OK, this sounds pedantic, but "Convicted for Longer"* is not accurate...you're not convicted for a period of time, you're convicted and then sentenced to a period of jail time, or probation.
And of course, as we all know from the Aaron Swartz coverage, "could serve for as long as..." is different than "actually serve a sentence of [xy] ears".
But the most relevant quibble is this: a father who beats these rapists with his fists would also face a longer sentence than these accused rapists (who, according to the OP, faced 1-2 years)...because these convicted offenders were juveniles.
And as much as we want to celebrate extra-judicial vengenance upon convicts, juvenile or not, I think we should be aware that there may be unpleasant consequences when our justice/political system looks the other way upon unlawful actions in which "the ends justified the means".
...because, I mean, isn't that at the core of the NSA controversy that is currently raging in the the other 20 HN threads?
* edit: the original title for this submission was "Hacker...Could Be Convicted for Longer..."
I think we should be aware that there may be unpleasant consequences...
Or as I like to put it, something about having your cake and eating it. We can't demand the administration turn a blind eye here, and rage at that same administration when they turn a blind eye there.
> But the most relevant quibble is this: a father who beats these rapists with his fists would also face a longer sentence than these accused rapists (who, according to the OP, faced 1-2 years)...because these convicted offenders were juveniles.* *
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These offenders were teenagers. They are not five years old, they know - at least in general terms - what's right and wrong, and they know what will hurt someone. And they did it anyway.
Charging someone as a juvenile ought to be for kiddy-screwup fist fights and stupid kid mistakes, so that some momentary lack of judgement doesn't screw someone's life up, not for raping someone - that's not a momentary mistake.
========QUOTE==========
And as much as we want to celebrate extra-judicial vengenance upon convicts, juvenile or not, I think we should be aware that there may be unpleasant consequences when our justice/political system looks the other way upon unlawful actions in which "the ends justified the means".
...because, I mean, isn't that at the core of the NSA controversy that is currently raging in the the other 20 HN threads?
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Not from my point of view, no. The law is going to be selectively enforced - there's nothing you can do about it. And the law is so ridiculously messed up that total enforcement isn't even something desirable. The average person commits, I believe it's 3, felonies a day. The US gov can't even count all the laws anymore. We're all guilty.
That's why you need a system that lets people adjust the application of law for common decency. That's why you need a jury of your peers with the ability to refuse to convict. (Granted, a legal theory that seems relatively unknown these days.)
Not only is it pedantic, you are a terrible human for wanting to lock a father who beats up a rapist for longer than the rapist.
These men were old enough to rape, they should be old enough to do the time and if your excuse was that they were juveniles, then just remember that they could (and should have been) charged as adults. Alas the bastards weren't, but that is prosecutal misconduct, not justice.
People like you are the reason I would waive my right to a jury trial. You are so caught up in your own bias that it causes you to literally see things that aren't there, like your accusation that danso 'want[s] to lock a father who beats up a rapist for longer than the rapist.'
I don't think danso was necessarily agreeing with that sentiment — he was just pointing out that the current reality of the justice system would result in such sentencing.
A girl in a high school football-obsessed small town went to a party and was assaulted by football players who later bragged about it on Twitter.
A blogger saw the posts (later deleted) and took screenshots. She tried to get justice for the victim by re-posting these on her blog. For this she was hounded relentlessly in the town and a defamation suit was brought against her.
The players bragged that the coach knew about the accusations and would make them go away.
Two of the football players were later given 1 and 2 year sentences in juvenile detention, largely due to the efforts by people who got involved in bringing this case to a wider audience.
As for the hacker...
I've read the linked article, another article, the accused's webpage, and an article by the blogger who stood up for the rape victim, and I still can't figure out exactly what role, if any, this guy had in this mess.
FTFY. Let's not mince words here. This was not merely assault (which can describe something as mild as a punch or a shove). This was rape, committed by multiple parties, followed by degradation on camera for others to see. And, the girl was so drunk/drugged that she probably should have been seen by a doctor...instead the people around her took it as an opportunity to prey upon her.
I meant "sexually assaulted", not simply "assaulted". I didn't omit the word as part of some pro-rape agenda. Anyway, I can't edit it now, unfortunately.
