DOJ Elevated Its Charges Against Swartz Because Internet Rallied on His Behalf

http://pjmedia.com/blog/report-doj-elevated-its-charges-against-swartz-because-internet-community-rallied-on-his-behalf/?singlepage=true

by swartzrock • 13 years ago

160 94 13 years ago

pjmedia.com

VladRussian22• 13 years ago

They wanted to send a message. Just like mobsters tripping on power do.

ferdo5• 13 years ago

The message seems to be, "If you assert your rights or your innocence, we'll make life very difficult for you. Comply."

Pure mobster mentality.

fiatmoney• 13 years ago

It's worse than that. "If anyone advocates on your behalf, we'll make sure you regret it."

sigzero• 13 years ago

Really? He didn't have the "right" or the "innocence".

fleitz• 13 years ago

What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men.

ferdo5• 13 years ago

"Calling it your job don't make it right, Boss."

sp3325• 13 years ago

This article makes the prosecution sound much more reasonable than other articles I've seen before. "The prosecutor’s response was that it disturbed him whenever a defendant ‘systematically re-victimized’ the victim, and that was what Swartz was doing by dragging MIT through hearings and a trial." The trial must have seemed like a deliberate waste of everyone's resources, when (from the prosecutor's view) Aaron would have been much better off taking the plea bargain since he had already admitted what he had done.

flagnog2• 13 years ago

nope, it doesn't at all - it makes the prosecutor seem like a petulant child - they didn't get what they wanted (Swartz to quietly, meekly give in), so the pulled out the big guns and bullied him until he committed suicide.

consultant23522• 13 years ago

I dunno. When I'm going 65 in a 45 and I know I'm dead wrong, when the cop only gives me a ticket for my broken tail light I don't give them a hard time. I would fully expect that if I gave the officer the finger he'd give me both tickets. The prosecutor probably felt he was doing the kid a favor and got snubbed. I'm not saying it's right, just saying there's more than one side to the story.

defen• 13 years ago

I'm hoping this is just really subtle sarcasm - there is a Constitutional right to a trial, you know...even when "everybody knows" that the defendant is guilty.

sp3325• 13 years ago

Yes, and criminals routinely abuse it. There is a "right" for the prosecutor to prosecute a crime, too.

tareqak2• 13 years ago

Shouldn't it be the judge's call to decide whether or not resources are being wasted? The fact that the prosecutor raised charges in spite of the fact that the nature and severity of crime did not change seems reprehensible and basically amounts to revenge.

It reminds of the time I was reprimanded by a teacher more harshly because I chose to share the sequence of events that unfolded with my parents. My parents called the teacher about it, and the next day, things were magically worse.

Edit: fixed typo

mikegagnon• 13 years ago

In the American justice system the judge is part of the judicial branch and the prosecutor is part of the executive branch.

Prosecutors have a huge amount of discretion in their jobs. They can choose if they press charges and if so what charges to press.

In this case, there are allegations that the prosecution abused its power by retaliating against free speech.

The prosecutor allegedly said something along the lines of: Aaron Swartz was foolish to exercise free speech because it then went "‘from a human one-on-one level to an institutional level.’ The lead prosecutor said that on the institutional level cases are harder to manage both internally and externally"

I presume by "one-on-one" prosecution, the prosecutor meant it was one prosecutor against Aaron Swartz. But by publicizing the case, it aroused the interest of the "institution" (i.e. the higher ups), who then decided to throw the book at Swartz.

VladRussian22• 13 years ago

defendant ‘systematically re-victimized’ the victim, and that was what Swartz was doing by dragging MIT through hearings and a trial.

Just surreal. Like Swartz was a sadist and MIT was a traumatized victim of violence, not like a young prodigy whose life were being crushed for the modern "Prometheus" action and a bunch of PC-sensitive executive bureaucrats augmented by a lawyer department.

flagnog2• 13 years ago

so, because someone's feathers got ruffled, they pursued him until he committed suicide. Let that be a lesson boys and girls - don't piss off people in power, bow and scrape like a good little citizen and you will be OK</sarcasm>.

tareqak2• 13 years ago

This story makes me wonder what would have happened if the Watergate scandal would have happened in the age of the Internet. Would the Internet rally in favour of Richard Nixon's impeachment and against his subsequent pardon? Would impeachment proceedings still take place irrespective of the pardon because of massive public support?

r00fus• 13 years ago

The Internet is orthogonal to the issue (probably), the fact is that the US GOvernment is completely corrupt and captured now, from the highest levels to the lowest.

The corporate capture has left the wealthy and powerful above the law, if they're just willing to join the corruption scheme.

In short, the US is swiftly becoming a 3rd world country when it comes to equality of income and fairness of justice, and this is especially the case if someone like Aaron Swartz is looking to really rock the boat… they become the examples hung in plaza so everyone else meekly complies.

ferdo5• 13 years ago

The NSA spying on all of us is a bigger crime and a bigger scandal than Watergate. I don't see any groundswell for impeachment.

tankbot• 13 years ago

a bigger scandal than Watergate.

