What the heck are you talking about? You changed virtually EVERY fact there is out there about this case. I will only this one more time reply to you because I have the sense that you do not argue for the purpose of getting things straightened out but because you must fight with people who disagree with you or whose wording or argumentation style you disagree with.
Here couple facts for you:
* This guy is a CONVICTED fellow. "Innocent until proven guilty", he has been proven guilty of a crime, he got convicted and sentenced. This is a fact, do you understand the term "fact"?
* The intent makes the difference in the severity of sentencing NOT to determine whether a crime has been committed or not. He committed a crime, he has stolen corporate property, it was clearly outlined in his employment contract that he was not to copy ANY sort of code, and especially not remove it from GS's premises (that includes images of his butt he took sitting on a copier one night, and that includes open source code, ANYTHING).
* The intent was shown by prosecutors: He used the code and presented to his future employer in Chicago in the hopes to gain employment, monetary or whatever other benefit in exchange for surrendering the code. That his future employers blew the whistle on him got him picked up at the airport on the way back to New York. The intent, therefore, was clearly outlined and proven.
* So, the question DOES CENTER on the severity of the sentence. I made my case and will not go into it again. You can feel free to deliver food to his cell every single day. I am happy crooks like him get locked up. And yes, of course there was a deterrent component built into the sentence. If he would have gone lose 6 months after severing some community service, can you imagine what would happen? Every junior developer would enter companies, steal code and sell it to some Russians, Chinese, or competitors in the U.S. In fact, it would be the beginning of a perfectly supportive environment for corporate espionage, theft, corruption. We already know you disagree on the severity, so you do not need to repeat yourself. I am happy he got 8 years, I would have been happy if he got 20.
But you saying that guy committed a "technical breach of law" displays that you better never consider a career as defendant, you would lose most every case. Society demands punishment for breaches of laws, for protective purposes and to scare others that might consider imitating crimes. You disagree with it, I agree with it. Are we all fine now?
Quote from Ghost of Cutten:
You are talking as though it is beyond dispute that he had criminal intent to steal for personal gain. But the whole point of that article was to question that intent - if there were no doubts about his intent, then obviously there would be no controversy.
The question then is not whether 8 years is a reasonable, harsh, or outrageous sentence for the nefarious theft of valuable corporate data. The question is whether 8 years is just for nothing more than a technical breach of the law, which caused no consequential harm or damage to the alleged victim.
So, what do you think - if he had no criminal intent, and the Goldman proprietary code (which appears to have been of no commercial value) was 'stolen' merely in passing, while he was taking other public domain code legitimately...what would be a fair punishment for that? And what would be an unconscionable outrage against your sense of justice and common decency?
I WANT THE TRUTH!
I contributed