Aaron Swartz Gets Indicted on More Charges in Connection with MIT Break In | Hacker News Reader

Aaron Swartz Gets Indicted on More Charges in Connection with MIT Break In

siliconangle.com

89 pointsalexwilliams32 comments

"He has apparently settled with JSTOR but not with U.S. prosecutors who indicted Swartz on charges of wire fraud, computer fraud, and unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer."

Everyone theoretically "harmed" by his downloading of the material (all of which was available for free through the MIT Guest wireless network, just at lower speed) has put the incident behind them, but the feds believe their mandate is to nail his ass to the wall.

That's not the Academy's fault, and every free person should be pissed about it.

There are a ton of things that every free person should be pissed about, but they're all too busy watching fox news.

To be fair, isn't that how criminal law generally works? Once you report a crime (or the authorities find out somehow), can't you still be prosecuted even if the victims say it's "no big deal"?

Yes, though in reality, it doesnt happen often because it is difficult to build a case without the primary witness.

I may be misconstruing what you're saying (please correct me if I am), but I don't see how MIT's and JSTOR's dismissing of the case makes them any less "primary witness material", should the authorities decide to continue prosecuting.

No you construed correctly...I think it has to do with the nature of the charges being pressed here. The feds can build a case in which there is discrete factual evidence. Either the logs show Swartz's activity or they do not. Either the computer closet was broken into or it was not. Either those documents were on Swartz's computer or they were not.

None of those facts require MIT or JSTOR to testify. A charge related to a denial-of-service, would require the cooperation of a victim...I assume...because if the "victim" isn't going to say that their network was terribly inconvenienced, then it's a hard case to prosecute.

The feds may be pursuing this hard because even if JSTOR doesn't care, there may be many people (i.e. the authors of the journal articles) who feel ripped off.

That's how it is supposed to work, but it never does if you are politically wealthy and well connected, and rarely does if you're a nobody.

Unfortunately for Swartz, he is neither - on the contrary, he's been constantly and loudly criticizing the government, so he gets the "by the book" treatment to its worst possible conclusion.

"My bet? Swartz is forcing the issue". My bet is that the Justice Department is still pissed at him for his role in liberating PACER (see http://gnat.me/sJAdUm). They'd been obstinately keeping judicial information under paywall lock and key, and were grumpy when he helped release that information (read the link for more). The FBI staked him out, and this set of indictments (where MIT and JSTOR have both made their peace with Swartz) reeks of vindictiveness. Anyone else, they'd have let it go by now.

Exactly. Whenever law enforcement approaches a situation with a "we'll show HIM who's boss" chip on its shoulder, it's a recipe for disaster. It's a wonder they managed to nab him off his bicycle without shooting anyone's dog.

From the little I know, my bet is it's Swartz's _methods_ that have gotten him in trouble, not so much what he's trying to do. Although there's something to do with streaming he was involved with and I don't know much about that. What's the story behind that?

PACER I do know about, first hand. It is a low cost _public service_ that has historically operated at a surplus. I'm sure the goverment _wants_ the public to have better access to this information. This information is going to be free; it's inevitable. It just might take some time.

But I read that Swartz went into a _federal court_ library and installed some stealth software; maybe it was just a simple script, doesn't matter. If that's true, that is just a really DUMB thing to do, no matter how noble the objective. Is that really the only place he could do the downloads?

And as for this MIT incident, the facts speak for themselves. Most people have no idea what Python is. They have no idea how fast an http server can respond to requests. They don't understand the difference between open and closed data formats, or data that's easy to access versus data they have to click 25 times to get to. All they see is a kid sneaking around.

Whether the charges he's facing are commensurate with the damage he's caused is another question. But he does need to show more respect for existing systems no matter how slow to change they may be (even if he has to pretend).

He's definitely pushed the issue alright. I just hope for his sake and everyone else who knows their way around computers he hasn't pushed a little too far, too soon.

If his methods are deliberately extreme, if he meant to do things this way, then he's either got some huge cajonas and unparalleled advisors behind him, or he's just young and stupid.

Though I don't agree with the methods, I hope it's the former.

> "I'm sure the goverment wants the public to have better access to this information."

Right, because our government has been so good about pursuing openness and transparency in other areas.

Honestly, the bigger culprit in denying the public access to legal materials, by shaking down law schools, law firms and government agencies for excessive licensing fees which get passed on to students, clients and taxpayers, are the two largest legal publishers: the private sector.