Depends on how you qualify its big-ness. Go out and talk to regular, non-techie folks about NSA spying. In the unlikely event that you even find someone who knows what you are talking about, they won't care. They will look at you like you're crazy and they'll say, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about."

If it's just a small, quickly forgotten blurb on Fox news between TERRORISM and Honey Boo-Boo then does it even qualify as scandal?

gizmo686• 13 years ago

The NSA and Watergate are very different types of things. In Watergate, the Administration engaged in targeted, illegal spying on political opponents. The NSA has Congressional approval for a surveillance program, and there has not yet been evidence to point to them using that for political gain.

hga7• 13 years ago

Urrm, you seem to be under the impression that impeachment does something more than remove someone from office (technically it doesn't even do that, if the House impeaches then the Senate holds a trial, which happened with Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's VP, and Bill Clinton).

All Ford's pardon did was to prevent vengeful Democrats, some holding grudges going as far back as 1950, from criminally prosecuting him. It allowed the nation to Move On; the alternative would have pretty quickly ended the Republic if history is any guide.

mullingitover7• 13 years ago

All Ford's pardon did was to prevent vengeful Democrats, some holding grudges going as far back as 1950, from criminally prosecuting him.

So while we're in agreement that Nixon was a criminal, you're saying he should not have been prosecuted...because people had other reasons to dislike him beyond his criminal acts? I fail to see how allowing Nixon to escape justice allowed the country to Move On. It demonstrated to the public that in fact, there are different classes of people in this country, and the powerful simply aren't subject to the same laws as the commoners.

s_q_b11• 13 years ago

The actor I'm most disappointed in is MIT.

Right now, the DOJ is one of the targets of a massive scared-straight campaign by Beltway technologists. One of the worst kept secrets in the world is that US cybersecurity, outside of the military and the IC, is incredibly bad. If most civilian agencies were private corporations, they would have been sued dozens of times by users for negligence in data handling.

For those that understood the dangers of this lax security posture, for many years it was a game of railing into the wind about the potential consequences of continuing to ignore this attack vector.

Then, China got involved.

Suddenly, the dangers weren't speculative at all. They were right at our doorstep. And the same Cassandras that were on the outs for so long suddenly found themselves with the ear of every CIO in Washington. What followed was a massive purchasing binge, which is still ongoing, and a huge amount of advertising and mindshare devoted to this topic.

It was amidst the height of this cyber-scare that the Schwartz prosecution was brought. For Mr. Heymann, Aaron Schwartz was a huge target. A US hacker, caught in the act of stealing information worth millions, was a great prize for Mr. Heyman, his boss Carmen Ortiz, who has rather naked political ambitions, and her bosses in DC.

So why am I disappointed in MIT? Because the DOJ has never understood computer technology very well. MIT does. It was their job to educate the DOJ, to subordinate passion to reason, and to parse the difficult technological issues to explain the real lack of damage caused by Aaron Schwartz's actions.

MIT is supposed to be a guardian of our online rights and a cradle for technologists like Schwartz. It should have been on the forefront of the opposition to Mr. Heymann, demanding that charges be dropped. Instead, they threw him to the wolves. And now, in one final insult, they ask the courts for special leave to screen documents in order to hide their involvement with the prosecution.

I hope the individuals involved know that they abandoned a sacred trust, tarnished the name of a great institution, and negligently contributed to the death of a brilliant young man. I hope they know that they weren't "just doing their jobs," that they didn't "follow rules and procedures," and that no one buys their excuses anymore.

I hope that at least one of the administrators responsible has lost even one night's sleep over Mr. Schwartz's death. But, knowing the disdain and disregard for Mr. Schwartz that these hired bureaucrats expressed while he was alive, I doubt it.

rhizome4• 13 years ago

One of the worst kept secrets in the world is that US cybersecurity, outside of the military and the IC, is incredibly bad.

Not sure why you're excluding Mil/IC here, in light of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, did you mean to restrict your point to Internet-connected devices?

s_q_b11• 13 years ago

Yes. The comment was restricted to internet-connected devices and in particular network and endpoint security safeguards.

Both Snowden and Manning got their information from systems to which they had been granted access. .Mil and IC targets are among the most hardened in the world, even if they were a bit lax about implementing fine-grained access control amongst their cleared personnel.

pdonis6• 13 years ago

I can see where you're coming from here, but unfortunately, from what I've read (particularly what's in the Abelson report, see below), I don't think the DOJ was listening to MIT in this case anyway; the US Attorney's office had its own view of the case and wasn't receptive to alternative views.

And now, in one final insult, they ask the courts for special leave to screen documents in order to hide their involvement with the prosecution.

Are you referring to MIT's request to redact the private personal information of MIT employees who were named in the documents? That doesn't hide anything about MIT's involvement; it just allows employees, who did not set MIT policy to begin with, to get on with their lives without being persecuted.