Sexual assault generally means "unwanted penetration" (legally), which includes whatever happened here (unclear exactly from the articles I read).
The participants posted their thoughts during the sex assault in real time to Facebook. It was these threads that Ms. Goddard saved, and which Mr. Lostutter then published (eventually leading to his arrest for 'hacking'). One thread stated that the girl must be dead because "You don't sleep through a wang in the butthole." This suggests that among the various events was someone engaged in anal insertion of their "wang" into the victim. They also bragged about what they themselves termed a "rape" in a separate incident the previous April.
In the actual plea bargain the two that were sentenced admitted to "digital insertion", which is generally understood to be finger penetration. This seems to understate the extent of the rape however, based on the statements they made during the rape to their Facebook accounts.
I didn't omit the word as part of some pro-rape agenda
I'm not sure it's worth your time to contend this. The debate surrounding rape is very if-you-arent-with-us-youre-against-us, so too often it seems it's already a lost battle.
What debate is "surrounding rape" exactly? Are you referring to a debate as to whether rape is ethically permissible or not? If so, where do you hang out?
I thought the poster was referring to something other than "Men's Rights Advocates"; maybe implicitly trotting out the hackneyed "Tumblr SJ crazies" strawmen
In Steubenville, for example, and pretty much anywhere else. Oh, they will not tell you that rape is ethically ok – but they will tell you that something that is rape was nothing of the kind, that she/he asked for it or deserved it or has only herself/himself to blame.
- Questions like, "what should be done about the devastating affects on the life of someone accused (but acquitted) of rape?"
- Taking into consideration the impact on the accused, questions like "should women who make blatantly false or frivolous claims of rape be held liable?"
I don't claim to know the answers to any of these bullet points, but the fact of the matter is they are hotly contested even today- thus, debated.
Haha sorry... been a busy week. I misinterpreted your intent with your original post. Should have indicated that I was being rhetorical/willfully asking the begged question I thought I saw
When I was in college 20 years ago in Boulder the local feminists would get upset when people didn't say "assualt", or if they modified it with "sexual". I always maintained that assault wasn't as bad as rape or "sexual assault", but they wanted nothing of it.
That's an odd collection of feminists, though there are a variety of thoughts on how best to serve the victims of rape and how best to make it understood that rape is a crime of violence (and not merely a harmless act of overzealous sexual desire). I don't think it is common among my friend circle (who are mostly all feminists) to call rape anything other than rape.
A blogger saw the posts (later deleted) and took screenshots. She tried to get justice for the victim by re-posting these on her blog.
By the way, if anyone is ever in this situation, don't do this on behalf of the victim unless they ask you to. It may very well be perceived as a violation. I don't know the specifics here, but in general, this is not the way to help. Tread lightly. Rape victims are often cast aside by the government who cares only about prosecution and little about healing. We need not do the same in misguided attempts to help. Put the victim first.
It sounds nice to put the victim's wishes first, until you realize that if the perpetrators aren't handled properly they might go on to victimize more people.
Thank you for bringing up something that needs to be considered, but situations like this are too complex for hard rules.
I only bring it up because I've seen the unintended misery it can cause. People sometimes assume that these actions have only positive repercussions, and that just isn't so. This poor girl is plastered across the Internet unconscious, half naked, and abused. And her attackers got a year in juvie. Worth it? I'm not sure. You'd have to ask her.
excerpt: "People reporting on federal criminal justice — whether journalists or bloggers — routinely report on the statutory maximum sentence that a defendant could hypothetically get, an oft-ridiculous figure calculated by taking all the charged crimes and adding up the maximum punishment for each. This is usually followed by some sort of pronouncement that THIS PERSON CHARGED OF MINOR CRIMES FACES MORE JAIL TIME THAN YOU'D GET IF YOU BEAT A TODDLER TO DEATH WITH AN UNCONSCIOUS NUN WHILE RAPING A BLIND LIBRARIAN, or words to that effect."
It's not just "journalists or bloggers" who do that; the government will often quote the maximum possible when discussing the case as well, in order to intimidate the defendant into a plea bargain.
Yep, which is why it's appropriate to quote the same figures when criticizing the bad behavior of the prosecution.
