Right now, the DOJ is one of the targets of a massive scared-straight campaign by Beltway technologists. One of the worst kept secrets in the world is that US cybersecurity, outside of the military and the IC, is incredibly bad. If most civilian agencies were private corporations, they would have been sued dozens of times by users for negligence in data handling.
For those that understood the dangers of this lax security posture, for many years it was a game of railing into the wind about the potential consequences of continuing to ignore this attack vector.
Then, China got involved.
Suddenly, the dangers weren't speculative at all. They were right at our doorstep. And the same Cassandras that were on the outs for so long suddenly found themselves with the ear of every CIO in Washington. What followed was a massive purchasing binge, which is still ongoing, and a huge amount of advertising and mindshare devoted to this topic.
It was amidst the height of this cyber-scare that the Schwartz prosecution was brought. For Mr. Heymann, Aaron Schwartz was a huge target. A US hacker, caught in the act of stealing information worth millions, was a great prize for Mr. Heyman, his boss Carmen Ortiz, who has rather naked political ambitions, and her bosses in DC.
So why am I disappointed in MIT? Because the DOJ has never understood computer technology very well. MIT does. It was their job to educate the DOJ, to subordinate passion to reason, and to parse the difficult technological issues to explain the real lack of damage caused by Aaron Schwartz's actions.
MIT is supposed to be a guardian of our online rights and a cradle for technologists like Schwartz. It should have been on the forefront of the opposition to Mr. Heymann, demanding that charges be dropped. Instead, they threw him to the wolves. And now, in one final insult, they ask the courts for special leave to screen documents in order to hide their involvement with the prosecution.
I hope the individuals involved know that they abandoned a sacred trust, tarnished the name of a great institution, and negligently contributed to the death of a brilliant young man. I hope they know that they weren't "just doing their jobs," that they didn't "follow rules and procedures," and that no one buys their excuses anymore.
I hope that at least one of the administrators responsible has lost even one night's sleep over Mr. Schwartz's death. But, knowing the disdain and disregard for Mr. Schwartz that these hired bureaucrats expressed while he was alive, I doubt it.