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'Dangerously Naive' Aaron Swartz 'Destroyed Himself'
theodp writes "In July, MIT drew criticism after issuing a report clearing itself in the suicide of Aaron Swartz. So, one wonders what Swartz supporters will make of The Lessons of Aaron Swartz, an MIT Technology Review op-edish piece penned by MIT EE/CS prof Hal Abelson, who chaired the review panel. Calling Swartz 'dangerously naïve about the reality of exercising that power [of technology], to the extent that he destroyed himself' (others say prosecutorial overreach destroyed him), Abelson questions 'whether the people who mentored Swartz and helped him achieve such brilliance and power had a responsibility to cultivate not only his technical excellence and his passion as an advocate but also, as my grandmother would have called it, seykhel-a wonderful Yiddish word that means a combination of intelligence and common sense.'"
Well, Hal, if this is what it takes to let you sleep at night despite your and your school's part in Swartz's persecution, have at it. But I doubt too many people are buying it; at this late date pretty much everyone's mind is made up anyway.
It seems that "using power responsibly" usually means subordinating oneself to the whims of politicans and bureaucrats; to defy their will using one's technical prowess is immature, irresponsible, etc. The upshot is that if you're not a politician, you should sit down, shut up, and obey. I don't accept that.
Being prosecuted for being a whistleblower, being followed, being harassed... to expect and deal with that is common sense?
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Since we all know that all the progress depends on unreasonable people, what's the point of trying to make everyone grow up reasonable?
Ezekiel 23:20
Is there a yiddish word for asshole?
The most damage Aaron could have possibly done is damage the profits of a private corporation. For that, he was hounded until he decided to take his own life.
Common sense tells me that his death is a tragedy, period. The only people who should be feeling shame are the sycophants who are defending the right of the powerful to abuse the powerless. May you reap what you sow.
Swartz commits what in any rational country is a minor infraction at best
Dude. He hid himself in a closet in MIT and illegally downloaded and posted millions of journal articles. He did it on this scale deliberately to call attention to his act. And this was after being unsuccessfully prosecuted for much the same stunt in Chicago a few years before, and then taunting the FBI from his private website.
Then there's the fact that Swartz consulted Lawrence Lessig in advance of the MIT download, and Lessig advised him not to do it.
He did it anyway - and was prosecuted for it! Oh, whoa, poor, poor Aaron being bullied by the big bad Federal Government and MIT! And now he might actually have to go to jail for downloading a few journal articles! Why was he born to live in such an awful world?
Just out of curiosity, exactly what "offense" did he commit that you think is worth even a year's probabation with a suspended sentence.
He used MIT's computer system to accomplish what it was designed to do. All he did was do a lot more of it than the designers were expecting.
There mght have been a civil copyright issue here, but none of the copyright holders appeared interested in pursuing such a case.
And there definitely was a "using more than your fair share of shared resources" issue, which is not a crime (unless you're a federal prosecutor with an axe to grind).
To me, "common sense" dictates that MIT should have pulled him aside, and informed him that his massive downloads were not acceptable, and if they didn't stop, he would be officially banned from using MIT's network in the future. Once banned from the network, if he continued his activities he would *then* actually be guilty of a crime worthy of prosecution.
Don't tell me to get a life. I had one once. It sucked.
Generation Y (that is, the reddit crowd) sure does have a rather weird sense of "responsibility", in general.
Why should anyone aside from Mr. Swartz feel responsible for something harmful that Mr. Swartz did to himself, by himself, completely voluntarily? They shouldn't, of course.
So many members of Generation Y completely pervert the concept of responsibility in all respects. Not only is Mr. Swartz incorrectly absolved of his responsibility in this ordeal, but others with no responsibility at all are somehow considered to be "responsible".
Here we have nearly an entire generation completely misunderstanding a very basic concept like responsibility. It's quite unusual, quite absurd, and to some extent quite scary.
If mental torture didn't work, nobody would try it.
If bullying didn't work, nobody would try it.
But you're a shit, so what the hell am I doing? You're not listening.
I think the real lesson to be learned here is how dangerous the legal system really is. I do say legal system because it's not a justice system as there was no justice served here.
It's abhorrent how people can simply claim they had nothing to do with it when their actions or lack there of are the most critical aspect in this case.
May the gravity of their [in]actions weigh upon those participating or complicit in this farce. This is not a penalty or punishment, this is your wage.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The government proposed to throw him in a cage for months or years, along with a bunch of people who were a lot tougher and meaner than he was. The government would work diligently to prevent escapes, but protecting inmates from each other would not be a priority. Assuming he survived this experience, once he got out, he would be ineligible (as a result of his felony conviction) for any form of work he was qualified for, and thus would be faced with, at best, a life of scraping by with low-wage unskilled labor.
I can see why suicide looked like a rational alternative.
It's not a Generation Y thing, it's a philosophical question. You're basically arguing that a defendant is wholly responsible for the consequences of his action regardless of the weight of those consequences and the arbitrary nature in which they seem to be applied. Some argue that society has some responsibility to enforce laws evenly, clearly and with consequences weighted appropriately to the harm against society done.