Anyone who has been paying attention to _access to court filings_ over the last decade or so would probably agree that in general governments, including the federal one, are continuing to make things easier and more open. In most cases, they are not fighting against the Internet, just trying to keep up with it within their limited budgets.

But those private sector publishers, one of which has been so profitable it has put its founder on the Forbes list, they control an overwhelming amount of the world's case law, and they are still making a stand against free legal information. The paywall is not coming down.

Anyway, I understand your point, but it really does not apply to this area the way it does to others.

I can't help but wonder if it also has something to do with DemandProgress.org. Aaron's group is one of the more effective pro-privacy, anti-wiretapping/snooping/etc. advocates around.

Efforts like this are particularly problematic for the massively growing US security apparatus:

http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/snooping_bill/

So a guy who's anti-wiretapping and anti-snooping snuck into a building, snuck into a wire closet, installed a computer, and sucked data down onto it.

No, nothing contradictory about that. Move along.

It's cases like these that make Academia seem like such an antiquated idea. The fact that institutions support the locking away of research, much of which paid for by public funds and written by authors that intended fair use of their information, reeks of hypocrisy. The fact that no one in academia has spoke up on this case is damming to say the least. We as a society really need to rapidly come to the conclusion that not everything need be for a buck, especially when that something was paid for already via public funds and the true creators of that content never intended for these lech quasi-Academia organization, to be able to milk their work for generations.

"The fact that no one in academia has spoke up on this case is damming to say the least."

I'm an academic and I think it's a load of rubbish. Where are you getting your facts?

I have seen no media coverage of anyone at MIT or elsewhere condemning the prosecution of Aaron. Nor have I seen any renowned individual of academia, at any point, blog, pod-cast, or via lecture condemn the prosecution of Aaron, just because one may think it is rubbish does not mean that they have given their voice to the subject. The fact is there has been silence on the issue, and that fact is derived from the silence, not from a human or media source. If I am wrong I would love to be corrected, but I have not, to this date, seen anyone of notoriety from MIT speak up.

So which is it? Academics, or a notorious MIT professor?

You're blaming the problem on completely the wrong party to begin with. Academic researchers are getting screwed by groups like JSTOR on a regular basis. There are gorram huge movements in academia dedicated to working on this problem. You're blaming the people who are actually doing the most to try to fix this.

Well, to be fair, who is "Academia"? Is it the professors? Is it the administrations? Is it the whole system, including universities (and all of their issues down to football team scandals), publishers, college admissions tests, and so on?

The thing is, there is a fairly substantial system set up around academia. It includes people who run conferences, publishers, school administrators, endowments, students, admissions, government grants, private grants, standardized testing, and more. There is a lot of it that is fairly nasty.

Sure, there can be a few professors who object to some parts of it; but that doesn't mean that the system as a whole isn't sick. Has there been any serious institutional pushback against this prosecution?

I think that part of the the problem is that the people who matter the most in academia (the professors and the students) have lost their voice to the "industry" of academia; the administrations, publishers, the grant funding bodies, and other people who have a vested financial interest in the system, but who aren't the main producers or consumers of the value of academia.

Those new charges being: "...Breaking and Entering with Intent to Commit a Felony, Larceny over $250, and Unauthorized Access to a Computer Network..."

http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/x1655830732/Reddit...

The earlier charges being: Wire Fraud, Computer Fraud, Unlawfully Obtaining Information from a Protected Computer, and Recklessly Damaging a Protected Computer.

http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/217117-united-states-...

:( Keep on fighting the good fight, aaronsw.

Wire fraud is a big one. Maximum of $1000000 fine and/or 30 years in prison.

Link appears broken as of now, FYI... (1:00 AM EST)

Is this data downloadable somewhere?

I think that hits it right on. Academia is as entrenched as most any powerful copyright holder.

Who is representing him? Lessig?

In the words of Michael Clayton, "you need a trial lawyer".

Nesson?

If I were him, I'd want Jennifer Granick on my team.

Granick sold out a long time ago. She works for HBGary now. If I recall correctly the whole e-mail dump revealed her to be the backstabbing twit she is.

She is a lawyer. Her highest professional responsibility is to her clients. I don't consider a great lawyer who defends a murderer to have the same morals as the murderer, and without quality representation, justice can't be done.

I have met her on many occasions and she has always been competent and helpful.

Apologies for nitpicking, but actually as a lawyer her highest responsibility is to the court. Secondary to that is her obligation to her client. The reason for this should be self-evident.

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