

MIT Moves to Intervene in Release of Aaron Swartz’s Secret Service File - hermanywong
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/mit-swartz-intervene/all/1

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cowsandmilk
(Note, this is purely informational, I completely disagree with what MIT is
doing in this case)

It is interesting that they have never heard of third party's intervening in
FOIA cases because it actually is a common occurrence in academia.

Many times, a professor at another university will file a FOIA request for
your grant application. If you feel your research plans are threatened by
having the details of your grant passed along to this other professor, your
university will intervene on your behalf in the FOIA request. This is
especially true if there is patentable material in the grant that they fear
will be threatened by wide dissemination of the contents of the grant. Even if
they fail in blocking the FOIA request, they usually can at least delay the
release long enough to file a preliminary patent on the material described in
the grant application.

I can understand reporters not having heard of this tactic, but I'm surprised
an expert FOIA litigator would be unfamiliar with these cases.

~~~
jmharvey
That's a reasonable explanation, but "we have scientific knowledge that we'd
like to hide, an we're asking the government for more money to further our
understanding of the subject" isn't much of an excuse. Isn't the entire
rationale for providing government funding for academic research premised on
the idea that scientific knowledge is a public good, to be shared freely?

~~~
mjn
The government has purposely set up the process in an adversarial manner (you
must prove why _you uniquely_ are positioned to make scientific advances here,
better than anyone else), so it's not surprising that the process plays out in
an adversarial manner. The government also encourages institutions to be
entrepreneurial by doing things like patenting their results, or keeping them
as trade secrets to hand to spinoff companies, so academia can prove its worth
in the startup economy.

Is this the best way to make scientific advances? Probably not. But it's a
systemic problem. There is at least one study (I believe Canadian, can't find
a link currently) which found that it would be more efficient just to give
every researcher in Canada some baseline funding, rather than spending all the
money they currently do on the adversarial funding process.

That was actually somewhat closer to the traditional CS funding model in the
U.S., though largely accidentally, through military funding. Why did someone
like Richard Stallman (not an academic) get employed for decades in the MIT AI
Lab? Because DARPA gave non-micromanaged block grants to the MIT AI Lab to
fund a "center of excellence" for years at a time, which they were free to use
to employ staff as they saw fit. Nowadays most grants are 3 years long and
very specific, so it's all about positioning yourself for the next 3-year
grant, if you want to keep the lights on and your staff paid.

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akg_67
MIT is no exception when it comes to the current class of inverse heroes.
Recent events have shown that every person or organization will stoop as low
as they can go to protect self-interest while preaching ethics and
accountability to others and expecting them to follow in any condition.

"While in the past people of rank or status were those and only those who took
risks, who had the downside for their actions, and heroes were those who did
so for the sake of others, today the exact reverse is taking place. We are
witnessing the “rise of a new class of inverse heroes, that is, bureaucrats,
bankers, Davos-attending members of the I.A.N.D. (International Association of
Name Droppers), and academics with too much power and no real downside and/or
accountability. They game the system while citizens pay the price.”

Excerpt From: Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. “Antifragile: Things That Gain from
Disorder.”

~~~
SagelyGuru
Agreed. Further, if helping the secret service to prosecute under these just
new laws <sic> is such a worthwhile cause, what are they so afraid of? Should
they not be proud to be identified?

>"MIT claims it’s afraid the release of Swartz’s file will identify the names
of MIT people who helped the Secret Service and federal prosecutors pursue
felony charges against Swartz for his bulk downloading of academic articles
from MIT’s network in 2011."

Let me get this straight. There are academics involved, who are supposed to be
professionally on the side of the freedom of information. They instead choose
to inform on a colleague and ruin his life and then, knowing what they had
done is morally objectionable on many levels, they use the fact that they
might well be criticised for it to stifle information again and try to justify
anonymity for themselves?!?

If I was a bright young student I would no longer consider MIT. What can one
hope to learn from people like these?

Sadly, this whole case brings up uncomfortable parallels with anonymous
informants always crawling out of the woodwork and taking delight in ruining
their neighbours' lives, whenever a despotic regime takes hold of a society.

~~~
sadfaceunread
This is a ridiculous line of argument. Let me re-contextualize with a parallel
scenario. Suppose you are the victim of any of crime. Suppose your teenage
daughter is the one who actually called the police. Suppose the perpetrator of
the crime was an animal rights activist with a large cohort of people with
similar viewpoints who occasionally in a mob mentality anonymously engage in
violence, or threats of violence. During the prosecution of the crime, the DoJ
goes a little crazy and the accused commits suicide. The estate of the animal
rights activist wants to release your daughter's bus route home from school,
email address, and cell phone number.

Do you file to prevent this information to be released?

~~~
SagelyGuru
Sorry but it is your "re-contextualizing" that is ridiculous.

Swartz never engaged in violence or threats of it. All he did was to download
a large number of publicly funded scientific papers that he should have had
access to anyway. MIT did not just report him. They made sure that the secret
service was there in a couple of minutes and then they insisted on prosecuting
him. One could argue that it was the MIT's insistence on prosecution that did
him in, as much as the eagerness of the DoJ.

MIT made a number of bad decisions and this latest one only continues this
trend. Until someone is named to take personal responsibility for those
decisions, or someone does the decent thing and owns up to them, the
responsibility must lie with MIT as an institution.

~~~
sadfaceunread
It is not Swartz, but certain (presumably lower case A) anonymous elements of
the internet community who have phoned in multiple threats to MIT staff in the
wake of his suicide. That is the subsequent violence that protection of
information serves to prevent.

Swartz broke and entered MIT private property that is the crime I alluded to
in my analogy. (See the matter in Massachusetts state court for details). MIT
did not understand the nature of his actions on the wire before involving the
Secret Service to assist in the investigation. At that point MIT has no more
say in the prosecution. None. It is the United States Government's decision
how to run the prosecution.

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davidxc
I'm wondering why MIT still hasn't released its report on how Aaron Swartz's
situation was handled.

I think the report was supposed to have been released months ago.

~~~
asdfologist
Their lawyers probably advised against it.

~~~
gcb0
...because they are guilty as hell?

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
And/or because people move on, forget about things.

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afarrell
I'll wait to see the actual motion, but it seems reasonable that they would
want the names of staff redacted to prevent them from getting death threats
from people that equate them to leaders of the hitler youth.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5050412](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5050412)

~~~
Amadou
There is no evidence of death threats in that link.

Equating them to the leaders of the hitler youth may be an extreme
interpretation but is not threatening.

My understanding is that the two prosecutors in the Aaron Schwartz case have
reported receiving threats -- One email gloating at doxing him, one postcard
of a guillotine and one of them had their facebook account hacked. I've always
assumed that people in high profile jobs like that receive threats on a
regular basis, and that given the unpredictability of 4chan / anonymous that
the number and types of threats were unexpectedly tame.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-swartz-prosecutors-
thre...](http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-swartz-prosecutors-threats-
hacking-2013-4)

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mythz
The Streisand effect will come into play here. If they fail in their bid,
everyone's going to pay extra attention to look for what they were trying to
hide.

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mullingitover
I recall a wise man once said, "When you find yourself in a hole, stop
digging."

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beedogs
MIT must've done something really embarrassingly awful to want to suppress
this.

~~~
incongruity
And are, in turn, doing something embarrassingly awful by moving to suppress
this.

(IMHO, of course).

~~~
malandrew
So they are forced to choose the lesser of two embarrassments. I'm really
curious what they are trying to hide.

~~~
jlgreco
Yeah, they are really not leaving me with any choice but to assume the worse
possible circumstance...

~~~
e3pi
>... not leaving me with any choice but to assume the worse possible
circumstance...

What would that be?

------
jlgreco
Do they really think that this is making them look any better in this
situation?

~~~
hnnnnng
Whats gonna happen? People are not going to stop going to MIT. The market it
is in is education which is always growing and (sadly) the majority of people
don't care what happened to Aaron Schwartz. MIT will still retain its top
position and frankly I cannot fathom a scenario where it would have to face
any serious consequences. So its most likely trying to hide something thats
worth the loss of 'face' by filing this. But even if it fails, I don't think
they give a f __k.

~~~
jmharvey
Donations matter, I hope. But I don't know how many regularly-donating alumni
will follow through on their pledge not to give until this case is resolved,
and proper action is taken.

It's hard to do, and it feels lousy. The alumni who feel closest to this case
are probably people who spent a lot of time making stuff. When they donate,
they're more likely to target their money at helping other people make stuff,
by donating to things like the Edgerton Center [1], MITERS [2], or SIPB [3],
or even just giving money directly to dorm governments (my hall had a PIC
burner sitting next to the toaster on our kitchen counter and a couple of
oscilloscopes you could check out from the front desk, courtesy of some slush
fund somewhere).

When these alumni donate, they're not doing it to get their name on a plaque,
or out of some kind of broad-based affinity for the school, they're doing it
to help current students have the same kind of experiences they were able to
enjoy. And if they stop donating, it's pretty easy to see the culture of
creation suffering. People will keep making stuff, but it'll be a little more
difficult, require a little more dedication, and it'll wind up being fewer
people. That's a significant price to pay to stand on a principle.

[1] [http://web.mit.edu/edgerton/](http://web.mit.edu/edgerton/) [2]
[http://miters.mit.edu/](http://miters.mit.edu/) [3]
[http://sipb.mit.edu/](http://sipb.mit.edu/)

~~~
rapind
Couldn't they donate elsewhere and have pretty close to the same affect? I
assume that your choice to donate specifically to your school instead of
another has something to do with your feelings for the school.

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JumpCrisscross
Does anyone have the breakdown of MIT's total funding from: (i) tuition, (ii)
alumni donations, (iii) endowment distributions, (iv) government contracts,
grants, etc., and, (v) non-alumni non-governmental sources (other)?

~~~
jkldotio
It seems they raise tens of millions from donations each year.[1] Given the
calibre, and number, of speakers at Aaron Swartz's public eulogy who made some
very pointed comments about the political dimensions of the case beyond their
praise for Aaron's life I imagine there is potential for the issue to affect
donations.

[1] [http://alum.mit.edu/pages/sliceofmit/2013/03/08/mit-
ranks-11...](http://alum.mit.edu/pages/sliceofmit/2013/03/08/mit-ranks-11th-
in-alumni-donations/)

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MWil
Can anyone answer this: wouldn't this information have been forced to be
public as part of any successful criminal trial?

Wasn't MIT's network setup directly at issue?

~~~
dedward
Evidence introduced at trial, yes. Investigative materials and whatnot used to
put the case together, things not directly used as evidence... perhaps not.

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thinkcomp
The actual case docket is here:

[http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2489830](http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2489830)

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venomsnake
Are all organisations lately competing in some limbo tournament? How low can
you set the bar and still move below it?

There is no point of saving the face if it makes you look like an ass ...

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locusm
If the NSA cant keep a secret... This case is so profoundly sad.

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BrokenPipe
Very sad.

