Why Did The Secret Service Take Over Aaron Swartz's Case?

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130114/08161821656/why-did-secret-service-take-over-aaron-swartzs-case-two-days-before-he-was-arrested.shtml

by honzzz • 14 years ago

133 37 14 years ago

techdirt.com

mpyne3• 14 years ago

http://www.secretservice.gov/ectf.shtml

"Significant impact" is a clause wide enough to drive a truck through just by itself.

If anyone has ever read The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll it gives some insight as to why the government might want to have an organization with the remit to "bring together not only federal, state and local law enforcement, but also prosecutors, private industry and academia."

rhizome5• 14 years ago

I think it speaks more to the fear Obama et al have of information exploits such as those embarked upon by Manning and Swartz.

The government has a lot of classified information they'd like to keep that way, and computers are a technology that civilians currently have more practical power over than governments. Compare civilian vs. governmental computer skills to, say, ballistic firepower. This is a fact, regardless of where your personal preferences are for the line to be drawn for government privacy, classification, etc.

tptacek4• 14 years ago

It has nothing whatsoever to do with Obama, or Bush, or even Clinton. It's an arrangement that has existed for decades.

Read "The Hacker Crackdown" by Bruce Sterling for the background on this:

http://www.mit.edu/hacker/hacker.html

millerc• 14 years ago

Using the "Significant economic or community impact" clause, one could easily have enlisted the secret services into that investigation, saying the downloaded material represents thousands of man-years of work from the nation's top researchers. That statement is entirely true, however it has nothing to do with the zero-sum game it leads the uneducated eye to believe.

The secret services should have been apt enough to figure out from the start that the reported "crime" was no worse than having a kid loose in the library of Congress taking pictures of every public documents. They should never have equated it to stealing - removing - the material.

rhizome5• 14 years ago

It's the mark of a talentless publication to piggyback on real reporters' work, and is especially distasteful for this topic, of which a site with the word "tech" in it should have their own angle on already.

Go to the original, Techdirt adds nothing:

http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/01/13/two-days-before-cambrid...

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

Actually its the mark of talentless publication to piggyback on a very real tragedy with a senseless link-baitey story that they could have answered for themselves in a completely non-conspiratorial way if they noted that every case involving CFAA is investigated by and/or handled by the Secret Service.

Didn't stop emptywheel though, nor Techdirt. They got what ever the paranoid equivalent of rage views is.

tptacek4• 14 years ago

In Techdirtland, the reason is clearly because Swartz opposed Obama's kill lists, and the administration needed to find a plausible way to have him killed.

In reality, it's because the Secret Service is for historical reasons the federal law enforcement agency most responsible for handling computer crimes. It's been this way since at least the 1980s, when the Secret Service was at the heart of the Sun-Devil Raids.

As anyone who's ever watched Law & Order can inform you: "two separate but equally important groups, the police and the district attorneys". In federal computer crimes, you can often substitute "Secret Service" for "police", and "US Attorney" for "district attorney".

As I understand it, the Secret Services' role in computer crimes investigations work is less central today than it was 2 decades ago, but they're still an important repository of investigatory talent for these kinds of cases.

Understanding that the Secret Service's involvement in the case was legitimate in no way means that you approve of the way the US Attorney's coordinating group for computer crimes led by Stephen Heymann handled the prosecution. That's a disclaimer I shouldn't have to write, but since this story is being voted rapidly to the top of the site, it's clear that I do need to write it.

elemeno2• 14 years ago

The Secret Service also has jurisdiction over various types fraud - including telecommunications fraud and computer fraud. Given that the primary charge against Swartz was for Wire Fraud, it would certainly seem like something that could fall under their jurisdiction, or at the very least something that they'd be interested in enough to check if it should fall under them or should be left to another branch of law enforcement.

tibbon• 14 years ago

Do you know anything about the legislative and constitutional history of this? Why them and not the FBI or something? Seems very odd, but maybe just one of those weird government quirks.

joezydeco• 14 years ago

Let's imagine MIT was working on some kind of defense-related project ala Whirlwind. Could it be possible that the Secret Service gets called in on any possible suspicious activity on any network connected to such a thing?

ims• 14 years ago

18 U.S.C. 3056 may be instructive here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3056

Pitarou• 14 years ago

It could also be that the Secret Service swallowed the "copyright math" bullshit, and treating is as a case of significant economic impact.

aytekin• 14 years ago

"important repository of investigatory talent"

I had to smile. My firsthand experience is that they are like an elephant in a china store. They probably bullied Aaron like they bullied us. Instead of asking me to take down a form they preferred to take down 2 million forms by suspending our domain.

Suspension of our domain was extremely stressful for me. I had the support of my family and employees. But I can definitely understand Aaron. The stress of not knowing what will happen on a case like this can be too harsh for a young emotional person. He was being charged with 35 years. We don't know what kind of bullying he was taking.

tptacek4• 14 years ago

We know who bullied Aaron: Stephen Heymann, the deputy chief of the criminal division for the US Attorney's office in Boston. It was his decision to hammer Aaron with 13 charges and refuse any reasonable plea bargain, not USSS. His name and signature are on the filings.

fleitz• 14 years ago

They didn't take it over 2 days before his death, they took it over 2 YEARS before his death.

gpvos• 14 years ago

which is two days before his arrest.

rhizome5• 14 years ago

I'm guessing Techdirt had a breathless headline typo, since fixed.

jmvoodoo2• 14 years ago

This isn't all that out of the ordinary. Back in 1995 I had the SS visit my family's home due to some of my childish behavior at the time. No fun, and luckily nothing ever came of it, but the SS was involved from the very beginning as far as I know. I never heard from any other law enforcement about the issue.

omarchowdhury• 14 years ago

What did you do?

jmvoodoo2• 14 years ago

I accessed a network without permission from its owner, and my actions interrupted the normal operation of the network. That's about all I really want to talk about. I was very young and stupid at the time, and have since learned better :)

gregcohn2• 14 years ago

I thought the most interesting item in this story was not about the secret service, but rather the MIT counsel's decision to turn over evidence without a warrant or subpoena, in contravention of its policy. (Though it's possible they had a warrant and court order preventing its disclosure.)

I am sure the truth will come out.

josephlord• 14 years ago

There is one thing only revealing information about your legitimate users under warrant or court order. It is another to restrict yourself from providing information in the event that you have been attacked by someone who is not a member of your organisation.

Note that this does not mean that judgement should not have changed their behaviour in this case but that a rules based prohibition on voluntary cooperation seems like the wrong argument to me.

gregcohn2• 14 years ago

very good point. it seems like it would hinge on whether the act was defensive (MIT asking for help) or in reaction to an FBI request.

nessus42• 14 years ago

Perhaps for the same reason that the Secret Service raided (and nearly put out of business) Steve Jackson Games in 1990 because the author of their GURPS FRP module called "Cyberpunk" was a known "hacker".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._Un...

Why Did The Secret Service Take Over Aaron Swartz's Case?

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