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MIT releases report on its actions in the Aaron Swartz case

web.mit.edu

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Re: MIT releases report on its actions in the Aaron Swartz case

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prot…

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.

Re: MIT releases report on its actions in the Aaron Swartz case

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Re: MIT releases report on its actions in the Aaron Swartz case

#83
post #40
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"University police essentially exist to cover up rapes on campus." Oh come on what kind of statement is that to make?

A factual one, which has been widely reported over the years. Universities pay for their own police. The goal of the university is to avoid incidents which would deter parents from sending their children to the school. Rape, particularly date rape/incidents involving alcohol are quite common on campus, if only due to demographics (young, socially connected, etc.) There are three ways to solve it -- either actually ad…

Cities pay for their own police. The goal of cities is to avoid the appearance that the city is dangerous, to encourage investment and more taxable income.

https://www.google.com/search?q=downgrade+crime

I'm not saying that we don't need checks on the system, but to say that university police don't provide any valuable service is ridiculous.

Re: MIT releases report on its actions in the Aaron Swartz case

#84
post #44
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"University police essentially exist to cover up rapes on campus." Oh come on what kind of statement is that to make?

University police exist to insulate students from all sorts of crimes, rape just happens to be one of the crimes that happens on college campuses. Others include public intoxication, drug use, etc. There was a huge row a few years ago when Yale students were treated like commoners in a New Haven night club raid: http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2010/10/02/news/new_haven... .

Fun fact. In the 1960's the MIT Campus Police were elevated to be State Police officers, because back then the students were protesting, and as State Police officers they had the power to order the Cambridge City Police off of MIT grounds.... the goal was to protect the students (so they might get some kind of internal Committee of Displine sanctions for flinging sh*t at people as part of a protect, instead of getting treated as criminals by the Cambridge cops).

One of the things which was mentioned in the report as a potential policy question to be considered is whether random visitors to the campus should be given some level of consideration as extended members of the MIT community. (If Aaron had been an MIT student or some other member of the MIT community, the situation would have probably been handled quite differently, and it might have gotten escalated to someone higher level inside MIT --- i.e., one of MIT's Deans ---- much more quickly, instead of having the Cambridge police get involved, who then brought in a Secret Service buddy of his, at which point things escalated down a very different path, one which was largely out of MIT's control.)

One important thing to remember is that when people talk about "MIT decided", it's really not MIT as the entire organization, but individuals who happen to be MIT employees making various decisions on the spot. So from the perspective of the institution, if someone makes a decision which is within their scope of their responsibility, and that decision was consistent with the policy in force at that particular point in time, and that person was acting in good faith, MIT the organization has to really protect that person, and not offer that person up as a sacrificial lamb to hordes of ravening Internet denizens screaming for revenge. It might have been the case that if someone like Hal Abelson had been brought in that fateful night, he would have made a different choice at multiple points in the timeline. But until Aaron committed suicide, it seems pretty clear that this whole affair wasn't considered something that required the attention of senior MIT administration officials, or the consideration of senior faculty members such as Prof. Abelson.

In some ways, the way some folks have been complaining about MIT is very similar to how the Republicans have been certain that decisions made by lower level staffers in the IRS must be something where direct blame must be laid at the feet of someone senior in the White House.

Re: MIT releases report on its actions in the Aaron Swartz case

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.'" "M…

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.

Re: MIT releases report on its actions in the Aaron Swartz case

#86
post #33
post #5

Those of us who believe MIT deserves some blame for subsequent events do so because they could have asked the prosecution to desist, as JSTOR did, or at least downgrade the charges to a misdemeanor, but chose not to. That amounted to an implicit endorsement of the prosecution, which would have been difficult to pursue without the support of either MIT or JSTOR. The report appears to find that MIT should not have chan…

"Those of us who believe MIT deserves some blame for subsequent events" To be clear do you mean that MIT deserves blame for the suicide?

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?

Re: MIT releases report on its actions in the Aaron Swartz case

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.'" "M…

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?

Re: MIT releases report on its actions in the Aaron Swartz case

#89
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The report appears to find that MIT should not have changed its neutral stance, which is disappointing, and I'm skeptical. The report does not have any findings about what MIT "should" have done, as it states many times, such as in the last paragraph of the Introduction section: > It was not part of our charge in this review to draw conclusions, but rather to determine facts and to consider what can be learned from…

> The report does not have any findings about what MIT "should" have done Well then what's the point of the report other than allowing MIT to wash its hands? Great timing on the release as well since it will likely be forgotten and hidden due to another big event today.

> another big event today

What big event? Is it a holiday in US?

Re: MIT releases report on its actions in the Aaron Swartz case

#90
I undertsand that universities can take a neutral stance when it comes to politics. But this was not a political issue. I have examined the report and I think it's sincere (dare I say it spoke to me a vibe that says "People please! There was not much we could have done!"), but certainly does not make up for what MIT had not done in my view. This of course, is solely my idea. And it's that MIT should have stated, the moment the case has been filed, "We understand if there are any repercussions stemming from any violation of license agreements between JSTOR and MIT, however, it is unfathomable that a federal prosecution demanding years of incarceration has begun from making available to public a massive piece of random information, which was intended to be 'publicized' in the first place. With utmost respect to legal authorities, we as MIT do not wish that this prosecution move forward."

I feel relieved.

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