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MIT Warned of a JSTOR Death Sentence Due To Swartz

Posted by Unknown on from the stewards-of-knowledge-locked-safe-within-their-walls dept.

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."

33 of 390 comments (clear)

  1. What is this crap? by Garridan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously? Death sentence? Yes. They used the words "death sentence" but it was for their access to JSTOR, not anything to do with Swartz. This is not news, this is grasping at straws.

    1. Re:What is this crap? by Coisiche · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well it is news. The Swartz case has been a discussion topic here in previous articles and this provides a bit more insight into what drove it into becoming a criminal case in the first place; JSTOR pressure on MIT was probably the trigger for MIT's later actions.

    2. Re:What is this crap? by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All they needed to do is change the focus to make it into a decent FA and being a nice guy allow me to do so:

      If MLK or any of the other freedom fighters of the 60s were to pull that same shit today they would have all their rights stripped away as EVERYTHING is a felony now.

      Now THAT should have been the focus of TFA, Go to some occupy protest? You end up on a list of possible terrorists and if you are arrested they will pile on as many charges as it takes to make it a felony. Go to some rally and hold up a little sign? Same thing, if the PTBs decide to break it up a good portion of your rights will be stripped away. Do you know how many homeless single mothers we have because of the "zero tolerance" crap they passed in the 90s?If you get busted for pretty much anything in many states including protesting you will end up being able to get ZERO help for the rest of your life, in fact a fucking illegal will have more help than you will, you'll have pretty much zero rights and the cops will fuck with you at will for the rest of your life. "do the crime do the time" simply no longer exists as its "Do a crime do a life sentence as a second class citizen"

      It was THIS kind of bullshit that killed the kid, not JSTOR or any other corp. Sure corps now have Godlike powers but those Godlike powers are granted them by a broken corrupted system that has turned into a giant revolving door with so much conflict of interest its not even funny.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    3. Re:What is this crap? by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It sometimes feels like Les Miserables comes to life.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:What is this crap? by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    5. Re:What is this crap? by abirdman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Thank you sir, you are completely correct. Corps have convinced government at every level that their needs-- for protection of future profits, for protection of trade secrets, for maintaining their own security rubrics, for protecting their IP)-- make it necessary they be able to interpret and prosecute their own lines of inquiry, sanctions, and punishments against citizens. Government at every level (and on both sides of the aisle) is jumping at the chance to hand them anything they ask for, from SOPA passed in secret, to pepper spray for college protesters, to absurd prison terms for the unregenerate such as Aaron Swartz. It's shocking and unsustainable, but it's happening.

      --
      Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.
    6. Re:What is this crap? by Arancaytar · · Score: 5, Interesting

      So far JSTOR has been covered favorably (due to settling and not wanting the government to press charges) while MIT has come off as evil or apathetic at best. This story implies that MIT was itself pressured by JSTOR to go after Swartz or lose their access. That's pretty big news.

    7. Re:What is this crap? by Creepy · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    8. Re:What is this crap? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The purpose of "everything is illegal" has been well-known for thousands of years -- nobody can do daily activities to keep themselves alive without kickbacks, and anyone uppity can be easily yanked.

      History should give no confidence whatsoever that democracy and freedom of speech have more than a minor impact on this. If anything, it can be worse in some ways since some of the lower-level officials don't feel themselves corrupt, but rather fancy themselves helpful, playing the position of useful idiot for higher officials who do take donations, legal or otherwise. "I'll sic this self-righteous regulator...unless a hefty ransom is paid?"

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  2. Sensationalize much? by eksith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    JSTOR acted naively, but corrected itself later. MIT acted naively and then stupidly, but realized their mistake too late. Prosecutors acted like prosecutors typically do these days (I.E. tyranically) and a vulnerable kid took the least painful way out.

    Mr. Swartz turned over his hard drives with 4.8 million documents, and Jstor declined to pursue the case. But Carmen M. Ortiz, the United States attorney in Boston, decided to press on.

    As in MIT didn't "ensnare" anyone. They first overreacted, but then couldn't reach the reset button before Ortiz et al took over and sent all reservations MIT may have had about pressing on and destroying his life straight to /dev/null .

    The prosecutors killed Swartz. That's it. While I appreciate the details of exactly what happened within MIT, lets not divert attention away to what this story really is. This should actually be looked as a big fat spotlight being shined on our spectaular legal system that values conviction rates over actual decreased crime rates and political gain at the cost of lives.

    --
    If computers were people, I'd be a misanthrope.
  3. Punishment to fit the crime by mangu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Swartz did something wrong, for sure, he used a script to download documents. He was being rude, making the system slower for everybody else.

    The DOJ reaction? Slap a 50 years sentence on him.

    If that's the prosecutor's reaction, she is certainly not competent for the job she does, she should be fired and the bar association should start an investigation on her.

    I think disbarment would be the proper solution. That would be the right level of punishment in her case. She demonstrated very plainly that she doesn't have the understanding of law needed to work on it professionally.

    1. Re:Punishment to fit the crime by eksith · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Agree with this 100%. At the most a public apology for making the system slow would have been plenty from Aaron. While we're at kicking out Ortiz, the same treatment should go to Stephen Heymann.

      --
      If computers were people, I'd be a misanthrope.
    2. Re:Punishment to fit the crime by coastwalker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The final outcome of this story is unfortunate and appears to condemn the American Criminal Justice system more than anything else.

      Aaron did not do something without consequence however. He broke a trust in a club (People on campus) and spoiled the party for the members of that club. Free access had been granted to members of the club and his actions took that away. The club members are not trusted anymore and have to go through authentication to get at the data now because of his actions.

      When you look around at society most of the petty unpleasantness of it all happens because someone was greedy, stupid or criminal. It is a shame that Aaron contributed to this slow slide into the straightjacket, whatever the justification.

      --
      Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
    3. Re:Punishment to fit the crime by TapeCutter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just because the prosecutors were wrong does not mean Swartz was right.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    4. Re:Punishment to fit the crime by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just because the prosecutors were wrong does not mean Swartz was right.

      This. Thank you. It is unfortunate that Swartz took his life. He was treated unfairly and with the utmost unjustice, ironically by the DOJ. And he was a brilliant individual. But he did commit a wrong. It does not justify what was done to him (which ultimately led him to kill himself.)

      But /. fans need to get this in their thick, stupid, avant-garde-wannabe skulls. He was not on the right, nor what he did - in this specific issue - constituted something positive or promoting of individual rights. This is a criticism of him, rest in peace, on this specific incident. It does not constitute an indictment on Swartz, the person as a whole, nor does it constitute a justification for what the authoritities did to him.

      He might have been abused like Valjean, but he was not Valjean. On this issue, he was not.

      OTH, the DOJ certainly played the Javert macabre part and relished on it.

    5. Re:Punishment to fit the crime by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Just because the prosecutors were wrong does not mean Swartz was right.

      This. Thank you. It is unfortunate that Swartz took his life. He was treated unfairly and with the utmost unjustice, ironically by the DOJ. And he was a brilliant individual. But he did commit a wrong. It does not justify what was done to him (which ultimately led him to kill himself.)

      What was the wrong he committed? He was allowed access to the documents he downloaded. The only wrong was that instead of sitting there clicking on each one and clicking save as, he had a script access them and save them. But as to the content itself, he was allowed to have access to it and to save it. Instead of JSTOR, you would have thought the RIAA was behind this.

  4. Three Felonies a Day by CuteSteveJobs · · Score: 5, Informative

    > 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."

  5. OK, 35 years, then... by mangu · · Score: 4, Informative

    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?

    1. Re:OK, 35 years, then... by jkflying · · Score: 5, Insightful

      (I can't quite tell: are you simply not familiar with how the US legal system works, or are you deliberately misrepresenting it?)

      mangu is pointing out the fact that it doesn't seem to be a very good system.

      --
      Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
    2. Re:OK, 35 years, then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We have an adversarial legal system: the prosecutor throws what he can get away with at the defendant, the defense attorney tries to defend against it, and the judge and the jury make a decision. If the prosecutor overreaches, the case will collapse very quickly.

      You are basically right in what you write, except...

      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. 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? That is like asking for the death penalty in a case where someone slapped someone else during a barroom brawl, or something like that. That woman needs a healthy dose of "welcome to reality". Which, in the opinion of many fine and upstanding citizens, she could best get while spending quality time at home after being relieved of a job that is apparently beyond her professional and personal level of competence.

    3. Re:OK, 35 years, then... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You forgot the bit that comes before the trial, where the prosecutor makes terrifying threats in an effort to intimidate the suspect into a guilty plea in the hope of leniency, regardless of actual guilt or likely outcome if it had gone to trial.

    4. Re:OK, 35 years, then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That is terrorism. Literally.

    5. Re:OK, 35 years, then... by stenvar · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    6. Re:OK, 35 years, then... by Jade_Wayfarer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, let's not get into numbers far - even if Swartz would be found guilty only on one charge (and quite possibly more than one), he would still have to spend some time in prison with much more serious offenders. And, statistically speaking, his chances of acquittal were dim, to say the least. Well, OK, prisons in US are all happy gardens of bunnies-and-rainbows, and all inmates (and, more importantly, guards) are perfect gentlemen with bow ties and monocles. Staying in prison would help Swartz both physically and psychically... in some perfect fantasy world. But that's still not the point.

      Quick quiz: when he gets out he is viewed by potential employers as a) a brilliant young man, who just made some wrong decisions in the past, but it's all forgiven and forgotten; or b) a felon, found guilty of several computer-related crimes? Guess which viewpoint would be prevalent? And what perspectives such future holds for him? Plus, even if he would spend not 35, but "only" 3-5 years in prison - how would he catch up with current technologies? Restore his skills and social connections? Do you want to be considered a friend of a known felon? So how many friends would he still have after this? So it's not the case of 50, 35 or even 5 years of prison - it's the case of maybe not ruined, but seriously maimed life anyway.

