EXCLUSIVE: Attorney for Aaron Swartz: Prosecutors’ Arguments Were “Disingenuous and Contrived”
In a criminal case that may have contributed to the suicide of Internet innovator Aaron Swartz, prosecutors made assertions in court papers that were undercut by an email they only later disclosed to Swartz’s attorney. These revelations were disclosed in federal filings submitted on Friday, the day Swartz died. In an interview with Patterico.com, Swartz’s lawyer described the Government’s arguments as “disingenuous and contrived,” and said that he had intended to use the recently disclosed email to show that the Government’s contentions were false.
THE SUICIDE OF A DEPRESSED BUT BELOVED TECH INNOVATOR
The Tech reports:
Computer activist Aaron H. Swartz committed suicide in New York City yesterday, Jan. 11, according to his uncle, Michael Wolf, in a comment to The Tech. Swartz was 26.
“The tragic and heartbreaking information you received is, regrettably, true,” confirmed Swartz’ attorney, Elliot R. Peters of Kecker and Van Nest, in an email to The Tech.
Swartz was indicted in July 2011 by a federal grand jury for allegedly downloading millions of documents from JSTOR through the MIT network — using a laptop hidden in a basement network closet in MIT’s Building 16 — with the intent to distribute them. Swartz subsequently moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he then worked for Avaaz Foundation, a nonprofit “global web movement to bring people-powered politics to decision-making everywhere.” Swartz appeared in court on Sept. 24, 2012 and pleaded not guilty.
Swartz appears to have been quite a talented young man:
The accomplished Swartz co-authored the now widely-used RSS 1.0 specification at age 14, founded Infogami which later merged with the popular social news site reddit, and completed a fellowship at Harvard’s Ethics Center Lab on Institutional Corruption. In 2010, he founded DemandProgress.org, a “campaign against the Internet censorship bills SOPA/PIPA.”
Based on Swartz’s history, his downloading of JSTOR documents was based on a philosophical view that information should be freely available. Before the JSTOR case, Swartz had engaged in another mass downloading of documents that existed behind a paywall, from PACER, the federal repository for documents from the federal court system. He used the documents to supplement the archive at RECAP, which seeks to provide federal filings for free, as contrasted with PACER, which charges 8 cents per page.
FAMILY AND FRIENDS BLAME PROSECUTORIAL BULLYING
In a statement, Swartz’s family blamed his suicide on his prosecutors:
Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death. The US Attorney’s office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims. Meanwhile, unlike JSTOR, MIT refused to stand up for Aaron and its own community’s most cherished principles.
Others besides Swartz’s family members have opined that his story is an example of overbearing conduct by prosecutors. On Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds links to a post by Lawrence Lessig titled: The Prosecutor As Bully. Lessig argued that, if the Government’s allegations were true, Swartz’s actions were wrong — perhaps legally wrong, and certainly morally wrong. However, Lessig said:
[T]he outrageousness in this story is not just Aaron. It is also the absurdity of the prosecutor’s behavior. From the beginning, the government worked as hard as it could to characterize what Aaron did in the most extreme and absurd way. The “property” Aaron had “stolen,” we were told, was worth “millions of dollars” — with the hint, and then the suggestion, that his aim must have been to profit from his crime. But anyone who says that there is money to be made in a stash of ACADEMIC ARTICLES is either an idiot or a liar. It was clear what this was not, yet our government continued to push as if it had caught the 9/11 terrorists red-handed.
Aaron had literally done nothing in his life “to make money.” He was fortunate Reddit turned out as it did, but from his work building the RSS standard, to his work architecting Creative Commons, to his work liberating public records, to his work building a free public library, to his work supporting Change Congress/FixCongressFirst/Rootstrikers, and then Demand Progress, Aaron was always and only working for (at least his conception of) the public good. He was brilliant, and funny. A kid genius. A soul, a conscience, the source of a question I have asked myself a million times: What would Aaron think? That person is gone today, driven to the edge by what a decent society would only call bullying. I get wrong. But I also get proportionality. And if you don’t get both, you don’t deserve to have the power of the United States government behind you.
(Emphasis is Lessig’s.)
Swartz’s lawyer, Elliot R. Peters of Keker and Van Nest LLP, echoed these sentiments to me today in an interview. Peters refused to speculate about why Swartz committed suicide. He described Swartz as a “very sensitive and very smart person” who had been “very scared” by the Government prosecution. Peters told me that, in his opinion, the Government had been “awfully unreasonable” in their approach to the case. He said that they insisted that Swartz plead to all 13 felonies. They said that even if Swartz pled guilty, they were going to seek a prison sentence. They told Peters that if the case went to trial and Swartz were convicted, they would seek a prison sentence of 7 to 8 years. They told Peters that they thought the judge would impose that sentence. (Peters told me he didn’t agree; he thought the case was defensible and that even if Swartz lost, Peters didn’t think the judge would have sentenced him to custody time.)
GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIONS UNDERCUT BY DOCUMENTS LATER DISCLOSED
But the main reason I called Peters was not to talk about Swartz, but about representations made by the Government. Reviewing federal filings on PACER last night, I discovered that, this past Friday — the day Swartz committed suicide — Swartz’s lawyer and the Government both filed documents relating to what Swartz’s lawyer described as a “critical document only recently produced to Swartz by the Government.” The document, an email between the Special Agent in the case and the Assistant U.S. Attorney, appeared to undercut an argument that the Government had made in a response to a motion to suppress filed by Swartz. In the Government’s final filing, they admitted making a factual misstatement in their earlier motion, but argued that the discrepancy regarded only a trivial matter. But Swartz’s attorney told me he believed that the email showed that the Government had made representations to the court that were “disingenuous and contrived.” He believes he could have used the contents of the email to convince the court to suppress key evidence in the case.
The circumstances of Swartz’s arrest
In order to understand the significance of the email, it is necessary to explain more about the allegations in Swartz’s case, and the nature of the arguments made in the suppression motion. The basics are provided in Swartz’s arrest report and the indictment. The indictment alleges that, during a period of time from September 2010 to December 2010, Swartz went to MIT where he used an Acer laptop to “systematically access and rapidly download an extraordinary volume of articles from JSTOR.” MIT officials noticed the volume of downloads and took steps to block the computer’s access to the archive. Each time they blocked Swartz’s access, he took steps to get around the block and download more articles.
On January 4, 2011, Swartz according to the indictment, Swartz “was observed entering the restricted basement network wiring closet to replace an external hard drive attached to his computer.” According to the arrest report, police had discovered in the morning that the closet had been broken into and a laptop had been connected to a networking switch. Police left the laptop in place and set up a camera, which they apparently used to make the observations described in the indictment.
The indictment alleges that Swartz returned two days later to retrieve the computer and download more files. MIT police spotted him and tried to question him, but he fled with a USB drive. According to the arrest report, Swartz was located riding a bicycle nearby. He was apprehended and arrested, and charged by state authorities with breaking and entering. The docket shows that he was indicted in July 2011.
The motion to suppress
This past October, Swartz filed a number of motions to suppress evidence. In one of those motions, which you can read here, Swartz argues that the Government unreasonably delayed in obtaining a warrant to examine the contents of his laptop, hard drive, and USB drive. Swartz cited case law holding that even a seizure based on probable cause can become unconstitutional if the police act with unreasonable delay in securing a necessary warrant to examine the seized items. Swartz specifically cited cases where hard drives were seized, but evidence from them was suppressed because of police delay in obtaining a warrant for the examination of the hard drives. Swartz argued that, in his case, there was “a 34-day delay in obtaining the February 9, 2011, warrant, which remained unexecuted, and a total of a 49-day delay until the obtaining of the February 24, 2011, warrant pursuant to which the items were ultimately searched.” Swartz argued that the delay was attributable to the Government, as the investigation was “a joint investigation involving the Cambridge Police Department, the United States Secret Service and the MIT Police Department” and that the Special Agent from the Secret Service was in charge of the joint investigation.
The Government responded with several arguments. Many of those arguments are tangential to this post and are described here.
The most questionable part of the Government’s argument comes during the next section, in which the Government argues, in essence, that any delay should be attributed to the state authorities and not the federal government, because the property was in the custody of the state authorities before the warrants were issued:
In yet another aspect, Swartz’s assertion that the Secret Service infringed his possessory interests by delaying in obtaining a search warrant does not quite fit this situation or his legal theory. The Secret Service did not seize his laptop, hard drive, or USB drive on January 6, 2011: the Cambridge Police Department did. Nor did the Secret Service possess this equipment before obtaining the warrants: the Cambridge Police Department did. Thus, the United States did not affect Swartz’s possessory interests in his equipment until it executed warrants.
For all the reasons given above, the Cambridge Police Department did not seize or hold onto the equipment impermissibly long. The Cambridge Police Department was supporting a valid investigation and prosecution by the Commonwealth. But if the Court disagrees, then Swartz cannot simply morph allegations that local police held evidence too long in a local prosecution into a claim that federal law enforcement officers did so in a subsequent federal case.
