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First Portions of Aaron Swartz's Secret Service File Released

Posted by Unknown on from the can't-make-jstor-look-bad dept.

Despite attempts by MIT and JSTOR to block the release of files pertaining the Aaron Swartz investigation, the court has ordered the release of documents not referencing MIT or JSTOR. There are approximately 14,500 pages of documents that will be released over the coming six months, after having information that could lead to harm against MIT or JSTOR employees redacted. Wired has the full story, and the author uploaded the first hundred pages of files. The first batch reveals that the Feds had indeed been looking into Swartz since the publication of his 2008 'Guerilla Open Access Manifesto,' several years before being indicted for copying documents from JSTOR.

7 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Released? by MobSwatter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We already know based upon Snowden that anything that will incriminate the U.S. government will be classified (Blacked out). It's clear on the Swartz case that they are so bent on making the people stupid that they are willing kill the smart ones that want to share knowledge. Not really much more to explore on the subject, other than a choice in country that is a bit more worthy of their word, and rule of law.

    1. Re:Released? by Creepy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Swartz published PUBLIC DOMAIN documents on the internet that non-college students had to pay 10 cents a page for a copy. He was charged with computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer, all provisions of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, many of which were meant to protect ATM transactions before there was internet. If you haven't read this extremely over-broad law, which depending on interpretation makes the internet illegal (accessing any site without permission of the owner is illegal and a felony). In the aftermath, Aaron's law was proposed to eliminate terms of service from the CFAA, which is what all of these charges were based on.

      For that he was looking at 35 years in prison, forfeit of assets, and a 1 million dollar fine. To put that in perspective, he was looking at spending over half of his life in prison and could be 61 by release (without parole) and completely broke. That was for making free knowledge available to the public. I can understand being depressed and possibly suicidal faced with those charges and the very likely possibility of losing in court.

  2. 14500 pages? by c0lo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What the hell? How much of 14500 pages could have been relevant to the trial?
    Are you guys competing with Stasi?

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    Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
    1. Re:14500 pages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The US does not have a justice system. It has a legal system. Wherever you see the term "justice" applied, you can infer it to mean, "Whatever the government wants."

  3. Re:Help an uneducated by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act treats both "unauthorized access" and "exceeding authorized access" as essentially equivalent. The second case is where you had an account but used it in unauthorized ways. This has some obvious vagueness and overreach problems. Did the CFAA drafters really mean to criminalize ToS violations, for example?

    Here [pdf] is a proposed amendment to the law from law professor Orin Kerr.

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    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  4. Re:Help an uneducated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    There are so many rules, regulations and laws in the USA that one must "break" one of these. Many of these rules, regulations and laws contradict others so that to keep one of these is to break another of these rules, regulations and laws.
    This has, at least, two purposes:
    (1) Every person is made a "law-breaker" and can be persecuted at any time for a wide variety of "crimes".
    (2) Every person, being a "law-breaker", can be fined (Government and/or Business), disciplined (G&B), or imprisoned (G & B with the help of G)
    The individual, having gained notoriety by the Government and/or Business, can be destroyed or raised-up at any moment or incident.

    Swartz broke one of these contradictory rules and the Business (MIT) induced the Government to persecute him. The Government jumped on him with hob-nailed boots and broke him. His brokenness end in his death. The Business had their "thief" punished and the Government had their "threat" eliminated.

    If one keeps up with the news in the USA, one will see in Federal tax-preparation time planted news stories about taxpayers (no longer citizens) who have run afoul of the IRS and "broke" some Federal tax rule, regulation, and law. The individual is way-layed; prison terms are routinely handed out to these "criminals". If a Business does this, it receives a penalty but, being only an "entity" and not an actual person, receives no prison time and rarely admits its "crime".

    Poor Mr. Swartz was caught up in a process that ate him up and spit him out. It ended in his death and now the Business (MIT) that started the entire process wants to claim innocence. Regrettably, most people will "buy" the propaganda. Every person has lost something with the death of Mr. Swartz.

  5. Re:Nobody cares about this suicidal loser by ebno-10db · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Really tired of all the Aaron Swartz stories, it got old months ago.

    Really tired of some people whining about all the Aaron Swartz stories. If you're not interested, don't read them. I am interested because this is an important ongoing story, and this article does contain new information.