[cup]

The Aaron Swartz issue really reaffirms a hypothesis ive held for a long time about empathy. This is the first time I've seen HN in uproar, up in arms about the injustice against a man at the hands of the state for a crime which they cannot agree with. Yet there have been far greater travesties of justice, countless suicides by innocent people in Guantanamo bay or prison and not a bleep on the HN radar.

Obviously Aaron Swartz impact on the internet, his relevance to this community and obvious closeness to many people explains it. But take away who he is and the circumstances are sadly far from rare. Aaron Swartz' ordeal is being relieved right as we speak in numerous places around America and the world.

It's just unfortunate that for many it took this long to empathise or understand their plight.

[rdl]

Guantanamo is different. There are a lot of people there (fewer now) who don't belong there, but others I'd have to try hard not to murder, myself.

The problem with Guantanamo is the lack of legal process, and the way some people were swept up who shouldn't have been (which mostly got resolved in 2005-2006), not that many of them aren't horrible criminals. I'd be fine with prosecuting them all in federal civilian court with fair trials.

[paganel]

> There are a lot of people there (fewer now) who don't belong there, but others I'd have to try hard not to murder, myself.

That's what makes (made?!) America so great in the eyes of many (myself included) that have never set foot in there, i.e. the concept that anyone deserves a fair trial, based on actual evidence, and that you wouldn't be f.cked up by the judicial system during the whole process (perdon my French).

That's what happened in Aaron's case, he was f.cked up by the system, at least that's how I see the initial threat of spending 35 (or was it 50?) years in prison for something that didn't involve murdering young kids and raping them after the deed. A judicial system that depends on threats (doesn't matter if they're implicit or not) gets dangerously close to pure dictatorship.

[rdl]

Yeah, this is why police and prosecutors (and judges/juries) should be separate people. It's unreasonable to expect me to not want to kill someone who a couple years earlier was trying to kill me.

[hobbyhacker]

The problem with Guantanamo is that it exists at all as an extra-judiciary area specifically designed to deny inmates certain rights.

[alexqgb]

The whole point of the tactics used against Aaron was to render his right to a trial by jury too risky and expensive to exercise. In both cases, the legal accountability of the Executive Branch is what's being undermined - by the Executive Branch.

[rdl]

I'd be fine with holding them there for physical security reasons; just ensure that normal US law applies as it would on a US federal military base in the mainland US.

[danso]

I guess the more profound tragedy, as I feel it, is that I always believed Aaron would be one of the best people to lead the fight against these problems (or at least, what causes them), and that the JSTOR trial was just a new, if difficult front.

[SoftwareMaven]

I think many people in power got scared by the power he wielded in the SOPA/PIPA debate, which put a lot of pressure on getting him out of the scene. The AG was all too happy to acquiesce.

[thomasjoulin]

I guess that the HN crowd easily identifies with Aaron, or at least relates to what he stands for.

Like OP, I'm surprised to be so upset about someone I didn't know about a few days ago, but I keep reading everything by or about him, and man ! What a loss...

[dinkumthinkum]

I think the difference is that Aaron is considered, directly, a member of this community, which is why there are different reactions than for Darfur or other injustices. Also, the issue, freedom of academic information is one that is very popular here in that it is a common topic of discussion.

[pinaceae]

well, you need to kill yourself first to get this kind of support over here.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484

the top commentator in this topic, edw519, back then wasn't that reflective. hindsight is 20/20.