(Emphasis added.)
In essence, the Government is arguing that the federal government can’t be blamed if the state authorities had the laptop for a long time before a warrant was obtained. The feds got a warrant as soon as they had custody over the computer.
Swartz filed a reply brief which responded to certain of the Government’s more tangential arguments. Most important for purposes of this post, Swartz ridiculed the argument that delay in obtaining the warrant was permissible because the Cambridge Police, and not the Secret Service, had custody of the computer:
[T]he Government remarkably suggests the Secret Service cannot be held responsible for its lackadaisical attitude toward seeking a search warrant because the Cambridge Police Department, not the Secret Service, was in possession of the computer equipment during the thirty-four day delay. It is telling that the Government fails to cite a single case in support of this proposition. Accepting this argument would allow one government agency to end-run Fourth Amendment requirements in the easiest manner imaginable–by leaving wrongly seized evidence in the possession of some other, closely cooperating agency. Here, the Secret Service was plainly in charge of the investigation at MIT. It is absurd to suggest that it had no control over the seized computer.
The email
After this response was filed, the Government disclosed an email that suggested that the federal authorities, and specifically the U.S. Attorney handling the case, had authority to take the items and obtain a warrant shortly after Swartz was arrested. Here is a screenshot of the email:
The email is dated January 7, 2011. Note that the Special Agent from the Secret Service tells the Assistant U.S. Attorney that the laptop and hard drive are going to be processed for prints that morning, and adds: “I am prepared to take custody of the laptop anytime after it has been processed for prints or whenever you feel is appropriate.” (My emphasis.) He adds that, to his knowledge, nobody had secured a warrant for the examination of the computer, or the cell phone and flash drive that Swartz possessed when arrested.
The significance of the email
Swartz’s attorney Peters told me that this email undercut the Government’s arguments regarding custody of the evidentiary items. Regarding the Government’s arguments, Peters told me:
I think they were disingenuous and contrived. I intended to prove that they were false.
Swartz filed a supplemental memorandum that described the email as a “critical document only recently produced to Swartz by the Government” that “directly refutes the Government’s Opposition to Swartz’s pending motion to suppress evidence obtained from the laptop, hard drive, and USB drive”:
The newly-disclosed email shows that the Government’s claim that it had no control over the seized equipment until on or shortly before February 9, 2011 is factually inaccurate. Agent Pickett’s email makes clear that the Government had actual control over all the computer hardware at issue as of January 7, 2011—the day after the seizure—and could have taken physical custody of that hardware at any time. Moreover, the email shows that the lead prosecutor in this case not only was aware of this, but was personally directing the Secret Service regarding whether and when to take physical custody of the hardware.
Accordingly, this recently-produced email is not merely relevant to the pending motions to suppress, it directly refutes the Government’s excuse for the 34-day delay. It shows that the Government not only had control over the hardware as of January 7, 2011, but was fully aware at that point of the hardware’s evidentiary significance to this prosecution and its need to seek a search warrant. The Government could and should have sought and obtained a warrant promptly at that point. It certainly has no excuse for waiting over a full month to do so.
(My emphasis.)
Did Swartz know about the email?
This supplemental memorandum was filed on Friday, January 11 — the same day Swartz committed suicide. I asked Peters if Swartz knew about the email and he said he did. According to Peters, Swartz was present when the Government disclosed the email to Peters, just after a December court hearing. Peters expressed some irritation that he was given the email after the hearing, saying that it would have been more useful to have it before the hearing had started.
Also on Friday, the Government responded to Swartz’s memorandum. The Assistant U.S. Attorney admitted the prosecutors had previously misstated where the evidence had been kept. However, they argued, it made no difference:
Swartz claims that this contradicts the Government’s representation that “Nor did the Secret Service possess this equipment before obtaining the warrants [in February]; the Cambridge Police Department did.” Government counsel did, indeed, have this chronology slightly wrong. The equipment was held in evidence by the MIT Police (rather than Cambridge Police) from its recovery on January 6th until February 3rd, when it was picked up and transported by SA Pickett and Det. Joseph Murphy to the Cambridge Police (Ex. 1); the laptop and hard drive were fingerprinted by the Cambridge Police on February 10th (Ex. 2); and the Secret Service executed warrants on the Cambridge Police Department taking custody of the evidence on February 25th.
Although the Government admits making a misstatement regarding which department had custody of the evidence, this is not the real significance of the email, as Swartz’s supplemental memorandum makes clear. The greater significance is the fact that the Government argued that the Secret Service should not be blamed for the delay in obtaining a warrant — yet their own internal correspondence, undisclosed until the motions were filed, showed that the federal government had full authority over those items of evidence, even though they were nominally being held in the custody of the state police. The need for a warrant was plain from the outset, and the federal government could have picked up the evidence at any time.
The Government’s response
I sent emails to Scott Garland and Stephen Heymann at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for comment, and received this reply:
I understand that you reached out to AUSA Garland.
We want to respect the privacy of the family and do not feel it is appropriate to comment on the case at this time.
Thank you,
Christina DiIorio-Sterling
Peters believes that he would have won the motion to suppress based on the newly disclosed email. Reading the briefs, it is impossible to say what the judge would have done. In any event, on the same day that the matter was briefed, Aaron Swartz took his own life — making the issue, as the lawyers say, moot.
If anyone from the U.S. Attorney’s Office wishes to speak to me, they have an open invitation to do so at any time.
Patterico (8b3905) — 1/13/2013 @ 4:10 pmA lot of people in the tech community are very very angered by the prosecution of Aaron Swartz and his subsequent suicide. Aaron Swartz was a very well known figure.
SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 4:19 pmso Scott Garland and Stephen Heymann are the douchebags what hounded this kid to his death?
happyfeet (ce327d) — 1/13/2013 @ 4:26 pmFrom EFF for those not aware of Aaron Swartz’ prominence.
SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 4:29 pmI question prosecutors going for political scalps: We saw that with Nifong, we saw that with Zimmerman, and we are probably seeing it with this case.
EBL (f71fce) — 1/13/2013 @ 4:36 pmit says he was in NYC
maybe her royal highness princess bloomberg should worry more about her subjects enthusiasm for killing themselves than about their beverage choices
happyfeet (ce327d) — 1/13/2013 @ 4:39 pmIn another recent post, you describe how David Gregory will not be prosecuted for his little stunt. It would seem that a plethora of federal laws, with harsh penalties, are imposed on the whim of prosecutors, not to actually punish bad behaviour.
Horribly sad that Aaron is dead and gone, horrific for his family, sad for the life he will miss out on.
bridget (862c19) — 1/13/2013 @ 4:51 pmIt looks like you have a typo on the date at the start of one of your paragraphs. See “The email is dated January 7, 2012.” I think you mean “2011” and not “2012.”
This is simply tyranny. The fact that it is administered through the “Justice Department” makes it more ironic but no less tyrannical…
WarEagle82 (97b777) — 1/13/2013 @ 5:07 pmShining light on legal stories like this is important. Well done, Patterico.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 1/13/2013 @ 5:13 pmThanks, WarEagle82, for the typo correction, which I have fixed.
Thanks for the kind words, DRJ.
Patterico (8b3905) — 1/13/2013 @ 5:17 pmAll of the opprobrium being heaped on the Government for “hounding this kid” (he was 26) to death overlooks what even Schwartz’s supporters admit…”if the Government’s allegations were true, Swartz’s actions were wrong — perhaps legally wrong, and certainly morally wrong.”
Let us also remember that MIT officials made several attempts to block Schwartz’s illegal downloading of the material and each time, Schwartz took steps to get around MIT’s efforts and continued to download the material. What did he think was going to happen? All he had to do was cease and desist. But he chose to continue and then when confronted by the police, he fled with evidence.
As for the delay in seeking a warrant to search the computer and other media, it is hard to see how this seriously prejudiced Schwartz’s case. First off, when he fled from the police, he apparently left the computer with a hard drive in it in a restricted networking closet which he had broken into in the first place. How does a 34 day delay in searching the contents of the computer seriously undermine Schwartz’s right to a fair trial?
You know, it is great to have an optimistic defense attorney, but whatever Schwartz’s defense attorney now claims his chances of prevailing on the motion to suppress were, that is not evidence that he actually would have prevailed.
Finally, if Schwartz actually believed in the righteousness of his cause, it is even more baffling why he chose to kill himself rather than make his case to a jury. And comparing the prosecutors in this case to Michael Nifong is really despicable.
CalFed (5b899d) — 1/13/2013 @ 5:18 pmWe don’t know if this case is why Swartz committed suicide, and my guess is there wasn’t only one reason — although I doubt this prosecution helped his mental state. However, if Swartz were already a depressed person, a reasonable belief that his prosecutors were acting in a misleading manner might well have made him even more depressed.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 1/13/2013 @ 5:21 pmGreetings:
As this seems to involve free speech, wouldn’t Mr. Swartz have been eligible for some sort of Gregory prosecutorial discretion ???
