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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."
You don't get a license to drive people of an organization into suicide because some people in the same organization possibly drove someone into suicide. The world does not become a better place by free-roaming vigilantes, but by demanding accountability and transparency.
Soo, any tech university that aren't run by fascists?
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.
They don't want to block them, just put them behind a pay wall as a final FU to the memory of Aaron.
Aren't MIT supposed to be the "good/brilliant guys" in all things tech? I don't understand why they have so much trouble with the Schwartz case... In any case, RIP Aaron Schwartz!
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Guess someone is a little ashamed to be caught in bed with the Feds. Hope MIT at least demanded they wear a condom.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Were they black? They were black weren't they. This was racially motivated.
Now here's a bunch of unrelated people to talk about it on tv.
(i have no idea if i'm joking anymore.... worlds gone insane)
You're being ridiculous.
This was clearly the work of gay Muslims.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
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!
Ok, so I as an organization do something wrong. Judge orders me to release a documentation about it. What stops me to choose what documents I would release and what documents I would forget/destroy/whatever ?
Everytime I hear about freedom of information and disclosure of documents I'm thinking about this. Especially when it comes to governments which is not the case here.. but the point is still valid.
Or do they have some sort of 'protection' against this, that I'm not aware of ?
Would it be okay if you made something freely accessible from your home PC on the internet, but I broke into your house to download it? Repeatedly?
The punishment didn't fit the crime, but let's not forget he wasn't completely innocent. That room was off-limits and he knew what he was doing was not allowed.
It's a non-issue to me because if I had the data in my hands, it would be released, court orders be damned.
*looks down at the board*
Hmmm... Servants of Cthulhu to Orbital Mind Control Rays to Yuppies...
Looks legit to me.
In its motion, MIT asked the court to establish a process by which MIT could review and propose redactions to any such documents prior to their release. With this motion MIT does not oppose the release of these documents, but seeks only to redact information that could threaten the safety and privacy of its employees, or that could threaten the security of MIT’s computer network.
Jeez MIT, its not as if you turned state's evidence against the mob and now need witness protection! The fact that they're seeking to hide information which ordinarily would be completely unremarkable, now only piques the interest of everyone concerned with the case. Is MIT hiding something more than the names of a few employees who were trying to track down an illicit use of network resources?
Sometimes, someone gets faced with an ethical dilemma and doesn't immediately know what the right thing to do is. In those circumstances, it's understandable that the first thing he does is not necessarily the best thing he could have done.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
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.
Which was also violating licensing and copyright laws. And breaking and entering. And lying to police. And resisting arrest/obstructing justice.
Your point is still valid but the full charges should be pointed out or you are being dishonest.
I wonder if anyone could figure out who the staffers were even if they were redacted..
FOIA requests can be redacted to protect the identities of agents in ongoing or sensitive investigations or to protect things like social security numbers whose release could abet fraud. They cannot be redacted to protect institutions from embarrassing imbroglios and bad decisions. That is the whole point of FOIA: the public has a right to know.
It's not dishonest if I haven't bothered to research the case. Merely ill-informed. In this case, I read about it several months ago, and am simply going off what bits and pieces I remember.
But, as you said, my point is still valid generally speaking.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
It's not dishonest if I haven't bothered to research the case. Merely ill-informed. In this case, I read about it several months ago, and am simply going off what bits and pieces I remember.
But, as you said, my point is still valid generally speaking.
Well, from one friendly internet denizen to another, let me tell you a sure fire way to have people write you off instantly: be ill informed and misreport facts to make your point seem even more urgent.
Since that isn't what happened, in any shape or form, he doesn't have to agree to that for MIT to be in the wrong here.
Please try again, this time with some reality mixed in, m'kay?
Admittedly, he did wrong things. However, how is this the equivalent of books that were "rare, old, in bad shape, etc."? Accessing physical books may damage them. Accessing data on a network doesn't.
The following hostile statement is my opinion, tell your lawyers to go sit in a hottub filled with hydrochloric acid please.
Fucking MIT assholes - prepare to have your shit smeared all over the world and people to see what kind of deluded, criminally negligent, murder inducing (remember, the AG has stated that harassing an individual til they commit suicide is murder) psychopaths you really are.
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
There is nothing in the article that supports your conclusion. From the article:
So your outrage is what, that MIT isn't proceeding in the good faith that the government would bear the burden of protecting their staff's identities. Yea, that makes sense.
If somebody solicits your attention through forced indignation, its a sure sign you are talking to either a) a zealot or b) a drum beater looking for a pat on the back. Nobody thinks what happened to Aaron was reasonable (other than those fetid US attorneys and prosecutors who build their careers by prosecuting beyond reason or justice), but selling shit as Shinola just tarnishes the overall conversation around it, even if there is a grain of truth in what you are selling.
The documents were licensed for anyone to read. The ToS (not copyright law) required you not use a script to download them, but ANYONE was allowed to get it. As long as they knew the location of the documents store, in an abandoned warehouse, in a locked room, behind a notice saying "Beware of the Leopard"...