You should check whether you are human. You seem to miss essential characteristics.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Generation Y (that is, the reddit crowd) sure does have a rather weird sense of "responsibility", in general.
Responding as a member of Generation X to your rather obvious troll, I will say that what I see in Generation Y a hope for the future that we failed at. Are you really so far gone that you have lost all sense of justice, of morality, of just basic decency and fair play? Do you really believe the vitriolic slime that was Thatcherite doctrine that every man is an island, alone?
The best thing anyone of my age can do is give all the help they can to the generations beneath us - we failed to wrest power away from the hippes that turned into yuppies, but if we pass on our knowledge and experience, but not our jaded cynicism then there might yet still be hope. Personally I think the average Generation Y's morality is a lot less warped than Abelson's will ever be.
My brief experiences on the wrong side of the law, way back when I was a youngster, lead me to firmly believe that Prosecutors are way more interested in scoring wins, making examples of people and furthering their careers than in truth and justice. To that end, they always strive to apply as many charges as they can think of and pursue the most harsh punishments available to help ensure they have the maximum leverage and/or win at least something regardless of the facts and circumstances and/or consequences (sound familiar House Republicans?). It's very easy for the accused, especially if young and naive, to be overwhelmed by this process, even with a good, reassuring defense attorney. If I faced the behavior of the Prosecutors in this case, I might also see the ultimate path Aaron chose as the only way out...
From Wikipedia:
On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested by MIT police on state breaking-and-entering charges, after systematically downloading academic journal articles from JSTOR. Federal prosecutors later charged him with two counts of wire fraud and 11 violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution and supervised release.
Meaning, he bypassed a website pay/firewall and downloaded some (okay, many) articles. Is that something warranting 35 years in prison? I think not. We could easily enumerate many, many worse crimes - against actual people - that get less severe punishments. It's seems there's a disconnect in this country between "protecting the innocent" - especially people vs. corporations - and the actual crime and damages. I won't say "punishing the guilty" because Prosecutors don't actually care what someone is guilty of - as long as they win.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
There is a scene in Shindler's list were jewish prison laborers are constructing the baracks of a concentration camp. One of them, a young woman, goes to some nazi overseers and tells them the constructions are being done wrong, she is apparently an engineer.
She is shot for daring to talk to them.
Who do YOU blame for the outcome of that scene? The woman or the nazi? You might think that if she had kept quiet she would have been fine... but that just shows you have a lousy grasp of history. But if someone had pulled her back, she would not have died that day. And that is the message being send by this article. Don't make waves because the powers that be might kill you.
It is after all common sense to let sleeping dogs lie. I used to think of that saying as "let that otherwise friendly dog sleep" not "let the guard dog keeping you in the prison compound sleep". Possibly because that last one hardly rolls of the tongue.
Was Swartz naive in assuming there would be no consequence to disrupting the status quo? To easily panicked when he threw the snow ball and he got caught in the avalanche? Maybe but is the lesson to learn from this to never question the status quo? That would be terrible, for us all to turn into sheep because we might get slaughtered if we don't behave like sleep.
Yes Swartz was naive. Yes those around him should have been more supportive of him but the fault for his death lies solely and alone with those who prosecuted him.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
>Just out of curiosity, exactly what "offense" did he commit [...] ?
Looking sexy while being raped. This article is nothing but a tech version of 'blame-the-victim'.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
What about the prosecutor that threatened Mr. Swartz with 30 years in jail for actions that most civilized people think should have been dealt with by the University administration, or maybe by the civil courts. Was it responsible to threaten a person with 30 years in jail for disregarding an EULA?
Mr. Swartz's case highlighted the odious and unjust practice of threatening people with completely out of proportion punishments to induce them to plea bargain. And as far as I can tell this is done to gain political points in the next stage of the prosecutors's career, not to improve justice.
Anarchists never rule
Society can be responsible for Pushing a person in to a corner where they have limited options and that is what happened here. Possibly spend the rest of your life in prison or take the easy way out. Should he have fought it sure. Was he in a mental state that would allow him to function well enough to mount a defense and fight the charges while being badgered by people in positions of authority, well not really hence the suicide. Depression is a strange mistress and when being forced into serving what would amount to a life sentence in prison for a trivial infraction what would you chose? The Prosecution is at fault, they were the bully and should be treated as such.
The prosecutor aims for a high degree of punishment because they hope for a plea bargain, with every intention of keeping the maximum sentence recommendation intact in the event that the case actually goes to trial. It is a way to undercut the constitutional guarantee of trial by jury by raising the stakes so high that a jury trial becomes an untenable gamble.
Thus the Ortiz-Heymann tactics in this case should be seen as what they were, an untenable subversion of basic constitutional rights, by persecutors with a goal of putting notches in their belt, hoping to gain political points with an ignorant public afraid of any and all "crime".
Exaggerating the severity of the alleged crime to further her career is not her job, she is not a defence attorney she is a public prosecutor, she should be sacked.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.