11B40 (330e57) — 1/13/2013 @ 5:21 pmI’m really surprised that I haven’t heard about a suicide note. That makes me suspicious of foul play.
Pete (86dc5d) — 1/13/2013 @ 5:27 pmIt certainly does look like an overzealous government prosecution, but blaming MIT is a reach.
ropelight (1cb8c9) — 1/13/2013 @ 5:31 pmCalFed, how is the downloading of academic articles without permission even a crime, much less a felony?
SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 5:33 pmThe same USA Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz in Boston MA is going after NECC in Framingham MA even though she cannot find the fungus that has killed a number of people and made many others ill. The fungus was in the air conditioning ducts and the building inspector never inspected those ducts for he would have found the slope was not to code and thus allowed moisture to build us and provide the fungal spores with a place to grow and multiply. NECC was built Good Enough For Government Work as the building inspector was out to lunch.
Lewis B. Sckolnick (26d568) — 1/13/2013 @ 5:34 pmSPQR, Patrick thoughtfully linked to the indictment. It is all spelled out there
CalFed (5b899d) — 1/13/2013 @ 5:38 pmIf Mr Swartz should be the recipient of sympathy because he (apparently) didn’t believe in keeping information from the public, should we not also have sympathy for Bradley Manning and Julian Assange?
I have no sympathy for Messrs Assange and Manning, and am finding it difficult to muster much for Mr Swartz.
Perhaps Mr Swartz had a better case than does PFC Manning; if so, he should have made it.
The Dana who sees the link (f68855) — 1/13/2013 @ 6:07 pmCalFed, and you think I didn’t read the indictment before I asked? Or is it that you didn’t read it?
The indictment is filled with horse manure. Nothing about the acts described, even if proven, constitute crimes of sufficient seriousness to be felonies. This case is the prime example of how Federal law over-criminalizes and overcharges conduct.
The use of criminal prosecutions to protect private IP value is nonsense.
SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 6:09 pmDana, the difference is that Swartz was not exposing operational military intelligence.
A rather significant difference.
If anyone could be killed because their academic paper was revealed without someone paying $19.99 for the privilege, it would explain the viciousness with which academic politics is played.
SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 6:11 pmSwartz was a local boy. He went to North Shore Country Day school (a tres expensive private school) in Winnetka and is being buried from his home town, Highland Park, Il.
As DRJ alluded to above, the initial local news coverage here of his life and death–including interviews with his friends– has been much more open and specific than the national media stories have been about his known issues with mental illness and depression. This inner darkness cannot but have been exacerbated by the legal problems he faced and probably made them seem even more insurmountable than they may have been.
He was brilliant and gifted and his death at such a young age is tragic. There were likely multiple factors that contributed to his suicide.
elissa (1e7a10) — 1/13/2013 @ 6:20 pmPQR, I have no idea whether you read or comprehended the indictment. You asked how what Schwartz was accused of doing was even a crime and the indictment lays out exactly how it is a crime.
Just so I have your argument straight…
Schwartz was accused of breaking into a room which contained MIT’s network switch, hard wiring a laptop computer directly to the switch, hiding his laptop under a number of boxes and then downloading millions of articles, most of which are copyrighted.
And you think that this was acceptable? Not a crime? Are you serious?
I could point out that Schwartz was downloading articles at a rate that was hundreds of times what all the legitimate users combined downloaded and how disruptive this was to the legitimate users, but I’m sure you would respond with a hearty “so what”.
Suffice it to say, Federal law makes unlawfully entering a networking closet, hard wiring a laptop to a network switch which you have no legitimate access to, hiding your laptop so no one can see it and then downloading millions of articles, many of which are copyrighted, a crime. That is as it should be.
CalFed (5b899d) — 1/13/2013 @ 6:36 pmCalFed,
Nice to see you here, as always.
Let me agree with some of your points and disagree with others.
I agree that this is not even close to Mike Nifong behavior. People who hate prosecutors always cite Nifong.
As for Swartz’s own responsibility, I agree that he is responsible for his actions. And the post makes clear that even Lessig, who is very critical of prosecutors here, admits that what Swartz did was wrong. The issue, as I see it, has less to do with their pursuit of the charges in the first place than it does with the prosecutors’ insistence that this was akin to a grand bank heist that demanded a multi-year prison sentence. Sure, it appears Lessig would rather have seen the government not prosecute at all, but I think his ire (and that of Mr. Peters) would have been far less intense if prosecutors had offered a no-custody-time deal, which they apparently did not.
I don’t think that your argument is strong when you say that the delay did not “seriously undermine Schwartz’s right to a fair trial.” Perhaps not, but I would be surprised if that is the standard applied by the cases cited in the motions (although I admit I have not read those cases). The issue is whether the delay in obtaining the warrant was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. I doubt that question is resolved by reference to a standard assessing whether his right to a fair trial was seriously undermined; I would guess the standard would simply be whether what the Government did was reasonable.
As to that issue, I express no opinion without thoroughly reading the cases and perhaps more documents in the case. I understand and agree that the defense attorney’s confidence is not evidence of the likely success of such a motion. Nor do I think that a suicide is evidence of the likely failure of such a motion. Suicide is generally the product of a severe depression. It’s hard to believe the case did not contribute to that, but it’s equally hard for me to believe that there were not other factors at work as well.
Patterico (8b3905) — 1/13/2013 @ 6:46 pmCalFed — comparing this to Manning shows how little you understand of anything but the power of the State to persecute.
htom (412a17) — 1/13/2013 @ 6:52 pmhtom, I defy you to cite anything that I’ve posted comparing what Schwartz did to what Manning did.
In fact, I defy you to cite anywhere I mentioned Bradley Manning at all.
CalFed (5b899d) — 1/13/2013 @ 6:57 pmLet’s be perfectly clear, they were going after him, for spearheading the opposition to SOPA, that is the real reason why this shindig went on this long,
narciso (3fec35) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:02 pmCalFed — sorry, mixed your name at 18 with The Dana at 19.
htom (412a17) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:02 pm“SPQR, I have no idea whether you read or comprehended the indictment. You asked how what Schwartz was accused of doing was even a crime and the indictment lays out exactly how it is a crime.”
That there exists a ridiculous overbroad Federal statute that is so vague and so ridiculously interpreted to cover the acts, I know.
“Just so I have your argument straight…”
You don’t.
“Schwartz was accused of breaking into a room which contained MIT’s network switch, hard wiring a laptop computer directly to the switch, hiding his laptop under a number of boxes and then downloading millions of articles, most of which are copyrighted.”
OOooo, copyrighted. That’s such a big deal …
Good lord. I hope your heartrate didn’t rise.
“And you think that this was acceptable? Not a crime? Are you serious?”
I don’t think it “acceptable”. I think it a petty crime. And I’m serious.
“I could point out that Schwartz was downloading articles at a rate that was hundreds of times what all the legitimate users combined downloaded and how disruptive this was to the legitimate users, but I’m sure you would respond with a hearty “so what”.”
No, actually I’d respond with a laugh. For quite awhile.
Since I have a software engineering background, and more than fifteen years experience in the computer industry including network engineering, before I changed careers into law, what I’d do is ridicule your deep panting over a bit of bandwidth useage. Ridicule it a lot really, “should” you actually point that out.
“Suffice it to say, Federal law makes unlawfully entering a networking closet, hard wiring a laptop to a network switch which you have no legitimate access to, hiding your laptop so no one can see it and then downloading millions of articles, many of which are copyrighted, a crime. That is as it should be.”
No, it does not suffice to say. And you are begging the question. Why should such petty acts be a Federal crime, much less a felony?
SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:08 pmI like both you guys. Let’s keep it civil.
Patterico (8b3905) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:09 pmI have all of the sympathy in the world for Mr. Schwartz,he sounds like a fascinating individual. As a state prosecutor in New York I don’t understand the aggressiveness with which the federal government was prosecuting him. I do believe, however, that it is not only true that Mr. Schwartz’s case was not prejudiced by the delay, but I am not sure that a warrant was even necessary. Mr. Schwartz left a laptop in a closet in which he had neither permission not authority to do so. effectively
jk (61fce0) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:14 pmUnderstand, I am not saying this motion is a winner. At all.
But I’m not sure it’s a loser either. Without reading the cases, it’s tough to know — but the defense brief appears to cite cases that raise a genuine issue.
Patterico (8b3905) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:15 pmhe had abandoned it. By leaving it there, where anyone could have access to it, he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in it’s contents and therefore no warrant would be necessary.
jk (61fce0) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:17 pmThanks for the welcome, Patrick. 🙂
By way of full disclosure, I was assigned to the FBI’s Boston Field Office for 10 of my 30 years with the FBI and worked closely with the United States Attorneys in Boston during that time. I do not, however, know any of the attorneys in this case.