I'm also curious what "involvement with the prosecution" you think MIT had. Have you read the Abelson report?

http://swartz-report.mit.edu/

It's quite comprehensive in its treatment of what involvement MIT had at each phase of things.

s_q_b11• 13 years ago

"...[U]nfortunately, from what I've read (particularly what's in the Abelson report, see below), I don't think the DOJ was listening to MIT in this case anyway; the US Attorney's office had its own view of the case and wasn't receptive to alternative views..."
"I'm also curious what 'involvement with the prosecution' you think MIT had. Have you read the Abelson report? It's quite comprehensive in its treatment of what involvement MIT had at each phase of things."

I'm very skeptical of any internal investigation conducted by an institution that exonerates it from all wrongdoing. While I have tremendous respect for Prof. Abelson as a person and an academic, it was obvious from the outset that he was interested primarily in protecting MIT's reputation rather than seeking the truth. Nor am I the only person that thought so. See e.g. http://business.time.com/2013/07/31/aaron-swartzs-father-bla...

Prof. Abelson began his investigation with an outright statement in The Tech that he didn't expect to find any wrongdoing. That very statement is the hallmark of either an inept or a biased investigator. A true investigator enters his task with no preconception of what its result will be. To do otherwise is to invite confirmation bias.

Universities are places of complex politics. I wouldn't trust any investigation by an employee of the institution under investigation, much less a professor who's beholden to the very administrators he's investigating for funding, offices, and staff.

Also, MIT didn't seek leave merely to redact names of employees, although I see no reason why those who participated in these terrible events should be shielded from public opprobrium, but also any information in which MIT has a privacy interest. For an attorney, what that means is any information that could potentially implicate or even embarrass the university. I stand by my original statements.

dclowd9901• 13 years ago

Nitpicky, but it's Swartz, not Schwartz.

s_q_b11• 13 years ago

You're right. I've corrected it where possible. It's not nitpicky either, given that it's someone's name. I apologize.

Other words I misspelled at one or another include Heymann, personnel, guardian, and wolves. :)

praptak• 13 years ago

So how's the White House response to the petition to fire Carmen Ortiz?

pvnick• 13 years ago

Aaron was also involved in some groundbreaking software development for political activism [1] [2]. I find it extremely easy to believe that someone in the DoJ saw that and decided to make an example out of him to dissuade other "hacktivists."

[1] http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/stron...

[2] https://github.com/naomifox/mass-email-delivery-code

s_q_b11• 13 years ago

The files themselves point out that the Secret Service first began investigating Swartz with the publication of his "Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto."

The smart people in law enforcement are scared sh*tless of hacktivists, so it's totally possible they lumped him in with the Sabu/Hammond/Lulzsec crowd.

rhizome4• 13 years ago

So Heymann increased the apparent penalties based on Swartz exercising First Amendment rights? So much for rule of law.

kps• 13 years ago

It's universal for prosecutors to increase the penalties sought when a defendant exercises their Sixth Amendment rights; why should the First be any different?

rhizome4• 13 years ago

It's idealistic, sure, but exercising these rights doesn't change the evidence.

thufry2• 13 years ago

I wouldn't even be 1% surprised if they forced Swartz into committing suicide, by threatening to harm his loved ones if he didn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_suicide

jgross206• 13 years ago

can you share some of your reasoning behind this (quite extreme) belief?

YokoZar• 13 years ago

If I remember correctly, Aaron was convinced that the way things were going with the trial it would bankrupt his family by defending him. It's not too hard to imagine that "protecting" them involves taking yourself out of the equation there.

superuser2• 13 years ago

FBI repeatedly suggested that Martin Luther King kill himself. I think it's a little melodramatic for this case, but it wouldn't be the first time the DoJ has employed that tactic to protect the status quo against an activist.

thufry2• 13 years ago

I just wanted to see if anyone would agree with it.

D9u• 13 years ago

     ‘from a human one-on-one level to an institutional level.’

I fail to see how government vs a single individual can be construed as "a human one-on-one level."

beefxq• 13 years ago

The end of freedom.

chris_mahan• 13 years ago

What freedom?

tzs• 13 years ago

MIT, whose archive was hacked while Swartz was a fellow at Harvard (which gave him access to JSTOR)

So why not download from Harvard, instead of abusing guest access at MIT?

twoodfin• 13 years ago

My guess would be because he thought MIT would be more likely to look the other way.

Amadou• 13 years ago

Confirmation? PJ Media is a horrible news source, editorial standards poorer than Glenn Beck's "The Blaze." And this wasn't even reporting, it was an opinion piece in the blogs section.

I'm all for piling on the malefactors in the Aaron Swartz case, but I wouldn't bet a nickle on anything that comes out of PJ Media.

DOJ Elevated Its Charges Against Swartz Because Internet Rallied on His Behalf

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