MIT President on Aaron Swartz • Hacker News Board

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#101

Post by rprasad » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 11:26 PM UTC

temphn wrote: post #73

potatolicious wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The witch hunt angle has been bothering me a lot, and should be ample evidence that the people of Hacker News are no better than the reactionaries of Reddit or even 4chan. No sooner had the man's death hit the news that people started foaming at the mouth, writing long manifestos and diatribes, and calling for the head of everyone and anyone related to the prosecution. We are better than this. Actually, evidently, no…

True or False: a federal prosecutor decided to charge Aaron Swartz with 35 years in federal prison for downloading pdfs from JSTOR [1]. True or False: Lawrence Lessig, Alex Stamos (an expert witness) and Swartz's own family said that the overzealous and vastly disproportionate prosecution was the principal factor in his suicide. The real witch-hunt was led by Carmen Ortiz and Steve Heymann and ended in Swartz's death…

I believe this is a per se example of what potatolicious was referring to.

Lessig, Stamos, and Swartz are what is legally known as "biased" toward Aaron's case. Naturally, MIT, JSTOR, and various persons in the federal government have differing opinions.

Aaron wasn't the target of a witch hunt; that would imply that he wasn't guilty of anything. He was--he admits to what he did. His defense was an MLK/Ghandi defense (i.e., civil disobedience).

Lessig himself said that the government had effectively muzzled Swartz to prevent him from defending himself online or alerting others to the severity of his situation.

Which clearly isn't true, since HN, reddit, and the interweb in general has been discussing this case nearly non-stop since the charges were dropped.

that seeing a sitting US prosecutor forced to resign would not have the requisite "deterrent effect"

This is a fantasy, both in the likelihood of occuring and its desired effect. People outside of the tech world simply don't think that way.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#102

Post by rprasad » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 11:32 PM UTC

olefoo wrote: post #68

potatolicious wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The witch hunt angle has been bothering me a lot, and should be ample evidence that the people of Hacker News are no better than the reactionaries of Reddit or even 4chan. No sooner had the man's death hit the news that people started foaming at the mouth, writing long manifestos and diatribes, and calling for the head of everyone and anyone related to the prosecution. We are better than this. Actually, evidently, no…

That is a fine display of histrionics; but, the specifics of this case DO merit removing Ms. Ortiz and her assistant Mr. Heymann from office. Those of us who were following the case before Aaron's tragic episode knew that a great injustice was being perpetrated, but that it could not realistically be undone until after the damage had happened. Ms. Ortiz and Mr. Heymann should be held accountable for their decision to…

If a great injustice really was being committed, the EFF and the ACLU would have fallen over themselves to represent Aaron pro bnono (for free). The fact they did not suggests otherwise.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#103

Post by rprasad » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 11:34 PM UTC

kristenlee wrote: post #7

Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker Ne…

Kristen, please ignore jacquesm, he is a known troll.

Public interest lawyers are far more valuable contributors to HN, and especially to this discussion, then the histrionics and hyperbole of him and his ilk.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#104

Post by rhizome » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 11:35 PM UTC

saraid216 wrote: post #61

dialtone wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a matter of fact a jury can do that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification although of course this is a controversial topic.

I actually find it implausible that a jury would have been savvy enough to know, even after courtroom-education by the defense, that nullification was an ideal option.

The status quo would seem to agree with you, and would like to keep it that way:

http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2012/04_...

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#105

Post by chimeracoder » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 11:37 PM UTC

ender7 wrote: post #24

danso wrote: post #2

I will not attempt to summarize here the complex events of the past two years. Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT. I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT's involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options M…

MIT has a sad history with regards to suicide. As a result, the administration is usually much more sensitive and self-aware when it comes to suicide-related incidents.

You're not exaggerating: http://web.mit.edu/~sdavies/www/mit-suicides/

Not just the number of suicides, but also the contexts (Elizabeth Shin's story is particularly chilling - that one stuck with me because I used to live with her former roommate's brother).

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#106

Post by rhizome » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 11:42 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #25

kristenlee wrote: post #7

Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker Ne…

While it's clearly true that he suffered from depression of some sort, you can't separate that from the fact that he was actively being persecuted. What the DOJ and MIT did was wrong , and it would be wrong even if Aaron was still alive today.

I think a useful way to look at it is, "well, it certainly didn't help."

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#107

Post by caf » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 11:43 PM UTC

kristenlee wrote: post #7

Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker Ne…

How does your contention that Aaron's suicide was a "direct result of his mental illness", discounting any external factors as relevant, square with your assertion that the discussion of this event might encourage others to take their life? Either external factors are relevant in a suicide or they are not.

P.S. Putting scare-quotes around the word hacker isn't likely to endear you to many in this place.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#108

Post by rhizome » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 11:44 PM UTC

rdl wrote: post #11

rhizome wrote: post #8

"Whoopsy. Also: throwing Prof. Abelson under the bus."

No -- Abelson is an uninvolved, very respected professor. It's normal to appoint someone like that to run an investigation. There is every reason to suspect it will be comprehensive, fair, and public.

It's normal to appoint someone like that to run an investigation.

This is a bit naive, no? Look at Eric Schneiderman.

e.g. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/yes-really-truly-no-j...

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#109

Post by hsmyers » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 11:44 PM UTC

kristenlee wrote: post #7

Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker Ne…

Washing your hands are you? Good company with Lady Macbeth and Pontius Pilate...

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#110

Post by raganwald » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 11:49 PM UTC

kristenlee wrote: post #7

Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker Ne…

You're asking readers to grant you an awful lot of your assumptions. For example: "committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness."

Neither you nor I know that. Suicide is often precipitated by stressful incidents. Is the mental illness the direct cause? What if the stress is the direct cause and the mental illness simply prevents the depressed person from handling it, much as AIDS damaging the immune system so that the victim is killed by some other illness? AIDS is the indirect cause.

The next thing that strikes my eye is "glorification of his suicide." Really? What have you read that suggests his suicide was glorious? I haven't read everything, but what I've seen glorifies his attempts to free information and laments his suicide and the years of his life that have been lost forever.

I'll pick once last thing. "Witch hunt" is an inappropriate metaphor. Witch hunts are McCarthy-esque persecutions of people for something that isn't actually wrong or illegal. For being "un-mutual." The arguments I've seen are that people have been doing something very wrong. If you don't think it's wrong, that's your business. But you can hardly argue that this is a persecution of people for doing little more than being different.

What crimes did Aaron commit? My understanding is that he was alleged to have committed crimes, but this has not been proven in court, so we don't know that he committed crimes, and if he did, we do not know that he did so knowingly.

The innuendo carefully stage-managed by those who stand to gain from a conviction seems persuasive, but people have seemed guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt in the past and have in time been discovered to be innocent.

And in this case, I am reminded of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, who knowingly broke Canada's anti-abortion laws of the day but was declared innocent by juries, leading to changes in the laws. Who knows what might have happened?

I don't know what might have happened. Do you?