So, copyright infringements: NIL.
ToS violation (which clause is a civil matter and would fail the "reasonable clause" test for a one-sided contract agreement): 1.
Surely you mean gay muslim atheists.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Yeah, on careful consideration, I think Swatz deserved 50 years in prison, and $1 million in fines. Not.
If you think that is a reasonable penalty, then I suppose you also think Oliver North paid the right price for his crimes as well.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Call your local congressman and support this crucial budget cut in the name of freedom. If it is a "D", tell them it supports freedom of information and more open, advanced internet. If it is a "R", tell them it supports reducing the deficit.
Angry mob with torches and pitchforks: "Tell all the names now!!! We want justice!"
Official: "Why? So you'll kill them?"
Guy #1 in crowd: "YEAH! Get what they deserv... OOF!" <as guy #2 in crowd elbows him in the stomach>
Guy#2 in crowd: "um... we just want to erm... talk with them."
Official looks incredulously at angry mob with torches and pitchforks
Official: "You really want me to believe you just want to talk to them. What are the pitchforks for?"
Guy#2 in crowd: "umm... We were in the middle of farmin'??"
Guy #1 in crowd (impatient): "Quit yer stallin' tell us who they are!!"
Angry mob with torches and pitchforks: "YEAH! Tell us who they are!! Tell us who they are!!"
Official: [sighs] "Go home people!" and walks away
No, it wasn't "someone else's closet", it was a public building, not someone's private bedroom closet.
And closing the door is "trying to hide the fact"? WERE YOU BORN IN A BARN???
Carf (WFT?) down oodles and oodles of documents that the general public WERE LICENSED TO READ, but instead of having to go download from MIT's site, was mirroring them. This is a GOOD thing. It reduces costs for MIT and increases accessibility to the data to the public who, and I repeat this, WERE LICENSED TO READ THE DATA.
be ill informed and misreport facts to make your point seem even more urgent.
You are so sure that you think you know something. You don't know jack sh*t.
Gay muslim atheist paedophiles.
But don't call me Shirley.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Shirly? So... crosdressing gay Muslim atheist pedophiles
I don't think that mob justice is justified here as the people responsible most likely had no idea that their behaviour would lead to Aaron taking his own life. However, they were extremely malicious and the papers should be released (with their names redacted if deemed necessary) so that we can prevent this happening again.
America used to be proud of being "Land of the Free", but it now seems to be that secrecy is valued higher than people's lives. Release the information and let the chips fall where they may.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Lots of new AC morons posting completely made up bullshit to paint the court order as some vigilante justice SOLELY because it's MIT that is "at risk".
Sorry, you done wrong and you don't get to say "Oh, can we check what you're going to print and let us edit it before released" TO A FUCKING COURT ORDER.
If you didn't wan't to have this shit shown, you shouldn't have done the shit that made this necessary.
The people who care already care. The ones who don't aren't the type to read /.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Would Snowden's terabytes have anyting about this, by chance? Or thwarted attempts on Hastings? That could help a lot.
Consider Swartz and Hastings as heroic Zimmerans for the Light Side. Fighting mixed-up cowardly bullies, instead of being one.
I like that yo didn't let your willful ignorance stop you from posting~
idiot.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You forgot "Socialists".
Welcome to the Internet.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
From the article, MIT wants to protect the identity of the people involved and to make sure their network security is protected. They want to be able make redactions above and beyond what the government would normally redact in such a release of information under the Freedom of Information Act.
I'm pretty sure that everybody would like that opportunity when information is released, but why should MIT get preferential treatment? There are established laws and procedures on what should and should not be redacted. After all, these are the government's papers related to the government's investigation. They are not MIT's papers.
There are consequences to our actions and if MIT is embarrassed by what the government investigation showed or its employees said, well, that is a natural consequence of the actions they took. That is not to say they were or were not justified in those actions, just that all actions have consequences.
starve them. I highly doubt MIT will continue to thrive without any defense contracts.
Can't we all just agree a tallented young man took his own life, and for what ever reason he did so is a sad state of affairs.
They will politely remind you the coverup always ends up worse than the crime.
no, no we can't make this story work at ALL. there's not enough outrage to play upon.
it's gotta be black. or white. those are easy to bait.
muslim might work. we'll need to focus group that tho.
so if someone didn't know that their actions would kill someone, it's okay?
Nope, sorry, it's still murder.
They should be punished - all their money seized, all their assets taken away, and forced to bend over for all the bubbas in prison for life.
Your comments are great, only lifelong activists and hacktivists such as myself and others, don't believe the system to be broken, but simply purposely perverted to serve the needs of the super-rich.
At the latest Bilderberg meeting, who were some of the attendees, and what was the connection to owning the Internet (Web), Aaron Swartz and WikiLeaks?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-03/full-list-2013s-bilderberg-attendees
First, there was the primary person pushing for the extradition of WikiLeaks' Julian Assange, Carl Bildt of Sweden.
Next, we have Robert Kaplan of Stratfor, the private intel outfit which was hacked by Anonymous, providing some most interesting and incriminating data.