      And "if the prosecutor overreaches, the case will collapse very quickly" - if that's true, why did 97% of accused in federal cases plead guilty in 2011? Not one case of "prosecutor overreach", right? Total transparency, responsibility and fairness all around, and every prosecutor is really afraid of his case collapsing, sure... in some perfect fantasy world.

      --
      Absence of proof != proof of absence.
    7. Re:OK, 35 years, then... by fredprado · · Score: 4, Insightful

      (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.

      But he could get 35 years in prison, especially if the judge wanted to make an example of him, which happens more than you would believe. The fact that he could get this ridiculously draconian sentence, which is more than the maximum time permitted for anyone to serve for any crime in many countries, is enough to show how rotten US justice system is.

      Furthermore the fact that the prosecutor can throw the whole book on him and charge him of everything he can think about does not mean she is forced to do so. That is the problem with your "adversarial legal system". Prosecutors go out of their way to intimidate and force people into deals, regardless of their culpability, and many many people take those deals forfeiting their right to defend themselves because of the chance of draconian penalties if they do not.

    8. Re:OK, 35 years, then... by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Informative

      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%.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    9. Re:OK, 35 years, then... by sesshomaru · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Trials are an extremely important part of the American legal system. The right to a fair trial by a jury of your peers is the bedrock of the American legal system. I'm not convinced the practice of plea bargaining, which is deliberately intended to short circuit this system, was ever a good idea.

      Even if a plea bargain is a good idea in some cases, the way its used these days to create "Trial by Prosecutor" is absolutely ghastly. In other words, the prosecutor uses certain flaws of our legal system that are unrelated to Constitutional requirements (the costs, for example, that will bankrupt an ordinary person, and the fact that public defenders are often unqualified and routinely mishandle cases) to dispense with Trial by Jury altogether, even if the option still technically exists (violating the spirit of the law if not the letter of the law).

      Plea bargains have been common for more than a century, but lately they have begun to put the trial system out of business in some courtrooms. By one count, fewer than one in 40 felony cases now make it to trial, according to data from nine states that have published such records since the 1970s, when the ratio was about one in 12. The decline has been even steeper in federal district courts. -- Sentencing Shift Gives New Leverage to Prosecutors

      Besides this, we now have a similar situation in Civil Trials, where binding arbitration agreements are forced on parties as soon as they try to get involved in any commercial transaction.

      What all this ends up being is an end run around the Constitution. If the Constitution had intended Trial by Jury to be rare, and most cases to be decided by a single appointed official, they would have set up the Constitution that way. In fact, many of the people involved in setting up the United States had bad memories of the Court of Star Chamber, in which no one was allowed to argue their cases and arbitrary rulings were the norm.

      If one thing should come out of the Aaron Swartz case, and one thing only, it is this: The rules for civil disobedience in this country have changed. With juries out of the picture, stunts like what Swartz pulled at MIT are far more difficult ways to create legal precedent. Which is important because Civil Disobedience against unjust laws has a long history of moving change in this country when the legislative process was moving slowly or not at all (or in the wrong direction, as it is now).

      Now, there were other periods in history where civil disobedience was extremely dangerous, which led to more extreme forms of civil disobedience than peaceful protests. The political movements in previous centuries knew what kind of justice awaited them in the courts, so they used the gun or the bomb to make their points, rather than sit ins or other forms of peaceful protest. Returning to those bad old days is honestly not something I'm looking forward to.

      --
      "MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
    10. Re:OK, 35 years, then... by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And what about Germany and France, which have both lower incarceration rates and lower violent crime rates?

      And not just slightly lower incarceration rates: about 85% lower.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  6. MIT STUDENTS SHOULD PROTEST THIS WAY by Sir+Foxx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Every student at MIT should download and article from JSTOR and post it online. Everyone. Let's see the system deal with that.

    --
    "I don't which is worse, that everyone has a price, or that the price is always so low"--Hobbes
  7. Stephen Heymann is the real problem by andydread · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The problem here is Stephen Heymann. He is the real zealous procsecutor here

    He has been on a crusade for years for "computer crime" juicy publicty

    I remember about a week or so ago Anonymous leaked some long diatribe written by Stephen Heymann about lowering the bar on what defines computer crimes etc. I can't find it now. This guy is on a crusade to make a name for himlself.

  8. Ever heard of Google, Wikipedia, and typing a URL? by SplatMan_DK · · Score: 4, Informative

    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

    --
    My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
  9. Anatole France quote by fritsd · · Score: 4, Interesting
    a nice quote from the same time period, from Anatole France:

    "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." (Le Lys Rouge)

    --
    To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
  10. Re:Les Miserables by interkin3tic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    but I can see how prosecutorial discretion has the ability to continue our society's descent to a place where being a felon is so ubiquitous it's no longer a Big Red F.

    Oh, don't worry, they'd never let it get watered down to that point. They'll make sure "felon" still makes people think they're horrible people. Kind of like how they label people "sex offender" for a ton of crimes that have nothing to do with sex, but most people would still see that as a mark of a pervert, rather than someone who got drunk and peed in public.