Even if they won't get the maximum, the number is still significant, because it serves as the anchor for extorting a plea bargain, as well as sentencing.
The government at least mentions that it's a maximum sentence. There's no other specific number they can quote anyways, it's not like they know what the judge and jury might approve that far ahead of time.
A more ethical group of prosecutors than we have (recruited, perhaps, among the sea pirates, slave traders, and drug kingpins of the world?), wouldn't make speculative statements about sentencing at all, much less to the media.
Because obviously allowing the media to make speculative statements with are completely unfounded is much better than at least tempering with fact. OK.
"Facts" don't miraculously appear out of prosecutors' asses. Prosecutors are not uninterested parties in trials, and if you really cared about the veracity of media reports you would encourage the media to do its own reporting rather than lap up press releases.
Seems to be a strange thing though in our justice system- that seemingly more minor crimes have greater maximum sentences (and sometimes mandatory minimums) than more violent/harmful crimes.
I know it isn't just something we can 'fix' easily, but it does seem to be a bug in the system essentially.
there are crimes against the System and crimes against another person(s). Through the history of the human race the former were punished harder than the latter. Jesus for example.
There is a joke in Russia about a person buying a fake money printing device. After discovering that the device itself is a fake (it was loaded with a bit of real money for demo purposes during sale), the buyer reports the fraud to the authorities. As result the seller gets relatively small time for the fraud he committed against the buyer and the buyer gets much bigger time because he tried to commit fraud (ie. intended to print fake money) against the government.
While that certainly means such stories aren't as serious as they sound, it's still indicative of a pretty messed up sentencing system. Thank you for the link.
At first, he thought the FBI agent at the door was with FedEx. "As I open the door to greet the driver, approximately 12 FBI SWAT team agents jumped out of the truck, screaming for me to 'Get the fuck down!' with M-16 assault rifles and full riot gear, armed, safety off, pointed directly at my head," Lostutter wrote today on his blog. "I was handcuffed and detained outside while they cleared my house.
>They don't know if the person is armed or not, so better safe than sorry when it comes to the lives of agents.
I wonder if there are any actual statistics on this. We always hear the arguments about the number of accidental firearms deaths in favor of gun control, is there any reason to suspect the situation to be orders of magnitude different with a group of cowboy cops? If anything it could be worse in a group, because it turns the situation into a powder keg such that one shot fired by anyone (or anything that sounds like one) and you immediately have a massive firefight in an area populated by numerous friendlies and nearby civilians.
It is well documented that deaths increase with more forceful arrests. Interestingly not only among arrestees and innocent bystanders but the police as well.
While you never know who's armed and who's not, in these cases they're probably just as worried about the destruction of evidence - a polite knock on the door and an 'excuse me, sir, we're the FBI' might give him time to erase or destroy something.
This may be true, but if the person has no history of violence, isn't wanted for a violent offence, has no registered firearms, and is not known to have any radical anti-government / Michigan Militia-type views, then there is probably no reason for such an armed assault.
| in these cases they're probably just as worried
| about the destruction of evidence
So a group of men armed with assault rifles is necessary to prevent destruction of evidence, because a couple of agents armed with handguns would have encouraged resistance?
"Registered firearms" in a nation with the 2nd Amendment? Even in states that require it I wouldn't trust that info with my life. :)
And either way I don't see why you'd not be OK with rifles but would be OK with handguns. Once you're OK with the arresting officers being armed the rest is just a matter of degree.
Exactly. Sending a couple of armed officers vs. a SWAT team with snipers and helicopters. Let's not forget that the US taxpayers are footing the bill if every arrest involves a highly-trained 10-person team donning assault rifles, etc.
Man, I don't know. If I was a lot stupider and could get the drop on them, I might like my chances against two agents with handguns.
A SWAT team, on the other hand - I don't care how dumb, drunk, or high I am, if ten officers with heavy weaponry come with a helicopter escort, I know I'm going to lose.
A tank would have a much higher risk of needless collateral damage compared to rifles, and the NG couldn't play anyways due to Posse Comitatus Act restrictions (except possibly if they were activated under the state governor's authority, I forget the specifics).
Either way the comment didn't say that "more force is always better" like you seem to go along with, only that a couple of agents with handguns are in a different category than a bunch of agents with rifles available. But once you have a bunch of agents with rifles, adding a tank or soldiers doesn't significantly change the risk equation for the Feds so even their ORM analysis would say not to do it.
In this circumstance, police used to just detain the guy after he left for work, or after the whole family went out to eat. Very few houses are occupied 24 hours a day.
The problem with that policy was that police didn't get to shoot enough dogs.
While I'm no cop and such actions are concerning to me - let me play devil's advocate. If you have to train a group of men to apprehend a wide variety of suspects/fugitives/badguys in a manner that is fast, effective, and as safe as possible, it makes sense that you keep the procedures, tactics, and equipment used consistent.
After all, pointing an M16 at someone wont hurt them any more than pointing a .38 special at them, but it's a hell of a lot less tempting to run/fight back against an overwhelming force.
That they seem heavy handed in this case is just a result of it being on the edge of the range they need to cover.
All of that makes sense under the premise that the SWAT team should be used to apprehend an individual which is not know to be part of any criminal group nor has committed a violent act.
I suspect they wanted to get in very quickly, but I think it might have made more sense to send two guys to wait for him to come out of his house rather than send 12 to kick in his door. I have limits as to how far I can argue their point. It does seem somewhat excessive. But you never know the details.
I'd say its more like Air to surface fusion missile. I guess information is power and anyone with modicum of information is more dangerous. Weird times.
You know: the rule of law is more important than a lot of things (especially if these are done by minors). I have not understood what the 'hacker' did but IF it were trying to overstep due process, I would understand a very painful sentence.
The constitution is all about that: freedom and how the State handles the issues. Due process cannot be subverted without punishment even though doing so may have 'good consequences': the classical problem of the ends and the means.
I feel like it is a little unfair comparing the number of years someone is sentenced and going to jail for and the number of years someone could go to jail for if they are found guilty and receive the max sentence.
(Perhaps people don't think the hacker did anything that should be considered a crime worthy of a sentence that long, but that's a totally different argument)
Well, there's always the federal sentencing guidlines - they would provide a little insight into what he's really facing. Also, the rape charges were state (juvenile) charges, not federal. The federales don't mess around.
I don't think it is. Humans tend to instinctively "compromise" to a middle position. If you were to say, "this hacker must get between 2 and 40 years", you're much more likely (if I recall right?) to end up with them getting much more than the minimum.
I imagine that he faces charges, not specifically for crimes committed to out the rapists, but possibly for a number of other illegal activities related to hacking.
That one of his deeds ended up resulting in outing bad people, does not mean that he is always so conscious or on the side of good.
Unless more information comes to light, you're just slandering the guy. The assumption at this point is that he was arrested at multiple M16 assault rifle gunpoints because of his involvement in hacking into Jim Parks's fansite. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/01/inside-anony...;
It's not slander to assume that the law enforcement agency that raided him was acting on credible intelligence of illegal activity. They may be wrong, but I don't see how this is slander. I've made no specific accusations and if you are saying he's implicated in hacking a web site (the link you provided is dead) then that seems to corroborate my assumption.
It is actually very logical that hackers are sentenced for much higher than violent criminals, because a hacker is a potential threat to the government stability (in case he exposes secret data about the activities of the government), while all violent criminal does is damages one or few people property and/or health. In the sense of computer system, a violent criminal is some incorrect input, while a hacker is a bug in the system.
Kill Aaron, put kids in prison for dDOSing... but for god sakes, don't ever try to send a message to potential rapists! That would be oppressing men everywhere!
And of course, as we all know from the Aaron Swartz coverage, "could serve for as long as..." is different than "actually serve a sentence of [xy] ears".
But the most relevant quibble is this: a father who beats these rapists with his fists would also face a longer sentence than these accused rapists (who, according to the OP, faced 1-2 years)...because these convicted offenders were juveniles.
And as much as we want to celebrate extra-judicial vengenance upon convicts, juvenile or not, I think we should be aware that there may be unpleasant consequences when our justice/political system looks the other way upon unlawful actions in which "the ends justified the means".
...because, I mean, isn't that at the core of the NSA controversy that is currently raging in the the other 20 HN threads?
* edit: the original title for this submission was "Hacker...Could Be Convicted for Longer..."