
DOJ Elevated Its Charges Against Swartz Because Internet Rallied on His Behalf - swartzrock
http://pjmedia.com/blog/report-doj-elevated-its-charges-against-swartz-because-internet-community-rallied-on-his-behalf/?singlepage=true
======
s_q_b
The actor I'm most disappointed in is MIT.

Right now, the DOJ is one of the targets of a massive scared-straight campaign
by Beltway technologists. One of the worst kept secrets in the world is that
US cybersecurity, outside of the military and the IC, is incredibly bad. If
most civilian agencies were private corporations, they would have been sued
dozens of times by users for negligence in data handling.

For those that understood the dangers of this lax security posture, for many
years it was a game of railing into the wind about the potential consequences
of continuing to ignore this attack vector.

Then, China got involved.

Suddenly, the dangers weren't speculative at all. They were right at our
doorstep. And the same Cassandras that were on the outs for so long suddenly
found themselves with the ear of every CIO in Washington. What followed was a
massive purchasing binge, which is still ongoing, and a huge amount of
advertising and mindshare devoted to this topic.

It was amidst the height of this cyber-scare that the Schwartz prosecution was
brought. For Mr. Heymann, Aaron Schwartz was a huge target. A US hacker,
caught in the act of stealing information worth millions, was a great prize
for Mr. Heyman, his boss Carmen Ortiz, who has rather naked political
ambitions, and her bosses in DC.

So why am I disappointed in MIT? Because the DOJ has never understood computer
technology very well. MIT does. It was their job to educate the DOJ, to
subordinate passion to reason, and to parse the difficult technological issues
to explain the real lack of damage caused by Aaron Schwartz's actions.

MIT is supposed to be a guardian of our online rights and a cradle for
technologists like Schwartz. It should have been on the forefront of the
opposition to Mr. Heymann, demanding that charges be dropped. Instead, they
threw him to the wolves. And now, in one final insult, they ask the courts for
special leave to screen documents in order to hide their involvement with the
prosecution.

I hope the individuals involved know that they abandoned a sacred trust,
tarnished the name of a great institution, and negligently contributed to the
death of a brilliant young man. I hope they know that they weren't "just doing
their jobs," that they didn't "follow rules and procedures," and that no one
buys their excuses anymore.

I hope that at least one of the administrators responsible has lost even one
night's sleep over Mr. Schwartz's death. But, knowing the disdain and
disregard for Mr. Schwartz that these hired bureaucrats expressed while he was
alive, I doubt it.

~~~
pdonis
_So why am I disappointed in MIT? Because the DOJ has never understood
computer technology very well. MIT does. It was their job to educate the DOJ,
to subordinate passion to reason, and to parse the difficult technological
issues to explain the real lack of damage caused by Aaron Schwartz 's
actions._

I can see where you're coming from here, but unfortunately, from what I've
read (particularly what's in the Abelson report, see below), I don't think the
DOJ was listening to MIT in this case anyway; the US Attorney's office had its
own view of the case and wasn't receptive to alternative views.

 _And now, in one final insult, they ask the courts for special leave to
screen documents in order to hide their involvement with the prosecution._

Are you referring to MIT's request to redact the private personal information
of MIT employees who were named in the documents? That doesn't hide anything
about MIT's involvement; it just allows employees, who did not set MIT policy
to begin with, to get on with their lives without being persecuted.

I'm also curious what "involvement with the prosecution" you think MIT had.
Have you read the Abelson report?

[http://swartz-report.mit.edu/](http://swartz-report.mit.edu/)

It's quite comprehensive in its treatment of what involvement MIT had at each
phase of things.

~~~
s_q_b
>"...[U]nfortunately, from what I've read (particularly what's in the Abelson
report, see below), I don't think the DOJ was listening to MIT in this case
anyway; the US Attorney's office had its own view of the case and wasn't
receptive to alternative views..."

>"I'm also curious what 'involvement with the prosecution' you think MIT had.
Have you read the Abelson report? It's quite comprehensive in its treatment of
what involvement MIT had at each phase of things."

