MIT Warned of a JSTOR Death Sentence Due To Swartz

theodp writes "The NY Times takes a look at how MIT ensnared Aaron Swartz, but doesn't shed much light on how the incident became a Federal case with Secret Service involvement. Still, the article is interesting with its report that 'E-mails among M.I.T. officials that Tuesday in January 2011 highlight the pressures university officials felt' from JSTOR, which is generally viewed as a good guy in the incident. From the story: 'Ann J. Wolpert, the director of libraries, wrote to Ellen Finnie Duranceau, the official who was receiving JSTOR's complaints: "Has there ever been a situation similar to this when we brought in campus police? The magnitude, systematic and careful nature of the abuses could be construed as approaching criminal action. Certainly, that's how JSTOR views it."' Less than a week later, a Google search reveals, Duranceau notified the MIT community that immediate changes to JSTOR access had to be made lest the University be subjected to a JSTOR 'death sentence.' 'Because JSTOR has recently reported excessive, systematic downloading of articles at MIT,' the post warned, 'we need to add a new layer of access control. This is the only way to prevent recurrence of the abuse and therefore the only way to ensure ongoing access to this valuable resource for the MIT Community.' The post concludes, 'The incidents that prompted this change involved the use of a robot, which is prohibited by JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use. ...Continued access to JSTOR and other resources is dependent on the MIT Community complying with these policies.' Hope you enjoyed that freewheeling culture while it lasted, kids — now Everything is a Crime." theodp continues " MIT's Wolpert, who was recently named to an advisory board for JSTOR parent Ithaka, also chairs the Management Board of the MIT Press, where her reports from 2008-2010 included JSTOR Managing Director Laura Brown and MIT's Hal Abelson, adding another twist to Abelson's analysis of MIT's involvement in the Swartz tragedy."

Comments

Three Felonies a Day

[CuteSteveJobs]

> The decision whether to charge a defendant, and with what -- is almost entirely discretionary. ... > Hope you enjoyed that freewheeling culture while it lasted, kids — now Everything is a Crime."

Once to be charged with a crime there needed to be a criminal intent. No longer. There are so many ridiculous laws on the books now that you can't be a citizen without breaking some laws, and zealous prosecutors can pluck those laws out of obscurity to target anyone the don't like, or even just choose some unlucky sap they pick on to boost their career.

There's a good book by ex-FBI cop & criminal lawyer Dale Carson who explains these people have run out of big time criminals to prosecute, and so now the justify their existence by filling jails with poor saps who meet this criteria, or they would be laying off cops, judges and prisoners for lack of business: http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-Arrested/dp/1556526377

Here's a real life case where US officials made life hell for a California marine biologist for no other reason than they have big swinging dicks and they could: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20120803gw.html

This has been going on for a long time. Aaron is the first person to draw it to the wider public attention: "Legions of government lawyers inundate targets with discovery demands, producing financial burdens that compel the innocent to surrender in order to survive. Silverglate, a civil liberties lawyer in Boston, chillingly demonstrates how the mad proliferation of federal criminal laws — which often are too vague to give fair notice of what behavior is proscribed or prescribed — means that "our normal daily activities expose us to potential prosecution at the whim of a government official." Such laws, which enable government zealots to accuse almost anyone of committing three felonies in a day, do not just enable government misconduct, they incite prosecutors to intimidate decent people who never had culpable intentions. And to inflict punishments without crimes. The more Americans learn about their government's abuse of criminal law for capricious bullying, the more likely they are to recoil in a libertarian direction and put Leviathan on a short leash."

OK, 35 years, then...

[mangu]

Sorry, I remembered wrong, it wasn't 50 years, just 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and a fine of up to $1 million.

Do you feel better now? Is 35 years in prison plus a $1 million fine the correct punishment for using a script to download documents?

Re:OK, 35 years, then...

[stenvar]

Even in your adversarial system, there is neither a reason nor an expectation that the prosecutor should initially be making what were basically frivolous claims that go beyond all sane reason.

The reason the prosecutor can make those charges is because that's the law. I agree that the law is too strict, but you can't blame the prosecutor for that.

Furthermore, the prosecutor can't just go out and charge whoever he likes, he needs to convince a grand jury that the charges are reasonable. That means a majority of about 20 regular people have to agree that the person should get charged.

Sure enough a prosecutor will initially often enough be asking for more than is strictly warranted, but 35 years for using a script to download some files that were intentionally freely accessible within the uni network?

(1) Swartz was not a student at the university; he broke in and physically hacked into their network.

(2) The files were not "freely accessible"; they were available only under license, and Swartz repeatedly circumvented attempts to kick him off the network. Also, it was likely Swartz's intent to redistribute them.

(3) 35 years is the theoretical maximum when you total up all the charges with maximum penalties. He would likely have faced a few years in prison if found guilty of all charges, about the same as in many European countries.

Re:OK, 35 years, then...

[Trepidity]

Furthermore, the prosecutor can't just go out and charge whoever he likes, he needs to convince a grand jury that the charges are reasonable. That means a majority of about 20 regular people have to agree that the person should get charged.

This used to be a major safeguard, but has been ineffective for some decades now. A prosecutor can get an indictment from a grand jury, if he wants one, in just about any case: of the circa 20,000 cases brought to a grand jury per year, fewer than 100 will result in a "no bill" (refusal to indict), for an indictment rate of around 99.5%.

Ever heard of Google, Wikipedia, and typing a URL?

[SplatMan_DK]

Who or what the fuck is a JSTOR? Would it kill the summary writer to explain the acronym?

Most people know what it is, because of the Swartz-case. So you missed it - fine - but rambling about it on a geek-site like /. is hardly the way to go.

Have you tried Googling it?
https://www.google.com/search?q=JSTOR

have you tried looking it up on Wikipedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSTOR

Have you tried simply visiting their homepage - perhaps even their "about" page?
http://about.jstor.org/

Was that so hard? Really?

Seriously ... as a reader and poster here ... you have failed! :-)

- Jesper

Re:What is this crap?

[Zontar The Mindless]

The only ambiguity there is 'warned', and whether it's an active or passive verb doesn't significantly alter the sense.

Maybe your parser needs upgrading. Mine handled this just fine.

Re:What is this crap?

[Creepy]

The thing is, they don't even need SOPA - as it is now, you could read the same 1980s CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) section that was being used to prosecute Swartz even more liberally and make the internet itself illegal because it essentially requires a user to get permission to visit any site (for Swartz they interpreted this section of the law as a violation of Terms of Service).

For that matter, this post is a felony in the United States; under the CFAA, I am technically committing wire fraud by using an alias to (falsely) represent myself. Yep, the CFAA wording is that broad - if we had internet in the 1970s/80s (a failed precursor existed in 1979), we'd have killed it with a massive protest.