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[Equality before the law? An exceptional country by any standards .
. . ]<br>
<h1 class="txttitle">Different Rules for Plutocrats</h1>
<p class="txtauthor">By Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News</p>
<p class="date">18 January 13</p>
<br>
Reader Supported News | Perspective
<p> </p>
<p><img src="cid:part1.07010705.07040804@gmail.com" border="0">n
feudal societies, the king and his barons lord over the serfs,
whom devote their lives to toiling for their masters' gain. The
serfs live by one harsh set of rules, and the lords live by
another. A serf who steals from a lord would face a serious prison
sentence or death, while a lord could simply buy off anyone he
needed to convince of his innocence should he ever commit a crime.
In that respect, the United States is one of the world's most
true-to-life examples of a feudal system.</p>
<p class="indent">26-year-old Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz faced <a
href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120917/17393320412/us-government-ups-felony-count-jstoraaron-swartz-case-four-to-thirteen.shtml"
target="_blank">up to 35 years</a> in federal prison for the
"crime" of <a href="http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N61/swartz.html"
target="_blank">downloading academic files</a> from the JSTOR
database, with the intent of <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/12/aaron-swartz-american-hero/"
target="_blank">publicizing the research</a> for anyone to have
free of charge. In addition to his prison sentence, he faced up to
$1 million in fines. This didn't include any money that Swartz, a
man of modest means, would have to raise to pay for his legal fees
and court costs in a battle of attrition with the federal judicial
system. After Swartz' suicide, his dad told the media his son "<a
href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SWARTZ_FUNERAL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT"
target="_blank">was killed by the government.</a>" The federal
prosecutor, Steve Heymann, along with US Attorney Carmen Ortiz,
believed in punishing hackers to the fullest extent of the law,
and relentlessly pursued him despite <a
href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-details-about-aaron-swartz-case-2013-1"
target="_blank">knowing he was a suicide risk</a>.</p>
<p class="indent">Contrast that with the recent news of JPMorgan CEO
Jamie Dimon, who was on the hot seat for gambling with and losing
$6 billion in other people's money in a high-risk trading scheme.
Or with executives at HSBC, whom were found to have been
laundering money for drug cartels and terrorists. Or with
executives at UBS Bank, who pled guilty to rigging the LIBOR
interest rate, needlessly bleeding millions of debtors dry on
hefty student loan interest payments and mortgage payments. Both
HSBC and UBS paid fines that amounted to several weeks of income
for the banks. Jamie Dimon had his salary cut from $23 million to
$11 million. Jail wasn't even considered for these titans of high
finance, despite their open complicity in bilking millions of
people out of their hard-earned money, and aiding criminals.</p>
<p class="indent">While federal prosecutors sought to throw the book
at a 26-year-old hacker who tried to distribute information for
free, federal regulators are sitting on their thumbs when it comes
to community drinking-water supplies. The Obama EPA recently
silenced their own report that detailed how hydraulic fracturing,
or fracking, made groundwater supplies in Texas undrinkable once
the oil and shale gas companies caught wind of it. After the
fossil fuel industry threw enough of a fit, the EPA <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ap-exclusive-epa-reversed-course-on-tainted-texas-water-wells-after-gas-company-protested/2013/01/16/2462edca-603b-11e2-9dc9-bca76dd777b8_story.html"
target="_blank">halted the investigation</a> dead in its tracks.</p>
<p class="indent">The scales of Lady Justice have been tilted in
favor of the corporate elite for decades now, regardless of which
party is in power or the person in the White House. There are
reforms ready to ease the harshness of federal prosecution of
computer crimes, like Zoe Lofgren's "<a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/15/zoe-lofgren-aarons-law-swartz_n_2483770.html"
target="_blank">Aaron's Law.</a>" There is already <a
href="http://larouchepac.com/node/25049" target="_blank">legislation
on the books</a> to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act of 1937
that would break up the big banks. Countries like Iceland,
Argentina and Germany have already taken criminal action against
bankers that ruined economies and upended lives with their
destructive greed. But the cold, hard fact is that those laws
won't be passed, and those bankers won't be arrested until we
pressure our elected officials to do so. And if this current crop
won't, then let's overrun the Congressional midterms in 2014 and
refuse to elect anyone running for office unless they vow to do
so.</p>
<hr style="width: 25%;" size="3">
<p class="indent"><em>Carl Gibson, 25, is co-founder of <a
href="http://usuncut.org" target="_blank">US Uncut,</a> a
nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens
of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and
budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street
movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the
documentary "<a href="http://werenotbrokemovie.com/"
target="_blank">We're Not Broke</a>," which premiered at the
2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Old Lyme,
Connecticut. You can contact Carl at <a
href="mailto:carl@rsnorg.org">carl@rsnorg.org</a>.</em></p>
<p class="indent">Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin
for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with
credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.</p>
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