That being said, I can not fault the prosecutors in this case for failing to offer Schwartz a “no custody” deal in this matter. After reading the particulars in this matter, including the facts surrounding Schwartz’s entry into a secure networking room and physically hard wiring his laptop to the network switch, his extensive efforts to defeat MIT’s legitimate attempts to prevent him from downloading the copyrighted material and the disruption that he caused the legitimate users of the MIT network, I was shocked and appalled by the apparent support that he enjoys with some of the commentators on this blog and particularly by your lenient attitude towards his activities.
I believe letting Schwartz “off with a warning”, as a “no-custody” deal would have amounted to, sends the wrong message to computer hackers. Call it a legitimate difference of opinion with you.
My arguments about the “harmlessness” of the delay in executing the search warrant on Schwartz’s computer were not meant as a legal argument (more full disclosure…I’m not an attorney, as I’m sure you guessed 🙂 ), but more of a reality check. I do not see how Schwarz was harmed by the delay and further, I do not know whether the Government, had it come down to it, could have provided additional facts and details that would have born on the reasonableness of the delay.
In layman’s terms, and I know that this doesn’t always apply in court…”no harm, no foul”.
CalFed (5b899d) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:24 pmI think that’s at odds with the argument that he tried to conceal its presence.
Just because you leave your property for a long period of time doesn’t mean you have abandoned it if you intend to (and do) return to get it, and there is a reason you left it there for such a long period of time.
Patterico (8b3905) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:24 pmAny tech person reading the indictment would react with giggles at the ridiculous rhetoric.
This prosecution, like the over the top prosecution and grandstanding in the megaupload / Kim Dotcom case, is rooted in the Federal government’s overreaching in criminalizing what are fundamentally civil matters – intellectual property.
SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:25 pmI don’t think I said what my opinion was towards his activities, but I will say that even assuming his guilt, a 35-year exposure in this case seems outlandish, and even a 7 to 8 year prison sentence at 85% seems quite harsh compared to what it takes for someone with no criminal record to get that kind of sentence in my jurisdiction. I don’t see my attitude as shockingly lenient but just reasonable.
But then, we all consider ourselves to be reasonable, don’t we? 🙂
Patterico (8b3905) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:28 pmCould we all at least strive to get the poor guy’s name right? It’s Aaron Swartz.
elissa (1e7a10) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:30 pmBy the way, I’m told that Swartz was a huge lefty, which doesn’t surprise me. I see that he has support from Anonymous, which also doesn’t surprise me. None of this really has anything to do with how he was treated by prosecutors, since politics has zero to do with treating people fairly.
Patterico (8b3905) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:32 pmLarry Lessig:
SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:34 pmSPQR: that’s quoted in the post.
Patterico (8b3905) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:35 pmSPQR, your contempt for the copyright laws is clear, as, apparently, is your contempt for the right of MIT to keep any Tom, Dick, or Harry from breaking into a network switching room and hard wiring their own computer into the switch.
Let’s just say, I do not share your contempt for these things.
CalFed (5b899d) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:35 pmComment by SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 5:33 pm
CalFed, how is the downloading of academic articles without permission even a crime, much less a felony?
Copyright law!
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2319
The Admiinistration, as a matter of fact, was not satisfied with the law the way it is, and wanted it strengthened.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20043421-281.html
The problem here being that maybe streaming wouldn’t be considered a “download” And also:
It looks like the whole thing was a top Justice Department priority.
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:36 pmComment by SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:34 pm
The “property” Aaron had “stolen,” we were told, was worth “millions of dollars”
They always do that in copyright cases, going by the overpriced per article cost.
But neither Aaron nor anyone else would ever have paid that money. Rather, they just would not have looked at those articles. This is not money lost to JStor.
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:40 pmHey, does anybody know whatever happened to that Fast and Furious thingy?
elissa (1e7a10) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:41 pmi don’t know how “poor guy” i wanna get his suicide was evil and stupid
but his prosecutors were eviler and stupider
no mean feat, that
happyfeet (ce327d) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:43 pmCalFed, my contempt for copyright laws? I practice in IP law. I hold copyrights in my own individual name. I cannot express my response to your comment within the boundaries of Patterico’s request to remain civil.
My contempt is what Prof Lessig’s is, a contempt for the ridiculous overblown prosecution of a misdemeanor trespassing case.
And the rhetoric about how horrible it was that he connected his laptop to the network switch? Laughable to anyone who understands the bandwidth of a laptop NIC.
SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:45 pmhere is a song kinda sorta about suicide
it’s super poignant
happyfeet (ce327d) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:45 pmPatrick, what Swartz’s attorney says the Prosecutors were demanding as a sentence is double hearsay to me. I do not know whether the prosecutors actually made those statements or if they did, in what context they were made.
Of course, as you know, sentences in Federal court are largely determined by the sentencing guidelines. My experience was that defendants who agreed to plead guilty usually received a sentencing recommendation from the prosecution of “bottom of the guidelines, with credit for taking responsibility for their actions”. It is possible that if the figure “7 to 8 years” was mentioned, it was in the context of what Swartz could expect if he went to trial and was found guilty…ei, middle of the guidelines with no “taking responsibility” credit.
CalFed (5b899d) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:48 pm‘The A Team’ theme, pikachu, you must have meant the one from MASH, or are you extra confuzzled tonight. Say I’m a little foggy on this point, but wasn’t there a govt official, who stole classified documents, from the National Archives, and was given a slap on the wrist.
narciso (3fec35) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:53 pmOh, I’m sorry. I Somehow missed your reverence for copyright laws…
I stand corrected.
CalFed (5b899d) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:54 pmnot the a team theme mr. narciso it’s a new thing
it’s british
like scones except more poignant
happyfeet (ce327d) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:56 pmNew York Times obituary, which tells the story of his troubles with the law:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/technology/aaron-swartz-internet-activist-dies-at-26.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
The first thing he did was in 2008. He took on PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) which has copies of federal judicial documents.
Carl Malamud, of public.resource.org had argued these documents should be available for free, since they were produced at public expense.
There’s no copyright involved here.
The database charged 10 cents a page for documents. Now they also at the time made it available for free through certain libraries.
So Aaron Swartz wrote a little program to download 20 million pages from PACER (about 20% of the database)
The government shut down the free library program. Malumud told Swartz that he needed to talk to a lawyer and so did he.
The Federal government did an investigation but there was no prosecution.
But in 2011 Swartz went after JSTOR (usually free to students enrolled in college, and if it wasn’t they’d never do any business, because nobody would ever start using it)
He left a laptop in a closet at MIT and signed in under a false account, and downloaded practically the entire library.
After this was discovered, he turned over hard drives with 4.8 million documents to JSTOR, so he no longer had possession of that, and JSTOR the New York Times says, “declined to pursue the case.”
But the U.S. Attorney, Carmen M. Ortiz, pressed on, claiming stealing was stealing whether it was documents, data or dollars.
He was facing 35 years in jail and $1 million in fines, and he was guilty as charged.
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:56 pmOh, well, I’m all busted up: ‘Can We Just Not Get All Sentimental About Aaron Swartz, to the Effect of Martyring the Dude, or Anything Like That?’ You’re linked there, Patrick.
Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) (2ab83a) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:58 pmBTW, SPQR, when you were in network engineering, what did you do when you found a mysterious computer hard-wired into your network switch?
CalFed (5b899d) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:59 pmI also think what Mr. Swartz did was wrong, but pretty minor. In academia, people violate copyright laws every day (usually unknowingly) because they are so restrictive. I agree with Lessig: the articles had little or no value. It’s beyond me why academics would write a journal article on some arcane issue and then deny students, the only ones interested in reading this stuff, access to them! But I would tell them to get permission before they use the article or face the consequences–and who would have thought people sharing songs on the internet would get a visit from the feds? It can happen.
I’m not a lawyer, but this prosecution and Nakoula Nakoula’s seem selective and outrageous actually. Swartz was making a point, albeit an illegal one, but so were the OWS folk, and how many of them are facing a lifetime in prison?
Patricia (be0117) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:59 pmi don’t care much about guilty as charged when it’s at the service of dick gregory style pseudo justice whores
sad little country you people have
happyfeet (ce327d) — 1/13/2013 @ 8:00 pmComment by narciso (3fec35) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:53 pm
who stole classified documents, from the National Archives, and was given a slap on the wrist.
But they weren’t copyrighted.
He only took them to keep them away from the 9/11 commission (in this case they were copies, but the very copies that would have gone to the commission) in order to support a fairy tale about having issued some kind of alert after which the the millennium bomb plot was discovered. He intended to keep from the commission the after action report.
Possibly there were some other original documents he took out to support other lies, maybe less innocuous ones, that he and Clinton told.