I'm very skeptical of any internal investigation conducted by an institution
that exonerates it from all wrongdoing. While I have tremendous respect for
Prof. Abelson as a person and an academic, it was obvious from the outset that
he was interested primarily in protecting MIT's reputation rather than seeking
the truth. Nor am I the only person that thought so. See e.g.
[http://business.time.com/2013/07/31/aaron-swartzs-father-
bla...](http://business.time.com/2013/07/31/aaron-swartzs-father-blasts-mit-
report-says-school-wasnt-neutral/)

Prof. Abelson began his investigation with an outright statement in The Tech
that he didn't expect to find any wrongdoing. That very statement is the
hallmark of either an inept or a biased investigator. A true investigator
enters his task with no preconception of what its result will be. To do
otherwise is to invite confirmation bias.

Universities are places of complex politics. I wouldn't trust any
investigation by an employee of the institution under investigation, much less
a professor who's beholden to the very administrators he's investigating for
funding, offices, and staff.

Also, MIT didn't seek leave merely to redact names of employees, although I
see no reason why those who participated in these terrible events should be
shielded from public opprobrium, but also any information in which MIT has a
privacy interest. For an attorney, what that means is any information that
could potentially implicate or even embarrass the university. I stand by my
original statements.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
Are you completely unaware of the irony in stating your distrust of "any
internal investigation conducted by an institution that exonerates it from all
wrongdoing" and then pointing to an article about the defendant's father
thinking the same thing? Any chance his dad might be less than neutral here as
well?

~~~
s_q_b
Of course I distrust his father as well. That's why I want to see the original
documents, and make my own conclusions. There's no irony here.

MIT is making a claim that it's report represents the ground truth about the
events, an assertion echoed by the previous poster. That claim is dubious, not
least because of its provenance.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
Well, you didn't say that initially. You said you didn't trust MIT to properly
investigate itself, and to support your opinion you linked to another person
with the same opinion. But that person is also someone you don't trust? I'm
not sure how that was intended to help you. But that doesn't really matter to
me anymore... I've lost interest in your opinion. Sorry.

------
pvnick
Aaron was also involved in some groundbreaking software development for
political activism [1] [2]. I find it extremely easy to believe that someone
in the DoJ saw that and decided to make an example out of him to dissuade
other "hacktivists."

[1]
[http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/stron...](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/strongbox-
and-aaron-swartz.html)

[2] [https://github.com/naomifox/mass-email-delivery-
code](https://github.com/naomifox/mass-email-delivery-code)

~~~
s_q_b
The files themselves point out that the Secret Service first began
investigating Swartz with the publication of his "Guerrilla Open Access
Manifesto."

The smart people in law enforcement are scared sh*tless of hacktivists, so
it's totally possible they lumped him in with the Sabu/Hammond/Lulzsec crowd.

------
VladRussian2
They wanted to send a message. Just like mobsters tripping on power do.

~~~
ferdo
The message seems to be, "If you assert your rights or your innocence, we'll
make life very difficult for you. Comply."

Pure mobster mentality.

~~~
fiatmoney
It's worse than that. "If anyone advocates on your behalf, we'll make sure you
regret it."

~~~
Vivtek
I think the message was meant for the Internet, actually. Something like "You
think you own this country? We'll show you who owns this country".

~~~
angersock
I don't think they appreciate how utterly annoying maintaining that position
will prove to them.

~~~
Vivtek
I certainly hope you're correct.

------
Amadou
Confirmation? PJ Media is a horrible news source, editorial standards poorer
than Glenn Beck's "The Blaze." And this wasn't even reporting, it was an
opinion piece in the blogs section.

I'm all for piling on the malefactors in the Aaron Swartz case, but I wouldn't
bet a nickle on anything that comes out of PJ Media.

------
rhizome
So Heymann increased the apparent penalties based on Swartz exercising First
Amendment rights? So much for rule of law.

~~~
kps
It's universal for prosecutors to increase the penalties sought when a
defendant exercises their Sixth Amendment rights; why should the First be any
different?

~~~
rhizome
It's idealistic, sure, but exercising these rights doesn't change the
evidence.

------
D9u

         ‘from a human one-on-one level to an institutional level.’
    

I fail to see how government vs a single individual can be construed as "a
human one-on-one level."

------
tareqak
This story makes me wonder what would have happened if the Watergate scandal
would have happened in the age of the Internet. Would the Internet rally in
favour of Richard Nixon's impeachment and against his subsequent pardon? Would
impeachment proceedings still take place irrespective of the pardon because of
massive public support?

~~~
ferdo
The NSA spying on all of us is a bigger crime and a bigger scandal than
Watergate. I don't see any groundswell for impeachment.

~~~
tankbot
> a bigger scandal than Watergate.

Depends on how you qualify its big-ness. Go out and talk to regular, non-
techie folks about NSA spying. In the unlikely event that you even find
someone who knows what you are talking about, they won't care. They will look
at you like you're crazy and they'll say, "If you have nothing to hide, you
have nothing to worry about."

If it's just a small, quickly forgotten blurb on Fox news between TERRORISM
and Honey Boo-Boo then does it even qualify as scandal?

~~~
ferdo
People affected is my bigness metric, in this instance.

Nixon got outed for spying on a hotel room. The Executive Branch just got
outed spying on pretty much everyone.

Watergate was also in a time when people were, by and large, a little more
literate about the supposed balance that's supposed to exist between the
government and the individual. I was a teenager during Watergate and recall
more than one adult being outraged that the president would spy on anyone and
shared their outrage.

Today, the almost absolute apathy about being spied on is as disturbing to me
as the surveillance itself. It doesn't bode well for the American political
future.

------
praptak
So how's the White House response to the petition to fire Carmen Ortiz?

------
tzs
> MIT, whose archive was hacked while Swartz was a fellow at Harvard (which
> gave him access to JSTOR)

So why not download from Harvard, instead of abusing guest access at MIT?

~~~
twoodfin
My guess would be because he thought MIT would be more likely to look the
other way.

------
thufry
I wouldn't even be 1% surprised if they forced Swartz into committing suicide,
by threatening to harm his loved ones if he didn't.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_suicide](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_suicide)

~~~
jgross206
can you share some of your reasoning behind this (quite extreme) belief?

~~~
YokoZar
If I remember correctly, Aaron was convinced that the way things were going
with the trial it would bankrupt his family by defending him. It's not too
hard to imagine that "protecting" them involves taking yourself out of the
equation there.

~~~
chrischen
In that case he could have just not defended himself.

------
beefxq
The end of freedom.

~~~
chris_mahan
What freedom?

------
flagnog
so, because someone's feathers got ruffled, they pursued him until he
committed suicide. Let that be a lesson boys and girls - don't piss off people
in power, bow and scrape like a good little citizen and you will be
OK</sarcasm>.

------
sp332
This article makes the prosecution sound much more reasonable than other
articles I've seen before. "The prosecutor’s response was that it disturbed
him whenever a defendant ‘systematically re-victimized’ the victim, and that
was what Swartz was doing by dragging MIT through hearings and a trial." The
trial must have seemed like a deliberate waste of everyone's resources, when
(from the prosecutor's view) Aaron would have been much better off taking the
plea bargain since he had already admitted what he had done.

~~~
tareqak
Shouldn't it be the judge's call to decide whether or not resources are being
wasted? The fact that the prosecutor raised charges in spite of the fact that
the nature and severity of crime did not change seems reprehensible and
basically amounts to revenge.

It reminds of the time I was reprimanded by a teacher more harshly because I
chose to share the sequence of events that unfolded with my parents. My
parents called the teacher about it, and the next day, things were magically
worse.

Edit: fixed typo

~~~
mikegagnon
In the American justice system the judge is part of the judicial branch and
the prosecutor is part of the executive branch.

Prosecutors have a huge amount of discretion in their jobs. They can choose if
they press charges and if so what charges to press.

In this case, there are allegations that the prosecution abused its power by
retaliating against free speech.

The prosecutor allegedly said something along the lines of: Aaron Swartz was
foolish to exercise free speech because it then went "‘from a human one-on-one
level to an institutional level.’ The lead prosecutor said that on the
institutional level cases are harder to manage both internally and externally"

I presume by "one-on-one" prosecution, the prosecutor meant it was one
prosecutor against Aaron Swartz. But by publicizing the case, it aroused the
interest of the "institution" (i.e. the higher ups), who then decided to throw
the book at Swartz.

