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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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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."
(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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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