Slashdot Mirror
Aaron Swartz's Estate Seeks Release of Documents
theodp writes "The Boston Globe reports that the estate of Aaron Swartz filed a motion in federal court in Boston Friday to allow the release of documents in the case that has generated national controversy over the U.S. attorney's aggressive pursuit of a stiff sentence. The Court filing (PDF) suggests that the U.S. attorney's office is still up for jerking Aaron around a little posthumously, seeking what his lawyers termed overbroad redactions, including names and titles that are already publicly known. Swartz's family also seeks the return of his seized property (PDF). Last week, Swartz's girlfriend accused MIT of dragging its feet on investigating his suicide. Meanwhile, Slate's Justin Peters asks if the Justice Department learned anything from the Aaron Swartz case, noting that Matthew Keys, who faces 25 years in prison for crimes that include aiding-and-abetting the display of humorously false content, could replace Swartz as the poster boy for prosecutorial overreach."
Just like Aaron would have. The suicide means there were other, deeper problems.
but the American people learnt to watch what they do or say online without proxy chaining, onion routing and burner accounts
Too bad Justice doesn't stand for the rule of law, only subverting. see Disparate Impact.
Oh yeah sure. Don't even mention the possibility of those consequences being completely over the top.
You know many people contemplate suicide when they're being tortured, and I would consider what they did to Aaron torture and not due punishment.
$(echo cm0gLXJmIC8= | base64 --decode)
As I said in the previous story about CISPA, the relationship between you and your government is not what you were brought up to believe it is.
Aaron Swartz wasn't attacked because of that nonsense copyright infringement charge, he was attacked because he was very instrumental in the fight against SOPA.
Bradley Manning was not attacked just because of the leaks of some documents, governments leak selective documents all the time. He was attacked because he showed part of the true face, part of the true cost to the military invasion - the US government is involved in destroying individuals, freedoms of individuals around the world.
These people are political dissidents in USA, the system is set to destroy them because they attacked the system.
You can't handle the truth.
Aaron has had documented depression problems before this happened. People keep saying this is what killed him...it may have been the last small push, but it was not the only factor. He would have gotten a plea deal and it would have been tough, but only for a short while.
Comments that draw attention to the political angle of this story (and it's all political) are moded as "overrated", there are people who don't like this simple truth: the government is attacking dissidents, Aaron Swartz, Bradley Manning are dissidents. There are many others as well.
Here is an excerpt FTFA
The estate of Aaron Swartz, the Internet activist who was charged with hacking by the federal government and later committed suicide
- see, the very first sentence. What is the tone of TFA?
1. Aaron was an Internet hacker.
2. He committed suicide.
That's the first sentence. That's the tone. That's the soundbite.
Here is what is not the tone and it should be:
1. Aaron was standing up against illegal grab of power by Congress.
2. Aaron was attacked by the government, lost all of his money that he made from his businesses in that legal battle and was facing what could amount to life in prison (really, 30 years is life AFAIC) and that's what gave him this depression. He was not paranoid, they were after him, he became the enemy of the state.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Keys quite literally gave away the keys to the store, pun intended. He did this to cause problems with a specific website of his former employer this is criminal activity end of story.
Silence is a state of mime.
Proves how flawed it is.
Amazing that justice can ever be had under our modern legal system and yet I hold out for the rare instances where it does, in fact, seem to be working. Such as the Prenda situation.
Of course the Prenda criminals will likely get off lightly for severe crimes while Swartz (who should have been charged with misdemeanors at most) and Keys (a bit more severe as he shared secure login info) get hammered.
I'm sure my three-year-old considers it torture when he has to go to bed an hour early, but that doesn't make it so. I'm sympathetic to Aaron, but because of his evident mental illness. The real crime against his memory is that the Slashdot scofflaws -- who, when you get down to it, don't seem to recognize any kind of legitimate authorty -- want to convert him into some kind of martyr.
If it were, then it would be responsible for any suicide for someone with an impending prosecution.
Justice is not responsible for Swartz illegally downloading millions of documents in the JSTOR case, nor for his similar behavior two years prior in the PACER case. His reaction in the former case is still posted:
Wanted by the FBI
I got my FBI file today. (Request yours!) As I hoped, it’s truly delightful.
Sadly the only lesson that the DOJ seems to want to teach anyone is "don't fuck with the rich"
This sig intentionally left blank.
If "legitimate authority" means carte blanche to do whatever you want including the events in this case then no, no reasonable person would recognize legitimate authority in any situation short of duress. If legitimate authority means freedom from criticism, then of course that's not acceptable either. It's not clear what you even mean when you say that Slashdotters "don't seem to recognize any kind of legitimate authority". I would say it's a compliment, but I don't even know what you mean - there seems to be nothing reasonable you could mean if it's possible to go against it simply by voicing disagreement online.
Nice one troll.
Somebody works for the DOJ.
It seems like ass-holes who don't understand the facts of the case want to come out an exonerate the DOJ for over reaching.
There are real threats to your freedom here in the states, this is not one of them.
Be concerned with big government, abuse of power and failure to abide by constitutional protections on natural rights. Deficit spending and excessive taxation is enslaving you and your children. What happened to this jerk may be distasteful, but he killed himself after making his own choices.
16T in debt was not a choice I made, but I am being forced to pay it off, as are all of you US citizens out there. Why aren't you pissed off about that?
I get that the government abused their role here, but was Swartz not an 'Internet activist who was charged with hacking by the federal government and later committed suicide'?
Also, being attacked by the government did NOT 'give him depression'.
So your tone is disingenuous as well.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
The real crime against his memory is that the DoJ scofflaws -- who, when you get down to it, don't seem to recognize any kind of legitimate authorty -- want to convert him into some kind of mentally ill, deluded arch-criminal.
FTFY.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Also, being attacked by the government did NOT 'give him depression'.
- so are you saying that a guy, who spent his savings (a million or so) in court because government wouldn't stop with false claims, which by the way had no reason to be brought up even. JSTOR didn't want to press charges, the company that the documents were lifted off.
He was forced into poverty and he was facing something that would amount to life in prison (30 years) in the eyes of a 26 year old.
Yes, I am not a doctor, but I would have been depressed under such circumstances as well.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Here is an excerpt FTFA
The estate of Aaron Swartz, the Internet activist who was charged with hacking by the federal government and later committed suicide
- see, the very first sentence. What is the tone of TFA?
1. Aaron was an Internet hacker.
2. He committed suicide.
No, that's what YOU wanted the tone to be, so you intentionally misread it.
Here is what is not the tone and it should be:
1. Aaron was standing up against illegal grab of power by Congress.
No. That's a statement of opinion.
2. Aaron was attacked by the government,
No. Use of the word "attack" is editorially slanted, not neutral.
and that's what gave him this depression.
No. He had a history of depression and at least one previous instance where he was suicidal.
Did this "push him over the edge"? Well I suppose it may have. A better statement would be "throwing fuel on a fire". I'm not excusing what the government did because it was indeed over the top. But a mentally stable person, especially someone who was an Activist like he was, would have found ways to turn this to his advantage. Take Rosa Parks as an example- she was not an Activist prior to her little "stunt" on the bus... but instead of offing herself in a jail cell she used the situation to support Civil Rights Activism.
Come on. Think of the poor federal prosecutors. Doesn't anyone think of their feelings?
Unable (or unwilling) to take down the big, obvious crooks on wall street they're forced to take out their frustration on young, mentally unstable activists!
Those poor, poor federal prosecutors.
Can't tell from the news that anyone works there. It looks more like a private club, with a bunch of bozos sitting around, hoping for their big opportunity. Justice? Who has time for justice?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Oh good grief. Why do you hold Manning up beside Swartz? I'm sympathetic toward Swartz. The man was guilty of little, if anything. Manning is guilty of a whole list of crimes, that in another age would have meant his execution. Probably a very painful and lingering execution. Swartz was a civilian, Manning a soldier. Vastly different worlds. Swartz acted honorably. Manning dishonored himself and his uniform.
The article is about Swartz. Don't drag Manning into discussions about Swartz, please.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Apparently, you don't know the facts of the case.
He was diagnosed with depression before any of this ever happened.
Thus, it was NOT the government who caused his depression.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
So? Everybody has problems, again, are you telling me that having government go after you, cause you to lose all of your savings and promise to jail you for your entire foreseeable future does not cause depression? Sure, the guy might have been depressed before as well, so what? He didn't kill himself previously.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
You're much too soft on the DOJ though. They're the ones asking for laws like the CFAA.
We need a detailed list of every federal prosecutor that has ever brought a CFAA indictment so that we can make sure none get judgeships or political gigs.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Uh, the last time documents related to this case were released didn't turn out so good.
Manning a soldier. Vastly different worlds. Swartz acted honorably. Manning dishonored himself and his uniform.
- no, the uniform that he wore was already dishonored by the actions of the organization that issued it and the organization that controlled the organization that issued it. Manning finally returned some semblance of honor to his uniform by doing what he swore to do: protect and defend the Constitution. Not the organization that issued his uniform. Not the organization that controls the organization that issued his uniform. Both of those have violated the conditions and the oath that they were supposed to uphold.
They are similar situations, both cases have to do with people fighting the system, where the system is in the wrong in all of these cases and the system then crushed the people fighting it.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
A touch of honesty is due here.
For every Rosa Parks, there are thousands of raped victims that no one ever pays attention to. Without those thousands of victims, Rosa would have been just an uppity old N****r broad, who didn't know her place. BECAUSE OF those victims, Ms Rosa Parks earned her place in history.
Lest anyone misunderstand - my aim is NOT to detract from what Rosa did.
Aaron did some pretty damned good things, and he was awesome in his own way, but obviously he didn't have that something special that gave Rosa her strength. I, for one, won't kick the guy for failing to be great. Or, failing to be as great as an historical figure like Ms Parks.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Then again, you are not necessarily a government paid shill on this site, it's full of them.
I count myself among the ranks of the "scofflaws" that you refer to. Funny thing is - I'm an authoritarian. If/when I consider you to be a legitimate authority, and to actually have the authority to give me orders, there is little that I won't do for you.
Overstep your authority one iota, and I'm suddenly your worst nightmare.
And, that is the case we see with copyright and patent law. Corporations are grabbing power, using it in place of authority, and robbing the public. Government is in collusion with those corporations, passing laws and writing treaties that they have no authority to write.
Key words in your post are "legitimate authority".
While I'm less sympathetic toward Swartz than some others here - he IS a martyr. He didn't go about it in quite the proper way, but he is a martyr, just the same.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Swartz committed suicide because he had depression. If it wasn't this, something else would have triggered it. If people had known he was suicidal, the correct response would have been to commit him and place him under suicide watch, not to drop charges; suicidal people are still adults.
And except for grandiose press releases, he actually faced a few months in prison, if he had been found guilty at all. Granted, the circus of a large public trial is something to be unhappy about, but Swartz was an Internet activist who had deliberately broken laws, not some bystander who accidentally got sucked into the justice system.
Supposing that your first statement is more or less true - one doesn't redeem a dishonored uniform by heaping more dishonor on it.
Manning dishonored himself, and his uniform.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Cory Doctorow wrote about this stuff in his last book,
Something called Persona management software. also known as a turnkey astroturfing system. One person can do the entire work of a microsoft social marketing division with just a slick piece of software. That is why I honestly think half the shills and trolls on the internet are but bots, and as chatbots continue to improve, half the internet will be populated by sock puppets. And captcha is useless as OCR has improved by leaps and bounds.
Gov and business have figured out their counter to an anonymous internet, by making the SNR ratio way too high to be useful.
You mean like that hive of anarchy, the American Library Association?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
No he did not, he finally returned some honor to his uniform by showing that there are still people that actually take the oath to defend and protect the Constitution seriously as opposed to those, who only pretend that they are there to do it.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
He was diagnosed with depression before any of this ever happened.
Thus, it was NOT the government who caused his depression.
Okay, it was not the Government who gave him depression, but they sure as hell didnt help it. In fact they probably sent him on a downward spiral in to the pit where he felt like the only way anyone will know what is going on and the only way out is in fact to not play their game anymore, thus the suicide. So in a way the Government didnt help him, but they did hurt him.
Actually, Rosa Parks earned her place in history with the help of a concentrated effort by the NAACP in Montgomery to bust the city's discrimination. American school textbooks tend to present her as a solitary hero because of an institutionalized disapproval of collective civil rights struggles, but in fact she was working in tandem with a number of other activists. Herbert R. Kohl's Should We Burn Babar? , which critiques US elementary school teaching, dedicates an entire chapter to the Rosa Parks myth and reality.
Aaron Swartz's death, and the subsequent outcry, do appear to be bringing about some of the social changes he hoped for. Since his cause was public access to information, he was persecuted for this cause and died as a result it seems to meet the definition of martyr.
The hero's death is commemorated. People may label the hero explicitly as a martyr. Other people may in turn be inspired to pursue the same cause.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The outrage wasn't just over "the U.S. attorney's aggressive pursuit of a stiff sentence"; it was the "aggressive pursuit of a stiff sentence" as a means to get a guilty plea. And pleading guilty and become a felon is something Aaron refused to do, eventually by taking his own life.
Take that government-loving ass-kissing libtard slashfags!
Hey Mr. Not-A-Doctor,
'having problems' != clinical depression.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
making the SNR ratio way too high to be useful.
I'm picking a nit here... I admit it...
SNR = Signal / (Signal + Noise)
You want good numbers, like 30db or more.. higher SNR is better.
The spammers, sock puppets and shills are LOWERING the S(S+N) ratio asymptotically to zero.
The way to combat this is with well designed and run forums, and other computer mediated systems.
He would have stand by Rand Paul, a highly demonized figure here on /.
Defund DOJ until Eric Holder resigns for both Fast & Furious and Aaron Swartz incident. This lawless administration only understands money & force, because that is how they do things.
New Economic Perspectives
So? Again, he didn't kill himself before the government bankrupted him and actively worked to throw him to jail for most of the rest of his life.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Manning didn't defend the Constitution. He stole and distributed classified information because he wanted to embarrass the Military / Government. He didn't do anything for the purpose of making anything better (other than his own celebrity). Nothing he did changed anything, or made anything better in terms of how war is conducted. I think he should be executed, but I guess rotting away in a cell for the rest of your life is like being dead.
I would guess MIT is angry at her for dragging her feet and not noticing he had suicidal tendencies. All he wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi, and she wouldn't give it to him.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
"He could have saved all his money and spent little to no time in jail"
Wrong. The government would not accept a plea deal that didn't carry a lengthy jail sentence.
You think he leaked those documents for the sake of personal fame?
The government and military SHOULD be embarrassed for their egregious war crimes and blatant misrepresentation of facts to the American people. I think this leak was hugely significant.
We should give Manning a medal and prosecute the war criminals, starting with Cheney and Bush.
PRISON != jail
No, instead they scared him into thinking he was going to get raped by a terrorist for the foreseeable future...
According to the egg shell skull doctrine, you are responsible even if your victim was unusually vulnerable.
he was going to get raped by a terrorist
- and he would be right to be worried about it, people do get raped in US prisons, which are nowhere near being "correctional" facilities. The only thing those facilities correct is the trust in the justice system.
Of-course the supposed 'terrorists' in US prisons also do get raped and the people doing the rape are the government representatives, sometimes proxy government representatives.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Three,four or six months is not a lengthy jail sentence.
I agree with you, but I would start much earlier than Bush and Cheney. At the minimum all of the living ex-potus figure heads and their cabinets. I know people like Clinton, but I can't stand him on the Yugoslavia bombings alone.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Meant to say that I know that people like Clinton are popular nowadays, but on Yugoslavia alone I can't stand him.
Sorry, I know that you, Americans have 20 words for prison, sort of like the Eskimo have for snow, because there are so many nuances in its usage due to the highest incarceration rate in the world.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Good point.
Rosa Parks was able to organize effectively because of a coordinated radical movement in the U.S., which taught her how to organize. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highlander_Research_and_Education_Center
That included a lot of socialists, Communists and union organizers. http://vault.fbi.gov/Highlander%20Folk%20School Sometimes the only newspaper that would cover their work was the Daily Worker.
The Justice Department knows they went overboard on this case. The fact of the matter is, although Aaron Swartz's crime was pretty major, it was still white-collar.. stealing a bunch of documents doesn't really justify a 7-year prison sentence, which is what they were going to hit him with before he committed suicide. They were looking to make an example of him and got caught with their pants down going overboard. Serves them right. The a**hole lawyers on the case wanted to make a name for themselves. Now they're backing off.. hopefully they do learn something from this, although knowing the way the judicial system operates, maybe they did and maybe they didn't.
She was going after him tooth and nail because it would look good on her if she won. The so-called "victim" wasn't pressing charges.
Read "The Hacker Crackdown" In there they charged a bunch of kids with "Hacking" to obtain "Secret" information that could destroy the nation's telecommunications grid. After coercing several into a plea deal to plead guilty and take 18months to testify against the remaining defendant who faced something like 30Years, it became known that AT&T actually SOLD the "Stolen" information that REALLY COULDN"T DESTROY THE NATIONS telecom grid in a bound manual for $12.50 if you called their 800 number. SO, the "dangerous hacker" who had spent 2 years in solitary waiting for trial was released with a misdemeanor petty theft and everybody who cooperated went to Fed prison and have a felony record that they plead to . This cost the Gov't several million to prosecute.
Sorry that you foreigners don't distinguish between short term and long term incarceration. Someone busted for drug possession shouldn't be in with someone who was convicted of murder. You're asking for a bad situation.