Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death • Hacker News Board

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#91

Post by mpyne » Fri, Jan 03, 2014, 6:31 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #88

baddox wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You couldn't use that argument against the thousands of people who have dealt with our legal system in as bad or worse scenarios and did not commit suicide.

This is a thoroughly dumb argument. You might as well say that cancer is perfectly nice given that most people survive, and that the ones who don't have something wrong with them. The mistake you're making is that responsibility isn't zero-sum. Is Swartz responsible for killing himself? Sure. But if prosecutors are unjustly harsh with a lot of people in a way that causes the suicide rate in that group to jump, are th…

But now the mistake you're making is that if everyone is responsible then no one is responsible, which is an even worse state of affairs.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#92

Post by ScottBurson » Fri, Jan 03, 2014, 6:33 AM UTC

inspectahdeck wrote: post #60

suprgeek wrote: post #35

MIT Played a key role in Aaron's Death: http://gothamist.com/2013/01/15/aaron_swartzs_lawyer_mit_ref... They refused to sign-off on any deal that did not involve Jail time. This was THE one point that weighed more on his mind than any else per the recorded statements of his partner. MIT's pig-headedness in this aspect really destroyed any respect I had for that institution. JSTOR made a much more reasoned statement h…

"MIT was never involved in any plea negotiation, and was never asked by either the prosecution or the defense to approve or disapprove any plea agreement" http://swartz-report.mit.edu/docs/report-to-the-president.pd... II.B.3, last sentence. Read the whole section for a summary of that event.

Here's more detail, from III.A.2 (top of p. 52):

During the June 21 conversation, the lead prosecutor also told OGC [the MIT Office of General Counsel] that, essentially, his work was done, that the final decision about the prosecution was now in the hands of his supervisors, and that a decision would be made soon. The OGC attorney took the opportunity to suggest that some people at MIT would be likely to view the prosecution negatively. The lead prosecutor replied that he understood the complex dynamics at MIT. He said that he had also been in touch with JSTOR and understood their perspective, and had taken both into account in moving forward with the prosecution and he would let MIT know when the indictment came down. From this, OGC inferred that further presentations of MIT’s opinions were unlikely to have an effect on the prosecution: the views of both potential victims had already been taken into account. JSTOR (at that point) was regarded as the primary victim, and if JSTOR’s view didn’t have an impact, then neither would MIT’s view.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#93

Post by atmosx » Fri, Jan 03, 2014, 6:35 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #80

Jormundir wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether it would have made a difference or not, the institution had the chance to act for what was right, and they did not.

True, but that's failing to use its influence helpfully; it's not the same as using influence hurtfully.

No, in this case it's the same. MIT is not average Joe, it's one of the top Universities in the world. I believe people on the board understand repercussions of taking and not taking action and the responsibility that comes along and if they don't they are not suited for the position.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#94

Post by mpyne » Fri, Jan 03, 2014, 6:40 AM UTC

Smerity wrote: post #65

mpyne wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aaron was facing a cumulative maximum penalty of 35 years in prison. That's not true in any reasonable sense. And either way if you're just adding up cumulative values it was 50 years after the charges were amended, not 35. From Jennifer Granick's post [1] decrying everything that the prosecutors did to Aaron: > He would be looking at 15 to 21 months of incarceration. That number could get higher quickly. ... True,…

I said upfront that this is not a straight up comparison. The main point for me is that I walk past the memorial for the MIT police officer killed in duty about once per week. One of these events had a tremendous impact on MIT and the surrounding community, the other had a negligible one. Regardless, have a re-read of the article you linked to. Jennifer Granick writes: > He could plead guilty to all 13 felony charges…

> On top of that, Aaron "would have had to swear under oath that he committed a crime, something he did not actually believe".

Many people, almost by definition, do not believe that their own criminal acts were actually a "crime". Rationalization is a well-known human psychological phenomenon.

Whatever else Aaron thought about his idealistic mission, being on the MIT subnet without permission was wrong (both morally and legally), as was entering into the MIT server farm to gain that access.

But this wasn't even something that Aaron naïvely didn't recognize... he knew this was wrong to do as he had the same level of JSTOR access at his own campus at Harvard. But he didn't leech JSTOR from his own campus, he traveled across the city to surreptitiously do it from MIT. He even once covered his face with his bicycle helmet when he noticed a security camera so let's know act like "I didn't commit a crime" was his big hang-up. He did know, even if he disagreed personally with the law itself.

> Due to the obscenely high maximum penalty, it is no longer a sane option to fight to prove one's innocence, even in the case of what would be a minor crime, as the risk in case of failure is disastrous.

Well for starters you don't need to prove your innocence, you need only demonstrate that the government was unable to prove your guilt. But either way Dr. Granick covered this point already, and her treatment was comprehensive.

I do apologize for misunderstanding your point to include Tsarnaev, though I think it still applies even for the accomplices. You said you pass by that memorial every week... you think the people of Boston would let anyone involved skate?

