[governance] Different Rules for Plutocrats - more on Swartz (RIP)

Fri Jan 18 13:09:07 EST 2013

[Equality before the law? An exceptional country by any standards . . . ]

  Different Rules for Plutocrats

By Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News

18 January 13

Reader Supported News | Perspective

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.

26-year-old Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz faced up to 35 years 
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120917/17393320412/us-government-ups-felony-count-jstoraaron-swartz-case-four-to-thirteen.shtml> 
in federal prison for the "crime" of downloading academic files 
<http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N61/swartz.html> from the JSTOR database, with 
the intent of publicizing the research 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/12/aaron-swartz-american-hero/> 
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 "was 
killed by the government. 
<http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SWARTZ_FUNERAL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT>" 
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 knowing he was a suicide risk 
<http://www.businessinsider.com/new-details-about-aaron-swartz-case-2013-1>.

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.

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 halted 
the investigation 
<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> 
dead in its tracks.

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 "Aaron's 
Law. 
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/15/zoe-lofgren-aarons-law-swartz_n_2483770.html>" 
There is already legislation on the books 
<http://larouchepac.com/node/25049> 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.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

/Carl Gibson, 25, is co-founder of US Uncut, <http://usuncut.org> 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 "We're Not 
Broke <http://werenotbrokemovie.com/>," which premiered at the 2012 
Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Old Lyme, Connecticut. You 
can contact Carl at carl at rsnorg.org <mailto:carl at rsnorg.org>./

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.

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