By the time they caught him, the people at the National Archives were already suspicious of Sandy Burger.
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 1/13/2013 @ 8:02 pmAssuming for the sake of argument that leaving the computer stuff in the closet DID make it abandoned property, I don’t think it follows that no warrant was required as would be the case if, e.g., there was an assault with a knife and the defendant threw the knife in the closet. For unlike a weapon, a laptop has an “interior” which typically contains encrypted material, password-protected material, etc., which may create a “reasonable expectation of privacy.”
I state this as an open question, but it’s only open because I personally don’t know the answer. There has to be, by this time, a fairly detailed case law that addresses this question, and maybe answers it definitively.
Brian (9209a0) — 1/13/2013 @ 8:03 pmHe did a foolish thing, hacking into the network, but he did an unforgivable thing, killing himself,
narciso (3fec35) — 1/13/2013 @ 8:16 pmBTW, SPQR, when you were in network engineering, what did you do when you found a mysterious computer hard-wired into your network switch?
I told the kernel hacking guys to quit downloading pornographic usenet posts on my network. (Actual incident when I was supervising the network administration group of a 200+ employee subsidiary of Kodak)
SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 8:31 pmI stand corrected.
Comment by CalFed (5b899d) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:54 pm
You should stand corrected. The fact that something is copyrighted is of itself not a big deal. Evidence? Your 7:54 pm comment is copyrighted under US law.
QED.
SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 8:33 pmComment by Patricia (be0117) — 1/13/2013 @ 7:59 pm
It’s beyond me why academics would write a journal article on some arcane issue and then deny students, the only ones interested in reading this stuff, access to them!
No, their students have access to it, although maybe the institution pays some kind of fee for this, and the cost would be bundled into their tuition and it’s not too high anyway.
But if someone is not enrolled in a college, and wants to study independently, the cost is prohibitive. JSTOR recently created a program for certain scholars and researchers to have free access – I guess people with some connection to academia who otherwise don’t have free access. But they can only look, but not download.
Now Alt-PrtSc and then pasting it into Microsoft Word could copy at least bits and pieces of articles and then print them out, but maybe people aren’t that computer savvy and besides that might be illegal, even a felony who knows.
I don’t know, who, if anybody, pays full freight.
JSTOR itself has to pay the journals, I think, or maybe they are free, except that the most recent articles are not available, so the publishers of the journals can still sell them.
It’s probably the publishers who insisted on somewhat limited access. You probably need to have access to some affiliated academic library to have free access to it.
This is the Wikipedia article about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSTOR It says some of the oldest material (whatever’s not under copyright) is available to anyone for free.
Sammy Finkelman (2f76f3) — 1/13/2013 @ 8:35 pmThe reality is that the database of academic papers that Swartz stole was full of documents that individually had no value. JSTOR charged money as a tollbooth to access them. Unlike the PACER documents, they were indeed ip property, but they had no commercial value.
The idea that from those acts Swartz was a criminal of such magnitude that he should be imprisoned for a decade is simply outrageous.
SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 8:37 pmCited here: http://lisnews.org/listen_an_lisnewsorg_program_episode_228
Patrick is invited to talk about this further on a later episode if he feels up to it.
The Head Writer (bd26f1) — 1/13/2013 @ 8:39 pmcalfed,
i wouldnt worry about SPQr, as you can see, hes an experten in every field in these debates. he also is a very good person and wants what is best.
swartz was a hacker, pure and simple. when i taught in the it field i warned my students hacking brings more years than assault or murder.
EPWJ (b3df72) — 1/13/2013 @ 8:41 pmThat’s pretty amusing, EPWJ, since in another thread your claim is that until convicted, someone hasn’t broken any laws.
Your incompetence in trolling is noted. As much as I disagree with CalFed, I think he’s well above needing any assistance from a POS troll.
SPQR (768505) — 1/13/2013 @ 8:46 pmI want to know what the prosecution thinks of as “hard-wired into a network”. I suspect that he plugged a cable into the laptop and into an available port on a switch — which, in my eyes, is not “hard-wiring” at all (that would require a permanent connection, solder or wirewrap, not a plug and socket.)
htom (412a17) — 1/13/2013 @ 8:49 pmMeh. He’s still a f***ing moron to have killed himself.
People with FAR LESS positive affirmation in their lives continue to strive despite all manner of societal depredations.
So he had a serious downturn in his fortunes caused by arrogant assholes overstepping the bounds of propriety.
Shall I kill myself for the dozen or so times that has happened — with LESS reward to counterbalance it — in my life?
Feh. I’ll save my compassion for people who deserve it.
If you can’t deal with bullies abusing their power — if you can’t learn how to respond to bullies (hint: it’s NOT running away, and suicide is the final form of that), then society will have to learn to do without you. And you know what? It will succeed in continuing on long after you’re gone.
Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master and Misapprehension Correction Specialist (98ae1f) — 1/13/2013 @ 9:07 pmIn my experience, the law treats actual physical intrusion more harshly than “virtual intrusion”. The manner of actual connection…soldering or plugging in is probably beside the point.
CalFed (5b899d) — 1/13/2013 @ 9:08 pmThe truth of the matter is, the material that Aaron Swartz downloaded had virtually no commercial value, not really. I don’t know what the exact terms or limitations there might be on downloading but somebody did a linguistic analysis that must have used a large number of articles.
All that Aaron Swartz would have had to have done to gain legal access to the entire database, was create a connection, or the right kind of connection, with some affiliated library. I don’t know, maybe there would have been a way to do it for $75, maybe it would have cost him $1,000. But not millions of Dollars.
Of course that money, even if it was as much as $1,000, the money would not have gone to JSTOR and would technically be for a course or something, so this creates a technical theft of millions because that’s what they would have charged him directly.
Now posting what he got on the Internet is another thing, but he never got a chance to.
Sammy Finkelman (2f76f3) — 1/13/2013 @ 9:12 pm#23 I could point out that Schwartz was downloading articles at a rate that was hundreds of times what all the legitimate users combined downloaded and how disruptive this was to the legitimate users, but I’m sure you would respond with a hearty “so what”.
What nonsense. Hardwired into the switch he had pretty good throughput, but it does not follow that this IN ANY WAY interfered with remote users. Local bandwidth is apples where remote bandwidth is petunias. Never mind if anyone is actually downloading remotely at the same time, or what the load actually is.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 1/13/2013 @ 9:14 pmThe idea of putting academic papers behind a paywall is pretty much the antithesis of the scientific method. Swartz did us all a mitzvah by making such a point of it. Can you say “East Anglia Climate data”?
The whole “journal” thing, where the high cost of the subscription was justified by the high cost of low volume printing pretty much evaporates when it goes electronic. The only things that need to remain are the refereeing and stamps of approval, and that cost is pretty minimal by comparison.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 1/13/2013 @ 9:28 pmOh, I shouldn’t be surprised. But when I read:
I wondered what an “it” field meant. Intramural trampoline? This character can’t mean information technology, after all.
Seriously. And the truly amusing part, other than the Twister-style syntax, is this character snarking at SPQR for claiming to be an expert in everything.
Just wow.
Getting back to the point, there are many, many people in the Open Access movement who are quite concerned about this case.
And, to follow another thread, Swartz didn’t download anything to make money. He was making a point. So he shouldn’t have been under investigation! He didn’t break any laws.
Perhaps he should have been carrying a high capacity magazine with him.
But until he gets Chicago-style “Juice” or a television show, we will keep hearing that some animals are more equal than others.
More seriously, it is quite clear that Schwarz was not operating at full capacity, mentally. So this is a tragedy, as well as a waste.
Simon Jester (c3b5ef) — 1/13/2013 @ 9:29 pmSPQr
I AM taking your profanity laden comment to mean that you don’t understand even elementary aspects of the judicial system.
Gregory didn’t break any laws, he was not arrested, indicted, or charged.
SWARTZ was caught in the act and in possession of stolen items in the tens of millions.
eh. we have people here, getting so upset over things that simply are not worth the time.
white collar crimes, they carry heavy sentences, they seem to be unduly harsh to those who see the violent side of crime and have to deal with sentencing for life altering crimes.
EPWJ (18a2a7) — 1/13/2013 @ 9:32 pmJust a silly prat. But he makes light of serious business indeed. Tell you what, troll: ask Patterico’s opinion.
Unless you know more than he does.
Simon Jester (c3b5ef) — 1/13/2013 @ 9:36 pmInformation just wants to be free.
Especially information that belongs to other people.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/13/2013 @ 9:56 pmGregory did break the law. There’s video proof. Your ‘evidence’ he didn’t is so irrational it seems deliberately intended to get reactions.
I doubt that. One HD Netflix movie is more data than billions of text documents.
————–
I think the ‘good intention’ defense is not adequate and actually pretty dangerous. I agree with Swartz about PACER and academic articles. They should be free. Lexis Nexis and Westlaw are ridiculous too. The government’s law and judgments should be easy and free to research after all the dumb things our government provides that are of far less importance.