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#95

Post by DanBC » Fri, Jan 03, 2014, 6:45 AM UTC

bsdetector wrote: post #41

Smerity wrote: post #23

I'm still more disturbed by the laws in play. Aaron was facing a cumulative maximum penalty of 35 years in prison. The roommates of one of the Boston bombers was only facing 25 years in prison[1] if found guilty of helping Dzhokhar Tsarnaev dispose of a laptop, fireworks, and a backpack in the aftermath of the bombings. I understand it's not a straight comparison, but no matter how I try to re-arrange those numbers i…

They also come down hard on arson. Why? Because it's really, really easy to get away with arson so they make the punishment really severe to alter the equation. If you got 3 months with probation for arson there would be fires all over the place -- at least that's the calculus. Same thing with computer crimes. It could have been pretty easy to get away with the data if Swartz had been even slightly clever about it (l…

They come down hard on arson because it risks lives of people in buildings and firefighters, not because it's easy to commit.

Many crimes are easy to commit. The reason that there aren't more fatal stabbings isn't because there's a long prison sentence but because most people are not stabbers.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#96

Post by mpyne » Fri, Jan 03, 2014, 6:50 AM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #86

rayiner wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premise of the CFAA charge is entirely consistent with libertarian thinking: owners of private property, like computer networks, are entitled to exclude people from their use, or revoke a previously granted license of use, for any reason at all. This charge makes sense even if you don't believe in intellectual property: it doesn't matter what he was doing on the network, only that he had reasonable notice that hi…

Banning a MAC from an open network isn't "get off my lawn or I'll call the cops", it's more like "quit taking all the potato chips; save some for others and come back later."

That might help your argument if that was the extent of the measures used to kick Aaron off of MIT's network...

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#97

Post by bguthrie » Fri, Jan 03, 2014, 6:51 AM UTC

inspectahdeck wrote: post #60

suprgeek wrote: post #35

MIT Played a key role in Aaron's Death: http://gothamist.com/2013/01/15/aaron_swartzs_lawyer_mit_ref... They refused to sign-off on any deal that did not involve Jail time. This was THE one point that weighed more on his mind than any else per the recorded statements of his partner. MIT's pig-headedness in this aspect really destroyed any respect I had for that institution. JSTOR made a much more reasoned statement h…

"MIT was never involved in any plea negotiation, and was never asked by either the prosecution or the defense to approve or disapprove any plea agreement" http://swartz-report.mit.edu/docs/report-to-the-president.pd... II.B.3, last sentence. Read the whole section for a summary of that event.

I do not view the Abelson report––a document that declares the organization that commissioned and published it largely blameless––as the last word on the matter. Whether or not they were asked has no bearing on whether it would have made an impact, and later statements that it would have made no impact are self-serving speculation.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#98

Post by DanBC » Fri, Jan 03, 2014, 6:58 AM UTC

bradleydwyer wrote: post #10

mentalhealth wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A desire to kill oneself is a diagnosis of mental instability.

I'm genuinely curious, is that a widely accepted position on suicide and mental stability? I can think of a number of situations where suicide might be preferable to continued existence.

Suicidal thinking is almost always a mental health problem or the result of a mental health problem.

You say that there are some situations where suicide is a rational choice. But even in these cases it's not that clear.

While I respect the right to chose death, and support changing of law to allow people to seek medically assisted suicide, I am worried that people with undiagnosed depression who would respond to treatment are allowed to die.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#99

Post by DanBC » Fri, Jan 03, 2014, 7:06 AM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #47

marincounty wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can guarantee by your quip; you have never dealt with our legal system.

Are we referring to the same legal system that routinely has people cycle through it without killing themselves?

Comparing rates of attempted and completed suicide between the prison and general population is tricky, partly because access to means and methods should be much harder in prison.

But why are the rates of attempted or completed suicide so high?

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#100

Post by arabellatv » Fri, Jan 03, 2014, 7:09 AM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #18

vex wrote: post #2

Suicide is completely a personal choice. MIT had no reason to try and defend an outsider who hijacked part of their network, and trying to make them seem like they caused him to hang himself smacks of tunnel vision. It's a natural response to a suicide; we try and search for something to blame. But unless you argue that MIT should have known Aaron was mentally unstable, saying MIT "caused" him to kill himself is illo…

MIT leadership had a duty to act reasonably, and they didn't. MIT's position should have been that, at most, this amounted to trespassing and matter for the Cambridge PD. Aaron Swartz was no threat to MIT's network. They might not have prevented subsequent events, but they failed, horribly, by not speaking up for a reasonable outcome. MIT's IS&T office had a knee jerk security-oriented reaction, and was over impresse…

Yes. I agree. What were MIT's and Heymann's true motivations for blowing it up to a security issue? Did they act out of fear or out of ego? Regardless, they exacerbated the issue (just as media sensationalizes stories). It's upsetting that such intelligent people would fail to think through the situation. Or even worse...they did think it through and planned to blow this up as big as possible to prove a point or make an example out of Swartz?