charges Swartz faced:
http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/
http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-agains...
Prosecutors in the Swartz case were actually asking for about 7 years, which was still much higher than they were likely to get. Swartz's own lawyer thought that he'd probably just get probation if convicted.
The DOJ really needs to stop using this stupid method of writing press releases. They wrote the indictment and so they sure as hell better know exactly what they are charging and what facts they are alleging, so they should be able to figure out the guideline sentence that would result if they won on all counts. That's what should be in the press release.
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