But that doesn’t give one a license to pilfer data. That should be a crime. Breaking into closets you don’t own and repeatedly circumventing someone’s security is crossing the line, and why shouldn’t that be prosecuted?
I’d sentence him to community service and bar him from using a computer for six months, and hope that keeps his activism within the guard rails.
It’s beyond tragic this genius took his own life.
Dustin (73fead) — 1/13/2013 @ 10:14 pmHow is publishing papers that nobody would ever read unless compelled by their professors, worth 35 years in prison? In prison!!!! No wonder this kid was scared!!! Was this young man a danger to society?
Aaron Swartz was a political criminal. He didn’t get any personal gain… he disagreed with copy right laws. That is political. Sentencing him to more years than many murderers is just over kill.
Unlike Wiki leaks, National Security was not an issue.
It seems that Swarzt angered the powerful people at MIT… and for that he was being bullied.
What kind of justice is that?
A corrupt kind of justice.
petunia (9c775c) — 1/13/2013 @ 10:59 pmMIT might have had a policy but apparently the technical expert looking into matters for the defense determined that they neither communicated that policy to guests nor did they force guests to agree to abide by such a policy. That makes the policy secret and unenforceable. MIT was perfectly capable of doing what every two bit hotel in America does, force you to agree to access terms to get on the network. They chose not to do so as a matter of policy, an MIT policy that the DA did not see fit to mention in the indictment. This likely invalidates a good deal of the indictment.
TMLutas (0876a3) — 1/13/2013 @ 11:13 pmI don’t know about that. If he’s repeatedly working around attempts to stop him from using their network, he’s conscious of their policy. This man was not stupid. I think a jury would have had no trouble concluding he intended to violate their access terms.
Dustin (73fead) — 1/14/2013 @ 12:34 amit’s to bad this guy wasn’t an NBC employee…
he’d still be walking the streets as a free man today.
redc1c4 (403dff) — 1/14/2013 @ 1:49 amThat’s not a reasonable conclusion.
In the absence of a clear policy statement, the failure of one computer to connect to another could be interpreted in many different ways.
Cliff (40faa1) — 1/14/2013 @ 4:51 amI would not want to be a network admin at JSTOR or AUSA office, after this. This government misstep will ignite passions in a certain group of Internet savvy people, providing them -right or wrong, with justification for their actions.
Jean (e9974c) — 1/14/2013 @ 5:34 amJeralyn Meritt has an interesting piece at TalkLeft. Among other things, she passes along information that MIT had an open campus and an open network. It was not illegal for him to be there or use the network.
Very good reporting here, Patterico.
MayBee (b27ea0) — 1/14/2013 @ 5:48 amI can’t help but compare what he did and how he was being treated with the fact that our government just gave itself to read our personal emails without a warrant.
MayBee (b27ea0) — 1/14/2013 @ 5:51 amGave itself permission
MayBee (b27ea0) — 1/14/2013 @ 5:52 amThe Boston FBI office, I’m trying to remember a certain detail about their procedures between 1975 and 2000, I don’t recall what that was?
narciso (3fec35) — 1/14/2013 @ 5:57 amOne of the few times I have read Paterico and thought he was just off the rails. Adult criminal kills himself before trial. Good riddance. Next.
DaMav (ee1908) — 1/14/2013 @ 6:03 am70 — Then why exaggerate what was done? I think the government really did not understand what was done, and made up details to fit their imagined, wished for, non-existant, crime.
htom (412a17) — 1/14/2013 @ 6:17 amWell as we found out with Pollard, who did something stupid, but the declassified files, show he only transmitted information about Israel’s enemies, like the PLO’s hideout in Tunis,
narciso (3fec35) — 1/14/2013 @ 6:20 amAlex Stamos, an expert witness who was going to testify on Swartz’s behalf at the upcoming trial, said the closet he accessed was unlocked and “was also used to store personal effects by a homeless man.”
I don’t think it has been established that plugging in a laptop to MIT’s network to run a script and coming back to retrieve it later is an exceptional act. MIT is a renowned technological university with an ethos of permissive network access that encourages the hacker ethos.
Though Swartz was inconsiderate of network resources to download so many articles so quickly, JSTOR permitted anyone on MIT’s network to download an unlimited amount of articles for free. I don’t see how that constitutes the theft of each individual article, when each one was legally permissible to download.
rcade (c8bc33) — 1/14/2013 @ 6:34 amSorry if this has been said above, but we don’t have to approve of what Aaron Swartz did, think it is moral or even legal, and necessarily approve of the prosecution or the potential punishment.
Let’s say that the prosecution is 100% correct in its assertions. First, that the federal government is involved with this is absurd; it should be a state issue. If MIT wants to bring a civil suit against the kid, let it. But to threaten to throw the kid in prison for almost a decade? Functionally destroy his life over this? Reprehensible.
If even half of this effort went into finding, prosecuting, and imprisoning SWATters – an actual crime that can cause actual physical harm to people – and less effort on MIT kids who have history of pushing boundaries, we would be in better shape.
bridget (19ae43) — 1/14/2013 @ 6:45 amAlso, as a long-time MA resident, let me point out that MIT has a history of various pranks, some of which are not entirely legal. Back in the ’80s or ’90s, MIT students stole a fiberglass cow from the Hilltop Steak House and somehow put it on top of the Great Dome. Hilltop, rather than pressing charges, happily accepted the cow back with an MIT morterboard for its graduation accomplishment.
MIT students also put a police car on the Great Dome (IIRC). Not to say that any of this stuff is right or legal, but let’s not pretend that the campus does not have its venerable history of pushing boundaries just to prove what the students can do.
What the heck ever happened to slapping the kid on the wrist, threatening civil suits if he kept it up, and then hiring him to use his skills more productively? Heavens. (And yeah, I can’t help but point out that if downloading academic articles is the worst thing that someone of Aaron’s talent has done, we’re all lucky, and he was probably, all told, a very good kid.)
bridget (19ae43) — 1/14/2013 @ 6:52 amThe tactics employed by the prosecutor did not seek justice. It sought to win by overwhelming the opponent financially, mentally and emotionally, placing winning over everything else. It is not the law but “prosecutorial discretion” that determined Swartz would go to prison and maybe for a very long time. A more humane and reasonable prosecutor could likely have resolved this quickly and with a greater sense of justice.
I don’t know Swartz’s financial situation, but few can withstand the financial burden of a prolonged criminal defense when the prosecutor has decided you’re going away. Those of you who work on the prosecutor’s side probably moan and complain about budget cuts and limited resources, but from a defendant’s point of view, standing up to the feds is hopeless. You will always run out of money and good will before the government is finished with you. Even if you manage to hang in an prevail, you’re ruined financially, and often emotionally.
The most interesting question is why did Swartz get the complete attention and full force of the prosecutor’s office when there are so many other crimes to prosecute? Decisions like this get made for a reason – sometimes good reasons, sometimes “prosecutorial ego.”
I speak from some experience, especially about the financially ruined part.
AlanR (b0d905) — 1/14/2013 @ 6:54 ambriget
Stealing millions of documents – which BTW were not free as many have stated here – you – have to be apart of a University which costs tens of thousands a year to gain access to these “free” documents.
Maybe we should be thankful that he focused on Jstor and not the stock market?
We also dont know how he spoke to government investigators, if he acted like the founder of Facebook, and from first hand experience, dealing with his level of IT professionals, they can be highly irrational.
I’m sorry he’s dead, it is a shame, but I think blaming prosecutorial overreach is something that needs more than onesided examinations
EPWJ (c5f1fc) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:00 amA defense witness posts http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartzs-crime/ .
Someone wanted to put a notch in their gun, hoping to further their career.
It used to be that both sides had skin in the game.
htom (412a17) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:05 amThen why on earth did he do the crime? Is financial position now a consideration in sentencing/indicting/prosecuting criminal actions?
Also, why didnt he seek a plea deal – oh thats right he didnt want jail time. – Should have thought of that before he sent days/weeks hacking into MIT
EPWJ (c5f1fc) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:05 amspent not sent
EPWJ (c5f1fc) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:06 amYou know it’s as if they are trying prove Thrasymychus right;
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/us_judge_terror_flap_vbuIljRmOly8pth0oxVYEJ
narciso (3fec35) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:07 amEPWJ — stop lying. MIT has an open network (and still does); the only part of being a part of MIT is to be there. It’s a feature of their system. They brag about it.
htom (412a17) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:07 amStealing millions of documents – which BTW were not free as many have stated here …
Swartz was at MIT with permission. He had access to MIT’s network with permission. Individual articles could be downloaded from JSTOR at no cost on that network with permission.
What he was not permitted to do was download so many articles so quickly.
Does that alleged crime strike you as 13 felonies with a sentence of up to 50 years in prison?
JSTOR, the entity he allegedly stole from, did not want him prosecuted. Its home page currently has a tribute to Swartz.
rcade (c8bc33) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:10 amBTW, Orin Kerr concurs on Eugene’s Blog this morning
EPWJ (c5f1fc) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:10 amrcade
no he did not – you need to read Orins article, unlike the one posted here – it has the facts of the case – not the hysterics of a grieving family and a red faced lawyer that failed to defend a brillant mind and let this case spiral out of control by attacking the very people who protect us from electronic theft.
Its a sad event and I can see the emotions and they are expected and more than understandable.
I caution yea begged my students to stop hacking, back in the late 80’s hacking was ridiculously easy but then again there was really nothing to steal. But the allure is too great for some who have the knowledge to literally access anything anywhere they want and its very difficult for them to restrain themselves
EPWJ (c5f1fc) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:17 amhtom
Read Orins article
EPWJ (c5f1fc) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:21 amno he did not – you need to read Orins article, unlike the one posted here – it has the facts of the case …
What Kerr describes as the facts of the case contains many unproven assertions straight from the indictment.
rcade (c8bc33) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:24 amrcade
riiight – thats why the guy’s lawyer was begging for a plea deal.
Or trying to win a case on one count by a hail mary legal manuever – the time honored always rejected by the judge – buut the warrant wasnt timely whine.
Aaron decided not to face the music. Its sad, not quite as sad as seeing prosecutors blamed for his death though.
EPWJ (c5f1fc) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:46 amIf you don’t understand that an indictment contains unproven facts, there’s really no point in discussing this further with you.
rcade (c8bc33) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:50 amASk George Zimmerman, or Scooter Libby, or Conrad Black, how that works out.
narciso (3fec35) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:52 amRead it, EPWJ. As a defense brief for the prosecution, it’s interesting. As an explanation of the government’s actions, it is unpersuasive.
To misquote U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz — “Bullying is bullying, whether you use your fists or the law.”
htom (412a17) — 1/14/2013 @ 8:09 ama red faced lawyer that failed to defend a brillant mind and let this case spiral out of control by attacking the very people who protect us from electronic theft.
WTF
JD (b63a52) — 1/14/2013 @ 8:11 amhtom
So when an independent, IT defense attorney, who testifies in front of congress, who is widely considered a true expert in his field, who teaches other lawyers how to defend their IT clients and interests says there is no overreach and the prosecutor stayed within established, well established caselaw
this has no bearing on you?
EPWJ (c5f1fc) — 1/14/2013 @ 8:31 amrcade
except when you admit it and try to get a plea deal
except for that
EPWJ (c5f1fc) — 1/14/2013 @ 8:32 amIt’s curious what they consider appropriate disclosures and what isn’t;
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/opinion/keller-invasion-of-the-data-snatchers.html?ref=billkeller&_r=0&gwh=57705AD09DF78C21CD463ED0924DACF5
narciso (3fec35) — 1/14/2013 @ 8:35 amNot much, EPWJ.
I’m reminded of a conversation I had decades ago with my best friend, one of the brightest people I know. He’s a lawyer (or was, I should say.) He went back to school to become an engineer. Close to the end of the first quarter he came over and started complaining, his 4.0 GPA was being threatened, and he wanted to know how I’d gotten A’s in calc, physics, and chem, quarter after quarter, they were impossible classes. I had warned him that the engineering core was different than his previous studies, there would be little time for his party lifestyle, and advised him to do calc, alone, first. He came to his senses and withdrew for the quarter.
About a year later he’d gotten through first year engineering calculus, with C’s, and started on Engineering Physics & Lab. I think he was prouder of those C’s than he was of his JSD. “I’ve figured it out. I always had the hardest time with engineers and mathematicians and scientists on the stand, and now I understand. I was taught that “truth” was what I could convince the witness to say and the jury to believe, but you folk think of “truth” as the answers the world gives when you test it. You have an absolute core of truth that is unshakeable. People skills, word manipulations, fuzzy language, the rules and regulations and laws, don’t change the world’s truth — and you know that.”
“Part of why bridges don’t fall down.” “I get that, now!” (This was before the I-35w collapse!)
This was a hack, not a crime. Some hacks are also crimes … but this was not one of those. If they’d convicted him and it was upheld, to the hacker world he’d have been an innocent, a victim of a bullying persecution. This is a collision of ways of seeing the world, and to their shame, the prosecution could not, or would not, see that. In our society, with the power they have been delegated, it is also a shame of ours, that they were so blind.
htom (412a17) — 1/14/2013 @ 9:06 amI looked up thrasymachus/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/thrasymachus/
There seems to be some disagreement about what exactly Thrasymachus said (not necessarily al Thrasymachus, by the way, but the one arguing with Socrates in Plato’s Republic) but it seems to be this:
Justice is nothing but enforcement of obedience to laws that are themselves nothing but something to advantage whoever is stronger than another, and not based on principles.
Now you’ll never really have that, because even in places like China, the few people in charge do want to write some laws that mandate fair dealing – they don’t have a conflict of interest.. An absolute monarch is not interested in his peoplle all cheating and harming each other.
On the other hand, you also may not see any place that has completely just and fair laws either.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 1/14/2013 @ 9:07 amComment by htom (412a17) — 1/14/2013 @ 9:06 am
This was a hack, not a crime. Some hacks are also crimes … but this was not one of those.
It was a crime, but not the kind of crime that they said (stealing millions of dollars worth of goods) There was case law for that, but the case law was ridiculous.
It was a crime but didn’t have to be against the law, or a very big deal.
And the whole JSTOR system was ridiculous.
If they’d convicted him and it was upheld, to the hacker world he’d have been an innocent, a victim of a bullying persecution. This is a collision of ways of seeing the world, and to their shame, the prosecution could not, or would not, see that. In our society, with the power they have been delegated, it is also a shame of ours, that they were so blind.
The New York Times wrote Saturday of a different example, where the Obama Administration caved in.
Link later.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 1/14/2013 @ 9:12 amA lawyer friend of mine worked on a case of four programmers who stole a line of code from their employer and sold it to people in Asia. Thought they would never get caught! Well, that proprietary code soon appeared all over the world.
The boys sang like canaries to avoid prosecution. Much more serious case than Swartz’ and yet they ended up with civil penalties only.
Patricia (be0117) — 1/14/2013 @ 9:30 amExactly right, Kevin M., which is why now there is an Open Access movement for such. Swartz was too early on this issue.
Patricia (be0117) — 1/14/2013 @ 9:32 amHas anyone looked into whether this young man was on medication for his depression? A friend of ours hung himself a couple of years ago, and he was the LAST person anyone would have thought would have done something like that.
Co-workers had noticed a huge change in his behavior – as had his wife – just a couple of weeks after he started taking a new medication. A few weeks after that, he was dead.
The change in his personality was rapid, profound, and quite noticeable. He was literally a different person after he started on that medication, and one can only speculate as to what was going on in his head at the time that he took his life.
Anyway, I thought I’d throw that out there – it’s possible that more than his reaction to this case is at play here. Our friend was not in his “right” mind when he took his life, and by all accounts, he is not the only person to have done so mere weeks after starting on this medication.
Teresa in Fort Worth, TX (19d706) — 1/14/2013 @ 9:40 amPatterico: thanks so much for (a) covering this story (why do I doubt the MSM will?) and (b) sticking to facts and a reasonable position. I am not a criminal lawyer but I know a little about intellectual property and it strikes me as absurd that a guy like Swartz, apparently bent upon giving “open access” to a bunch of published articles, was having the book thrown at him by the prosecution. Copyright is important. IP is important. But the world is changing, and those who want to monopolize Mickey fracking Mouse for life of author plus 75 years are on the wrong side of the debate. Any reasonable person would have noted that the content being downloaded was (apparently) published; in scholarly journals; often (or always?) paid for at least partly by taxpayer funding; and was not being read. I think Swartz was motivated mostly to “free” the unread, long-published, taxpayer-supported knowledge that, sooner or later, should enter the public domain. It is very sad that he died while pursued so doggedly by those who appear to have little feel for where the world of IP and open access is, inevitably, headed.
oMan (0fd937) — 1/14/2013 @ 9:41 am117. “The New York Times wrote Saturday of a different example, where the Obama Administration caved in.
Link later.”
The Obama Administration also is not prosecuting people who use marijuana in compliance with state, but not federal, law.
But this was a case that involved just the kind of copyright violation (putting things available for sale into the public domain) that the Motion Picture Association of America, and the Recording Industry Association of America (together sponsoring the Center for for Copyright Information (CCI) is interested in having a crackdown on.
According to a comment here as soon as Obama got elected he started appointing industry lawyers to the Justice Department.
You can blame the copyright lobby – maybe all those campaign contributions from California.
This doesn’t directly benefit Hollywood, but there are some lawyers who apparently think that cracking down very hard on illegal copying and distribution wherever they can does.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 1/14/2013 @ 10:01 amComment 7 at http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120403/18234218361/time-to-start-again-six-strikes-let-internet-users-have-seat-table.shtml
Anonymous Coward, Apr 4th, 2012 @ 8:12am
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 1/14/2013 @ 10:02 amOne of the problems with modern anti-depressants is that they actually work. Patients find that they can actually do things again, make plans and carry through, rather than collapse. Sadly, one of the things they can then do is suicide.
If you know someone who’s going onto anti-depressants, or changing dose or drug, watch them! Not in an obsessive way, but warily, taking suicide hints very seriously.
htom (412a17) — 1/14/2013 @ 10:04 am“The US Attorney’s office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims.”
BS. Like taking newspapers out of the kiosk and putting them on top of the vending machine, it has no financial beneficiaries, but it has a victim.
Chris Balsz (013642) — 1/14/2013 @ 10:27 amAaron Swartz was not well mentally and had not been for years. When he was 19 or 20 (he was 26 when he died) he wrote the following, according to an article in the Herald Tribune. His own words suggest that the condition was not new to him even six years ago.
Swartz apparently struggled at times with depression, writing in a 2007 blog post: “Surely there have been times when you’ve been sad. Perhaps a loved one has abandoned you or a plan has gone horribly awry. … You feel worthless. … depressed mood is like that, only it doesn’t come for any reason and it doesn’t go for any either.”
People who suffer under the weight of chronic depression (like Aaron) often do not make good decisions. In the end, being “brilliant” or “a prodigy” or wealthy can’t trump the dark effects of depression on thought processes and lives. In his case this disease may well have included his not understanding consequences of some/many of his past actions, and/or his failure to see reality in terms of assessing his more current options. However and whatever he did to himself or what was done to him (fairly or unfairly) by law enforcement, what we have is a sad, sick man who killed himself trying to make his pain go away.
I lost a valued and much loved employee to depression related suicide several years ago. Only after she was gone and her family found her hidden journals (some of which they shared with me) did any of us realize how impaired this employee had been and how she had struggled just to get out of bed every day. I am cross posting this on the other Aaron thread as well because I hope all the people choosing to opine on this case will take it into consideration and maybe tone it down a notch.
elissa (98cee2) — 1/14/2013 @ 10:32 amI don’t understand the email’s note of how the laptop was found using a “MAC address” and why that needed to be explained. It sounds like they were inserting documentary evidence into the email. Is there any use of other agencies in this case? Was spying used? Would that be made public? I’m SURE no shills are ever used to spin the popular opinions, especially concerning comments about a political matter. Can I and other non experts be taught to perceive when revenge taints judicial actions? Yeah, I signed the Sopa petition.
wtzp (6e5a08) — 1/14/2013 @ 10:47 amMAC address. Media Access Controller address. The unique* number assigned to a device connected to a network. Usually burned into the Network Interface Card during the manufacture of the card.
Unique* because they can be altered, disguised, and forged.
htom (412a17) — 1/14/2013 @ 11:19 amOrdinarily I find little value in posts that repackage and republish one litigant’s viewpoint. The headline could read, “Swarzt’ lawyer does what he’s paid for, says bad things about prosecution and nice things about his client.”
Some high percentage of Radley Balko’s blogging falls into this category, which is why I long since stopped considering him to be a credible reporter or commenter on legal matters.
This report’s value is not in establishing that the government was being unreasonable — for to even begin seriously addressing that issue, one would have to also hear from prosecutors at the same level of detail and with the same degree of candor as which we’ve heard (ex parte) from Swartz’ lawyer. That ain’t gonna happen, so all anyone trying to address that subject can do is rely on and compare what the litigants said and wrote in public in court.
But this report does show that Swartz was vigorously and capable represented, and that he had excellent reasons to heavily discount the prosecution’s worst-case projections and to instead accept his own very capable counsel’s evaluation.
Beldar (008c16) — 1/14/2013 @ 11:47 amhtom 123,
Good comment. Thank you for making that point.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 1/14/2013 @ 12:00 pmThanks htom,
I was thinking Mcintosh. The FYI from Secret Service’s Pickett to the USMA’s attny Heymann seems senseless. He KNEW that info, it’s the heart of the case. It makes me think the FYI was for leaking to the public.
I’d like to see the entire email and see if its as goofy as this page 3. Could it be that the discovery was not via the MAC address, but not disclosed. I suppose the US’s case would be required by law to disclose all means of discovery of evidence to the defense, or be found to have “dirty hands”. Settling out of court saves money, and I know no money was wasted by the US. 😉
wtzp (6e5a08) — 1/14/2013 @ 12:05 pmI want to clarify a factual point.
Characterizing an Ethernet MAC address as “burned into the card” is incorrect and misleading. It makes normal, expected and common actions sound like counterfeiting.
All Ethernet adapters have configurable MAC addresses. The also commonly have a small memory that contains a suggested address that is supposed to be unique (but sometimes, erroneously, isn’t). The software driver is usually responsible for setting the MAC address, with a higher level policy deciding if it should use the suggested MAC address or a different one.
Thirty years ago the only type of small memory available was a PROM, programmed (“burnt”) by blowing fuses. Twenty years ago essentially all Ethernet implementations had changed to using EEPROM, which could be reprogrammed or “flashed” rather than “burnt”.
But back to the primary point: it’s just a suggested MAC address. The driver can choose to use the suggested one, use a locally generated one, or an assigned MAC. Half of the range is designated for locally generated addresses. I’ve seen plenty of hardware where the MAC address is missing, invalid or not unique.
Donald Becker (22a589) — 1/14/2013 @ 7:08 pmSPQR, there was once a time when “Don’t make a felony case out of it” meant something.
Nowadays, spitting on the sidewalk is a felony case, if the Feds want to do something.
But hey, there’s no worry about needing guns!! Those rumors of encroaching fascism, they’re only the blatherings of nutjobs like Alex Jones!!
Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master and Fear-mongering Fear Monger (98ae1f) — 1/14/2013 @ 10:58 pmAaron Swartz’s father blames the prosecution.
http://betabeat.com/2013/01/tom-dolan-defends-carmen-ortiz-aaron-swartz-twitter/
seems to quiote a tweet:
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 1/16/2013 @ 11:57 amThe story seems to be that Aaron Swartz had access to the entire adatnase through Harvard. But it was set up so that you could only download a limited number at a time. Perhaps that it had to be done manually – no bots. This may not have been an official rule
As Orrin Kerr tells it:
http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/#disqus_thread
.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 1/16/2013 @ 12:04 pmSammy,
I was just in a lawsuit with my neighbors. It was an extensive property rights suit over the fact that if someone is away from their property from extended periods of time, can you use an easement as an excuse to claim ownership rights, hunting rights on the rest of my estate, including my lake.
One of the parties is crying that they had to bankrupt themselves, all I sued them for was for them to stay off my land.
Then they countersued me and my wife for 750,000 for damages in NOT being able to use my property because I and previous owners had guests over who used the lake.
I even gave them money to build their own road so they could stay off my 1/2 mile asphalt raod instead of sending delivery trucks down it constantly rutting it out.
I Asked them just to stay off my land, not hunt, not shoot into my lake in the direction of my main cabin and principal guest cabin and the two thousand square feet of docks, decks and outdoor recreational facilities I was in the process of building.
Well the suit lasted over a year costing everyone tens of thousands of dollars and they lost on all counts but as we are in that stupid rule where even in the most aggregious of cases you cannot recover attorney fees.
I had to stay here, missed Erica’s sophmore year, and now it looks like they are trying to appeal and I cant leave as Tennessee requires 30 day answers and where I am in Jakarta there is very little chance to respons – so now I am missing Erica’s Junior year.
Think of it forced to be separated from my family for two years for a bullsh$t lawsuit – Erica is never going to be back in highschool again.
Legal matters are tough, even civil suits, think of what Pat is going through,Aaron has gone through and now Mandy Nagy, Et al.
Swartz’s parent mortgaging their house is not an issue to prosecutorial misconduct. Sorry if I have any real sympathy except for the loss of their son, but they seem to be losing their cause the more they blame others for people just doing their job
EPWJ (8a4ca7) — 1/16/2013 @ 12:21 pmI think letting Schwartz “off with a warning”, as a “no-custody” deal would have amounted to, sends the wrong message to computer hackers.
Mississippi hip recall attorney (05eeb8) — 1/25/2013 @ 2:07 amHey there, You’ve done an excellent job. I will definitely digg it and in my opinion recommend to my friends. I am confident they will be benefited from this site.
van (337cec) — 2/6/2013 @ 3:11 pmHi there, I found your site by the use of Google at the same time as looking for a comparable topic, your website got here up, it seems to be good. I’ve added to my favourites|added to my bookmarks.
Bookmarking Site (88c32e) — 2/11/2013 @ 2:44 pm