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MIT Releases Swartz Report: Instead of Leading, School Was 'Hands-Off'
curtwoodward writes "MIT's long-awaited internal investigation into its handling of the Aaron Swartz prosecution has been released (PDF), and it's massive — about 180 pages, not counting the reams of supporting documents. And although the report's authors say they were told not to draw any conclusions about MIT's actions — really — they still gently criticized the university. Swartz, a well-known activist, killed himself earlier this year while being prosecuted for federal computer crimes after he improperly downloaded millions of academic research articles. MIT remained notably 'hands-off' throughout the case, the internal report notes, despite requests that it defend Swartz or oppose the prosecution, and ample opportunities to show leadership. The report quotes an MIT official: 'MIT didn't do anything wrong; but we didn't do ourselves proud.'"
Swartz's partner, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, calls the report a whitewash.
Can there be any surprise here?
An internal investigation, with nobody sworn in, and no subpoena power, finds the institution that empowers it blameless.
Lets have an investigation of why they wasted the money doing this investigation. No doubt that will find no fault either.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
"Swartz, a well-known activist, killed himself earlier this year while being prosecuted for federal computer crimes after he improperly downloaded millions of academic research articles." (emphasis added)
Given that: 1) he wasn't convicted; 2) the journals in question didn't have the right to the works they were selling access to (the authors were generally funded by university/public money, and thus did not hold the copyright and thus could not transfer the rights to the journal); 3) its even debatable if he violated the TOS (he was apparently doing a research project related to the papers, presumably some sort of meta study, which could might be acceptable use for millions of papers), it seems inaccurate to say his downloads were "Improper".
I personally think his actions were perfectly acceptable, proper and legal.
If MIT is at all serious about implementing any reforms to stop this kind of tragedy from happening again, it must stop objecting to the release of information about the case. Which they will probably do, now that they got "ahead of the story."
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
I actually had no idea that JSTOR urged against prosecution. It seems that if anyone were the "victim" of Aaron Swartz's act, it would've been them--the most MIT could complain about would've been a momentary spike in their bandwidth usage. Not that I wasn't enraged by this whole situation already, but that just strikes me as bullshit.
They were pay-walled (by journls who claim copyright from authors who did them as works for hire and thus didn't have the copyright to transfer). He downloaded them for free from a university that had payed a license (with a laptop hidden in a closet). There was TOS involved (which he may or may not have violated), which violating is a felony (due to an obscure and unconstitutional law).
So states the linked response by Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman. Lately there has also been a lot of sympathy expressed for people who committed suicide after being bullied, gay-bashed, or slut-shamed. This could have bad effects. I think we should heap shame on those who did wrong (the bullies/bashers/shamers), rather than pity on those who killed themselves, since doing so makes suicide a very real and potentially attractive lever of power for young people. Suicide is contagious.
"Because we're not doing a review to correct any possible problems, we're doing a review so that we can tell people we did a review and didn't find any problems.
A young man is dead because the government set out to destroy his life over some documents. Beyond that, very little matters at this point.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
If you are interested, a few months ago the new yorker had a great article detailing exactly what happened here with first hand interviews with most of the players. You can then make your own decisions.
Requiem for a dream: the tragedy of aaron swartz
What I got out of the article was 1) He was not trying to "make a statement" with his "hacking" action, but that was how the government portraited it. 2) He was very ecentric, and primarily seems to have killed himself because of what the legal action would have done to his future career. He had aspirations of running a foundation or becoming active in politics, and he felt that having a criminal record crippled his future. 3) One of the tipping points was having many of his personal correspondences subpenaed, as he was a very private person, which the government did solely to embarrass him, by making him and his girlfriends correspondences over the years, public.
In the end though, I think he just over reacted. His suicide was his doing and no one elses. Sometimes life will try and break you down and if you give up, then you die. I think if he had more robust coping strategies he could have seen that this was just a speed bump on the road of life and not over reacted by killing himself. The "crimes" he committed were not really that bad, and prosecutors are going to be mean and aggressive - that is their job. However of course, I was not in his shoes, so who am i to judge.
It is really just a tragedy.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
I think JSTOR was taken aback by their sudden role in the case and has made some good moves since (starting with the decision to oppose prosecution in that case).
There are a substantial number of librarians there, who tend to have fairly civic-minded views, and see themselves as on the pro-information-dissemination side of things. The main counteracting forces are: 1) for post-1923 journals, the journals rather than JSTOR ultimately own the copyright, so JSTOR has to work with them to be allowed to digitize them at all (and has perhaps in the past been too deferential to their views); and 2) as a slow-moving, somewhat conservative institution, they're focused more on traditional archival questions like how to preserve things for posterity, and what kinds of revenue streams will support that, and less on broadening current access.
In the time since the Swartz case, they have made all out-of-copyright issues freely available, which is a move they could make unilaterally, and is a big increase in the amount of old journal content now available online, in high-quality scans with good metadata.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
He did have a robust coping strategy. The government simply stripped him of it. Thats why the case is fucked up.
If I tell the media to publicize the possibility that you broke into a school, stolen millions of dollars of 'confidential' information and convince your family, friends and anyone else around you that you're already guilty; what kind of coping strategy are you left with?
Oh and your personal assets have been frozen and you're now being watched by the authorities/media, so you can't run away. Oh and your ISP cut off your internet connection so you can't steal any more data/talk on Slashdot/online with anyone about it either, you evil hacker. Oh and you're probably going to jail, not counting time spent in the county jail/interrogation room(s). For over 20 years (maybe). Not that it matter now that you've been kicked out of school (kicked out for possible criminal activities? That will look good on a resume). And on the verge of becoming a convicted felon (cause copyright infringement!).
As far as I know, Aaron Swartz wasn't even a student, faculty member, or employee of MIT, so why does MIT have a duty to defend him? He was arrested for trespassing when he was in a networking closet where he had no business being. If someone breaks into your home, do you have a duty to defend them if they're prosecuted, even if they're being prosecuted over-zealously?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Would it be wrong to walk right by, completely ignore and not even dial 911 for a bloodied driver in a car wreck when you're the only one who could help? Would it be wrong to ignore the sight of several police officers ruthlessly beating on someone in the street if you had a camera in hand (or in pocket, as we all do) and were obscured enough that you could guarantee your own safety? If you see a child about to unwittingly run off a cliff and don't even do so much as say, "Hey kid! Watch out!", would that be wrong?
There are lots of hypothetical situations where we could say we didn't do anything wrong. But when you willingly neglect to do the right thing, especially when it carries no potential of harm you, it amounts to the same.
Maybe they didn't actively participate in any wrongdoing, but they are guilty as hell of willful ignorance.