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MIT Attempts To Block Release of Documents In Aaron Swartz Case
Dputiger writes "In the wake of activist Aaron Swartz's suicide, MIT launched an investigation into the circumstances that led to his initial arrest and felony charges. It's now clear that the move was nothing but a face-saving gesture. Moments before the court-ordered release of Swartz's Secret Service file under the Freedom of Information Act, MIT intervened, asking the judge to block the release. Supposedly this is to protect the identities of MIT staff who might be harassed — but government policy is to redact such information already."
Mmm hmm, mmm hmm. And what ARE the names of the people employed by MIT who helped drive Aaron Swartz to kill himself? I'm not interested in threatening them, I just want to make sure their names are on the Internet and forever associated with the terrible, terrible thing they did.
And with a sudden diminisging of MIT's cred with many tech people, sadly. Oh well, there are always others ready to pick any people (students or professors) that won't be heading to MIT as a reaction to this.
MIT's cred with tech people is and has always been about the competence of their educators, the capabilities of their labs and the fact that a degree from MIT is taken at face value to imply a top-notch technical education. That has not changed. Students and professors don't go there for transparency.
There were a lot of problems with the whole Swartz case. In particular, that his actions were considered grounds for harsher punishment than many murderers and rapists. I don't care about the documents half as much as I care about the fact that our system is so broken that copying data is so disproportionately punished.
It doesn't even matter if Aaron was right or wrong when the fundamental laws, rules and regulations of the case were so flawed in the first place.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
And so where exactly is the "transparency"?
The kid killed himself because he downloaded information that *should* be freely accessible in a "transparent" world. Instead, it's a crime to do what he did, and he was threatened with excessive penalties, because "downloading" is apparently a WORSE crime than murder or rape.
Where is the "accountability" here, where the punishment should fit the crime? How has this country become so upside-down?
I agree that the world would not be a better place with vigilante justice, but it needs to be said that, for most people in the US, there really isn't any other kind of justice at all.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
where he didn't have access, and took books which the library had which could only be checked out under strict controls
Bullsh*t. You're just making it up. Swartz was a research fellow at a university with a JSTOR account. That mean he had legal access to them.
Say, you're not part of Idiot America are you?
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
It has changed now that they have shown themselves to be as corrupt and self serving as every other education institution.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust