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Correct me if I'm wrong but they deserve blame for initiating the destruction of someone's life (jail time and fines in the millions) and not doing anything to stop it like JSTOR did. Yes not everyone offs themselves when their lives are ruined, but there are a lot of people who do. Now they're essentially trying to be free of any blame by releasing a CYA document during a time when everyone's attention will be on something else.

Even if Aaron was still alive, the things MIT did would be no less wrong.

> Correct me if I'm wrong but they deserve blame for initiating the destruction of someone's life (jail time and fines in the millions)

So Aaron had nothing to do with getting himself into the situation that he did?

Of course he did, just like Rosa Parks and MLK Jr knowingly broke laws that they felt were unjust, but that's besides the point. The main point is that MIT could have done what JSTOR did and made it right. They didn't. To add insult to injury, now they're doing everything they can to hide information relevant to the case.

I also really hate arguments that blame the victim.

Jesus Christ, you're serious here?

He broke the law. Then he committed suicide. I don't think there's much debate to be had about where any blame lies.

larrys, you haven't disputed any of my points other than telling me that I'm wrong, which makes sense since you're unwilling to use your real HN account.

> He broke the law.

Was the law that was broken make sense? Was the response to a victimless crime appropriate?

> Then he committed suicide.

You're acting like people dealing with a serious mental illness for years can easily make the same mundane choices that people without mental illness do everyday. It's more complicated than that.

I'm not larrys. All I'm saying is that he clearly had his own demons, and his own problems. He decided to break the law, knowing what the result would be. Then he decided to end his own life. A sad tale, but the law is the law.

Yeah whatever.

> A sad tale, but the law is the law.

Some laws are unjust, ridiculous, or both. There's also something called "the spirit of the law" as well.

There exists such a thing known as a disproportionate response. I assumed that was the implication here. (Not that Aaron did nothing wrong, but that the response to his wrong-doing was wildly disproportionate.)

People are discussing when the disproportionate response occurred. Was it calling any police at all? Was it a prosecutor offering a six-month plea bargain to a charge that likely would not have gotten Swartz any jail time at all even if guilty on all charges?

What? That wasn't what I responded to. Look at the progression of the parent comments:

    >> Correct me if I'm wrong but they deserve blame for initiating the 
    >> destruction of someone's life (jail time and fines in the millions)
    
    > So Aaron had nothing to do with getting himself into the situation that 
    > he did?

    There exists such a thing known as a disproportionate response. I assumed 
    that was the implication here. (Not that Aaron did nothing wrong, but that
    the response to his wrong-doing was wildly disproportionate.)

My response is saying that nobody is claiming Aaron doesn't deserve any blame. Only that there was a disproportionate response. Just because X acted wrongly doesn't mean Y had to have acted rightly.

The question above: Is a 6 month sentence and no jail time plea bargain considered disproportionate?

That was only mentioned AFTER he died. Let's take a look at their press release: http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/July/SwartzAaronPR....

"AARON SWARTZ, 24, was charged in an indictment with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a protected computer. If convicted on these charges, SWARTZ faces up to 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and a fine of up to $1 million."

Gee I wonder why someone would contemplate suicide?

Unless he had the worlds worst lawyer, he would have known that those terms are theoretical maximums which always get trotted out in the news and in press releases. This keeps getting ignored for some reason in this case.

Also there are thousands of people every year sentenced to possibly long term jail time who don't kill themselves, therefore I put the blame more on Aaron himself than MIT.

"Andy Good, Swartz’s initial lawyer, is alternately sad and furious.

'The thing that galls me is that I told Heymann the kid was a suicide risk,' Good told me. 'His reaction was a standard reaction in that office, not unique to Steve. He said, ‘Fine, we’ll lock him up.’ I’m not saying they made Aaron kill himself. Aaron might have done this anyway. I’m saying they were aware of the risk, and they were heedless.'"

"Marty Weinberg, who took the case over from Good, said he nearly negotiated a plea bargain in which Swartz would not serve any time. He said JSTOR signed off on it, but MIT would not.

'There were subsets of the MIT community who were profoundly in support of Aaron,' Weinberg said. That support did not override institutional interests."

Dropping charges because someone is at risk of hurting themselves is not a good policy law enforcement policy. The charges could proceed as normal, but extended supervision should be the proper response.

In this case, you're talking about the enforcement of keeping publicly funded research out of the public's hands. Was any of this necessary?

That was only mentioned AFTER he died

Maybe to outsiders, but Aaron and Aaron's lawyers both knew the six-month plea deal was on the table.

The DOJ publicly said "up to 35 years," and they deserve what they get for saying that --

-- but Aaron's lawyers didn't just fall off the turnip truck. They knew federal sentencing guidelines. Even if guilty on all counts, there were good odds that Aaron would face 0 days in jail, being a first-time non-violent offender. There was a 0.00% chance of Aaron going to jail for 35 years.

Yes, it is disproportionate. Anything beyond confiscating the laptop from the closet would have been disproportionate. Aaron did not harm any systems, posed to no threat, and deprived nobody of anything.

Well, except:

On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested near the Harvard campus by two MIT police officers and a U.S. Secret Service agent. He was arraigned in Cambridge District Court on two state charges of breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony.

On July 11, 2011, Swartz was indicted in Federal District Court on four felony counts: wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer.

On November 17, 2011, Swartz was indicted by a Middlesex County Superior Court grand jury on state charges of breaking and entering with intent, grand larceny and unauthorized access to a computer network.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Aaron_Swartz#A...

So where exactly does it state that Aaron caused damage to systems, posed a threat, and deprived people of something?

What you posted is a fancy way of saying that Aaron logged into JTSTOR using his own credentials and downloaded publicly funded research papers onto a computer hidden in an MIT supply closet. Who's the victim in his crime?

> Aaron logged into JTSTOR using his own credentials

Huh? This is new.

Ok correction

"Swartz used a Perl computer script running on Amazon cloud servers to download the documents, using credentials belonging to a Sacramento library."

Again, who actually got hurt aside from Aaron?

That sounds more like the PACER incident. MIT pays for a site-license for JSTOR, so everyone on campus can access it for 'free.' This is why Aaron was trying to use MIT's network.

Depression is a complicated disease with many causes, and no one knows exactly what was going through Aaron's mind. But I believe his depression was in large part situational, and that yes, MIT is at least partly to blame for that situation.

At the bare minimum, whether or not you believe MIT aided the prosecution over the defense (and I believe they did), it seems clear to me that Aaron and his family (his father is an alumnus, and worked for the MIT Media Lab) deserved better than "neutrality" from the MIT administration, if for no other reason than that I can't think of a single conceivable technical reason to call what Aaron did "felony" hacking.

By standing pat, MIT also contributed to the ongoing prosecutorial weaponization of laws like the CFAA, which makes a felony of a wide range of activities that most hackers would not even categorize as misdemeanors, to say nothing of crimes that bar you from voting or holding most jobs. It is a terrible precedent no matter how you look at it.

Well... I believe they deserve some blame. This is well argued by others, I shall not bother rephrasing their statements.

Now to be clear: do you believe that MIT deserves no blame?