Of course, we also see Alex Karp, of Palantir, the bunch who were prostituting themselves and tripping over themselves to run a disinformation campaign for the banksters against WikiLeaks.
Most telling, though, was a Harvard attendee, Lawrence Lessig, the dood and attorney for Aaron Swartz, the guy who was supposed to be Aaron's friend and mentor, the guy who brought Aaron into his fold so he could "watch over him" (or how about observe, compromise and interdict Aaron), the guy who waiting until after Aaron had committed suicide before he was planning to tell him that the federal prosecutors had backed away from their original onerous agenda of legally making Aaron give up any online computing for the remainder of his natural life?
Looking at that latest list of Bilderbergers, it is certainly not surprising to read this about MIT and company!
Wait, how is that qualified as not being broken?
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
YOU'RE A DUMB CUNT!!! SHUT YOUR RETARDED FUCKING MOUTH!!!! THAT BITCH DESERVED TO KILL HIMSELF!!!!!! I HOPE HE ROTS IN HELL FOREVER!!!!!!!
Name
sudo, sudoedit - execute a command as another user
Synopsis
sudo -h | -K | -k | -V
su
sudo allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or another user, as specified by the security policy.
sudo supports a plugin architecture for security policies and input/output logging. Third parties can develop and distribute their own policy and I/O logging plugins to work seamlessly with the sudo front end. The default security policy is sudoers, which is configured via the file /etc/sudoers, or via LDAP. See the PLUGINS section for more information.
The security policy determines what privileges, if any, a user has to run sudo. The policy may require that users authenticate themselves with a password or another authentication mechanism. If authentication is required, sudo will exit if the user's password is not entered within a configurable time limit. This limit is policy-specific; the default password prompt timeout for the sudoers security policy is 5 minutes.
Security policies may support credential caching to allow the user to run sudo again for a period of time without requiring authentication. The sudoers policy caches credentials for 5 minutes, unless overridden in sudoers(5). By running sudo with the -v option, a user can update the cached credentials without running a command.
When invoked as sudoedit, the -e option (described below), is implied.
Security policies may log successful and failed attempts to use sudo. If an I/O plugin is configured, the running command's input and output may be logged as well.
The options are as follows:
-A' Normally, if sudo requires a password, it will read itfrom the user's terminal. If the -A (askpass) option isspecified, a (possibly graphical) helper program is executedto read the user's password and output the password to thestandard output. If the SUDO_ASKPASS environment variable isset, it specifies the path to the helper program. Otherwise,if /etc/sudo.conf contains a line specifying the askpassprogram, that value will be used. For example: /usr/X11R6/bin/ssh-askpass
# Path to askpass helper program
Path askpass
If no askpass program is available, sudo will exit with an error.
-b' The -b (background) option tells sudo to run the givencommand in the background. Note that if you use the -boption you cannot use shell job control to manipulate theprocess. Most interactive commands will fail to workproperly in background mode.
-C fd' Normally, sudo will close all open file descriptors other than standard input, standard output and standard error. The -C (close from) option allows the user to specify a starting point above the standard error (file descriptor three). Values less than three are not permitted. The security policy may restrict the user's ability to use the -C option. The sudoers policy only permits use of the -C option when the administrator has enabled the closefrom_override option.
-E' The -E (preserve environment) option indicates to the security policy that the user wishes to preserve their existing environment variables. The security policy may return an error if the -E option is specified and the user does not have permission to preserve the environment.
-e' The -e (edit) option indicates that, instead of running a command, the user wishes to edit one or more files. In lieu of a command, the string "sudoedit" is used when consulting the security policy. If the user is authorized by the policy, the following steps are taken:
1. Temporary copies are made of the files to be edited with the owner set to the invoking user.
2. The editor specified by the policy is run to edit the temporary files. The sudoers policy uses the SUDO_EDITO
TL;DR
You can't even get his name right and you expect anyone to take you seriously? You're just a drum beating cunt. You're probably more upset about people getting nabbed for stealing music than the ethical questions being asked here. You probably wouldn't give a fuck unless your 5 brain cells could come to draw that parallel.
Go get fucked in the ass by a junkie.
Court verdicts and punishments normally are irrational. At times the system has deliberately used irrationality as a supposed method of crime control. For example you might have ten people charged with exactly the same crime with very similar life histories. One defendant gets a fine. Most of the other defendants get fines of various sizes and one gets 30 days plus a fine. But the last defendant gets 1 year in jail plus 2 years probation with a hefty fine on top of that.
So just why would judges act that way? It clears the court calendar. When a lawyer tells a defendant that the punishment can be serious more people plea bargain and it saves the state time and money.
And we all understand that if you can not afford a really good defense, expert witnesses and investigators that you may be dead meat before the trial even starts. Those who can not come up with big money take a huge beating in the courts. It is a CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM. There are times I think that it is a worse crime to send a man to jail than any crime he could have possibly committed.
No - there's a difference between manslaughter and murder. They should be punished by having to live with what they did and by being removed from MIT.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe