7 ms·

MIT Moves to Intervene in Release of Aaron Swartz’s Secret Service File

297 points by hermanywong 13y ago

jlgreco 13y ago
Do they really think that this is making them look any better in this situation?
- Vivtek 13y ago
  Clearly they must.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    I wonder what they must be trying to hide then, because this looks pretty bad itself. I wonder if the same person may be behind both unreasonably disproportionate reactions...
    - noonespecial 13y ago
      I had the same disturbing thought. What if it was some muckety-muck at MIT leaning on the prosecutor's office the whole time in order to teach those meddling kids a lesson. Now that would be mucho-embarrassing if it came to light.
  - Amadou 13y ago
    There are (at least) two ways to look at it: 1) They have no idea how it will be perceived from the "outside looking in." 2) They do know it will look bad, but they believe that it is worth it to protect the reputations of whomever might be revealed to have participated in the persecution.
- hnnnnng 13y ago
  Whats gonna happen? People are not going to stop going to MIT. The market it is in is education which is always growing and (sadly) the majority of people don't care what happened to Aaron Schwartz. MIT will still retain its top position and frankly I cannot fathom a scenario where it would have to face any serious consequences. So its most likely trying to hide something thats worth the loss of 'face' by filing this. But even if it fails, I don't think they give a fk.
  - marshray 13y ago
    But MIT didn't get where it is by being careless about its public image. Association with that image is a nonzero part of the value of a degree from MIT. If they go about acting like bozos it affects current and future students as well as alumni.
    - ericd 13y ago
      Eh, I think you have to separate the students and faculty from the admins. I don't think many MIT students have ever been proud to be associated with the admins, because they do boneheaded things pretty regularly.
      - Amadou 13y ago
        The way the administration threw Star Simpson under the bus within hours of her arrest was despicable.
        ericd 13y ago
        Did they? I graduated the year before that whole debacle, so I didn't get a very good sense of what happened beyond what was going on on one of the dorm mailing lists. I wouldn't be very surprised, though.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      MIT got where it is by being a crucial instrument of the military industrial complex, in many years the largest non-profit defense contractor in the country. They know which side their bread is buttered on.
  - jmharvey 13y ago
    Donations matter, I hope. But I don't know how many regularly-donating alumni will follow through on their pledge not to give until this case is resolved, and proper action is taken. It's hard to do, and it feels lousy. The alumni who feel closest to this case are probably people who spent a lot of time making stuff. When they donate, they're more likely to target their money at helping other people make stuff, by donating to things like the Edgerton Center [1], MITERS [2], or SIPB [3], or even just giving money directly to dorm governments (my hall had a PIC burner sitting next to the toaster on our kitchen counter and a couple of oscilloscopes you could check out from the front desk, courtesy of some slush fund somewhere). When these alumni donate, they're not doing it to get their name on a plaque, or out of some kind of broad-based affinity for the school, they're doing it to help current students have the same kind of experiences they were able to enjoy. And if they stop donating, it's pretty easy to see the culture of creation suffering. People will keep making stuff, but it'll be a little more difficult, require a little more dedication, and it'll wind up being fewer people. That's a significant price to pay to stand on a principle. [1] http://web.mit.edu/edgerton/ http://web.mit.edu/edgerton/ [2] http://miters.mit.edu/ http://miters.mit.edu/ [3] http://sipb.mit.edu/ http://sipb.mit.edu/
- marshray 13y ago
  Another theory: they are conspiring in some sort of quid-pro-quo in order to give the government another chance in court or at least delay. MIT gets a lot of direct and indirect government money, or is in other ways susceptible to influence. I imagine a federal prosecutor's office can be quite persuasive.
davidxc 13y ago
I'm wondering why MIT still hasn't released its report on how Aaron Swartz's situation was handled. I think the report was supposed to have been released months ago.
- asdfologist 13y ago
  Their lawyers probably advised against it.
  - davidxc 13y ago
    That seems likely, but I'm very disappointed that we haven't heard anything at all. I remember that Hal Abelson was in charge of preparing the report, and he has taught ethics classes at MIT. I'm hoping that he makes some statement about the report at least.
  - gcb0 13y ago
    ...because they are guilty as hell?
    - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
      And/or because people move on, forget about things.
- jfirebaugh 13y ago
  As far as I've been able to find, Hal Abelson's last statement was on May 13, when he wrote that the report would be released "this summer". http://tech.mit.edu/V133/N26/swartz/2.html http://tech.mit.edu/V133/N26/swartz/2.html This is indeed much delayed from his initial statement on January 22 that he hoped the report would be ready "in a few weeks." http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N63/abelson.html http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N63/abelson.html It's disappointing that it's taken this long.
- NelsonMinar 13y ago
  I'm eagerly awaiting that report too. Hal Abelson is a very respected professor, one of the good guys, and he's put his reputation on the line writing this report. I sure hope he's got the freedom to make it honest.
cowsandmilk 13y ago
(Note, this is purely informational, I completely disagree with what MIT is doing in this case) It is interesting that they have never heard of third party's intervening in FOIA cases because it actually is a common occurrence in academia. Many times, a professor at another university will file a FOIA request for your grant application. If you feel your research plans are threatened by having the details of your grant passed along to this other professor, your university will intervene on your behalf in the FOIA request. This is especially true if there is patentable material in the grant that they fear will be threatened by wide dissemination of the contents of the grant. Even if they fail in blocking the FOIA request, they usually can at least delay the release long enough to file a preliminary patent on the material described in the grant application. I can understand reporters not having heard of this tactic, but I'm surprised an expert FOIA litigator would be unfamiliar with these cases.
- angersock 13y ago
  I thought academia couldn't get any more childish, and then here we are. Wow.
  - davorak 13y ago
    What gives you the impression that it is childish rather then just working with a system they can not change?
    - angersock 13y ago
      Issuing FOIA requests to screw over a competitor seems a bit much, right? Then again, there may well be some aspect of this I'm missing.
    - wavefunction 13y ago
      There is another option, which is to do your own research and live (and die) by a personal code of ethics. I don't believe that people "sell out," though I do believe that people "buy in." Adhering or conforming to a system you do not believe in is "buying in" to it.
mythz 13y ago
The Streisand effect will come into play here. If they fail in their bid, everyone's going to pay extra attention to look for what they were trying to hide.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
afarrell 13y ago
I'll wait to see the actual motion, but it seems reasonable that they would want the names of staff redacted to prevent them from getting death threats from people that equate them to leaders of the hitler youth. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5050412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5050412
- scottshea 13y ago
  From the article: "But it’s worth noting that names of third parties are already redacted from documents produced under FOIA." So it would appear that the names are already redacted
- Amadou 13y ago
  There is no evidence of death threats in that link. Equating them to the leaders of the hitler youth may be an extreme interpretation but is not threatening. My understanding is that the two prosecutors in the Aaron Schwartz case have reported receiving threats -- One email gloating at doxing him, one postcard of a guillotine and one of them had their facebook account hacked. I've always assumed that people in high profile jobs like that receive threats on a regular basis, and that given the unpredictability of 4chan / anonymous that the number and types of threats were unexpectedly tame. http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-swartz-prosecutors-threats-hacking-2013-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-swartz-prosecutors-thre...
- wavesounds 13y ago
  I'm in no way condoning violence, threats or harassment of any kind. But the faceless bureaucracy is the problem. If people can make stupid decisions then not take responsibility because someone somewhere on the internet said something dumb then these problems will never get fixed.
mullingitover 13y ago
I recall a wise man once said, "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."
thinkcomp 13y ago
The actual case docket is here: http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2489830 http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2489830
locusm 13y ago
If the NSA cant keep a secret... This case is so profoundly sad.
MWil 13y ago
Can anyone answer this: wouldn't this information have been forced to be public as part of any successful criminal trial? Wasn't MIT's network setup directly at issue?
- dedward 13y ago
  Evidence introduced at trial, yes. Investigative materials and whatnot used to put the case together, things not directly used as evidence... perhaps not.
- sadfaceunread 13y ago
  Nope. Certain elements of evidence are routinely kept secret from the public at trials and may be kept under judicial seal.
beedogs 13y ago
MIT must've done something really embarrassingly awful to want to suppress this.
- incongruity 13y ago
  And are, in turn, doing something embarrassingly awful by moving to suppress this. (IMHO, of course).
  - malandrew 13y ago
    So they are forced to choose the lesser of two embarrassments. I'm really curious what they are trying to hide.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      Yeah, they are really not leaving me with any choice but to assume the worse possible circumstance...
      - e3pi 13y ago
        >... not leaving me with any choice but to assume the worse possible circumstance... What would that be?
akg_67 13y ago
MIT is no exception when it comes to the current class of inverse heroes. Recent events have shown that every person or organization will stoop as low as they can go to protect self-interest while preaching ethics and accountability to others and expecting them to follow in any condition. "While in the past people of rank or status were those and only those who took risks, who had the downside for their actions, and heroes were those who did so for the sake of others, today the exact reverse is taking place. We are witnessing the “rise of a new class of inverse heroes, that is, bureaucrats, bankers, Davos-attending members of the I.A.N.D. (International Association of Name Droppers), and academics with too much power and no real downside and/or accountability. They game the system while citizens pay the price.” Excerpt From: Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.”
- SagelyGuru 13y ago
  Agreed. Further, if helping the secret service to prosecute under these just new laws <sic> is such a worthwhile cause, what are they so afraid of? Should they not be proud to be identified? >"MIT claims it’s afraid the release of Swartz’s file will identify the names of MIT people who helped the Secret Service and federal prosecutors pursue felony charges against Swartz for his bulk downloading of academic articles from MIT’s network in 2011." Let me get this straight. There are academics involved, who are supposed to be professionally on the side of the freedom of information. They instead choose to inform on a colleague and ruin his life and then, knowing what they had done is morally objectionable on many levels, they use the fact that they might well be criticised for it to stifle information again and try to justify anonymity for themselves?!? If I was a bright young student I would no longer consider MIT. What can one hope to learn from people like these? Sadly, this whole case brings up uncomfortable parallels with anonymous informants always crawling out of the woodwork and taking delight in ruining their neighbours' lives, whenever a despotic regime takes hold of a society.
  - sadfaceunread 13y ago
    This is a ridiculous line of argument. Let me re-contextualize with a parallel scenario. Suppose you are the victim of any of crime. Suppose your teenage daughter is the one who actually called the police. Suppose the perpetrator of the crime was an animal rights activist with a large cohort of people with similar viewpoints who occasionally in a mob mentality anonymously engage in violence, or threats of violence. During the prosecution of the crime, the DoJ goes a little crazy and the accused commits suicide. The estate of the animal rights activist wants to release your daughter's bus route home from school, email address, and cell phone number. Do you file to prevent this information to be released?
venomsnake 13y ago
Are all organisations lately competing in some limbo tournament? How low can you set the bar and still move below it? There is no point of saving the face if it makes you look like an ass ...
JumpCrisscross 13y ago
Does anyone have the breakdown of MIT's total funding from: (i) tuition, (ii) alumni donations, (iii) endowment distributions, (iv) government contracts, grants, etc., and, (v) non-alumni non-governmental sources (other)?
- jkldotio 13y ago
  It seems they raise tens of millions from donations each year.[1] Given the calibre, and number, of speakers at Aaron Swartz's public eulogy who made some very pointed comments about the political dimensions of the case beyond their praise for Aaron's life I imagine there is potential for the issue to affect donations. [1] http://alum.mit.edu/pages/sliceofmit/2013/03/08/mit-ranks-11th-in-alumni-donations/ http://alum.mit.edu/pages/sliceofmit/2013/03/08/mit-ranks-11...
BrokenPipe 13y ago
Very sad.

297 points by hermanywong 13y ago

jlgreco 13y ago

Do they really think that this is making them look any better in this situation?

Vivtek 13y ago
Clearly they must.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  I wonder what they must be trying to hide then, because this looks pretty bad itself. I wonder if the same person may be behind both unreasonably disproportionate reactions...
  - noonespecial 13y ago
    I had the same disturbing thought. What if it was some muckety-muck at MIT leaning on the prosecutor's office the whole time in order to teach those meddling kids a lesson. Now that would be mucho-embarrassing if it came to light.
- Amadou 13y ago
  There are (at least) two ways to look at it: 1) They have no idea how it will be perceived from the "outside looking in." 2) They do know it will look bad, but they believe that it is worth it to protect the reputations of whomever might be revealed to have participated in the persecution.
hnnnnng 13y ago
Whats gonna happen? People are not going to stop going to MIT. The market it is in is education which is always growing and (sadly) the majority of people don't care what happened to Aaron Schwartz. MIT will still retain its top position and frankly I cannot fathom a scenario where it would have to face any serious consequences. So its most likely trying to hide something thats worth the loss of 'face' by filing this. But even if it fails, I don't think they give a fk.
- marshray 13y ago
  But MIT didn't get where it is by being careless about its public image. Association with that image is a nonzero part of the value of a degree from MIT. If they go about acting like bozos it affects current and future students as well as alumni.
  - ericd 13y ago
    Eh, I think you have to separate the students and faculty from the admins. I don't think many MIT students have ever been proud to be associated with the admins, because they do boneheaded things pretty regularly.
    - Amadou 13y ago
      The way the administration threw Star Simpson under the bus within hours of her arrest was despicable.
      - ericd 13y ago
        Did they? I graduated the year before that whole debacle, so I didn't get a very good sense of what happened beyond what was going on on one of the dorm mailing lists. I wouldn't be very surprised, though.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    MIT got where it is by being a crucial instrument of the military industrial complex, in many years the largest non-profit defense contractor in the country. They know which side their bread is buttered on.
- jmharvey 13y ago
  Donations matter, I hope. But I don't know how many regularly-donating alumni will follow through on their pledge not to give until this case is resolved, and proper action is taken. It's hard to do, and it feels lousy. The alumni who feel closest to this case are probably people who spent a lot of time making stuff. When they donate, they're more likely to target their money at helping other people make stuff, by donating to things like the Edgerton Center [1], MITERS [2], or SIPB [3], or even just giving money directly to dorm governments (my hall had a PIC burner sitting next to the toaster on our kitchen counter and a couple of oscilloscopes you could check out from the front desk, courtesy of some slush fund somewhere). When these alumni donate, they're not doing it to get their name on a plaque, or out of some kind of broad-based affinity for the school, they're doing it to help current students have the same kind of experiences they were able to enjoy. And if they stop donating, it's pretty easy to see the culture of creation suffering. People will keep making stuff, but it'll be a little more difficult, require a little more dedication, and it'll wind up being fewer people. That's a significant price to pay to stand on a principle. [1] http://web.mit.edu/edgerton/ http://web.mit.edu/edgerton/ [2] http://miters.mit.edu/ http://miters.mit.edu/ [3] http://sipb.mit.edu/ http://sipb.mit.edu/
marshray 13y ago
Another theory: they are conspiring in some sort of quid-pro-quo in order to give the government another chance in court or at least delay. MIT gets a lot of direct and indirect government money, or is in other ways susceptible to influence. I imagine a federal prosecutor's office can be quite persuasive.

davidxc 13y ago

I'm wondering why MIT still hasn't released its report on how Aaron Swartz's situation was handled. I think the report was supposed to have been released months ago.

asdfologist 13y ago
Their lawyers probably advised against it.
- davidxc 13y ago
  That seems likely, but I'm very disappointed that we haven't heard anything at all. I remember that Hal Abelson was in charge of preparing the report, and he has taught ethics classes at MIT. I'm hoping that he makes some statement about the report at least.
- gcb0 13y ago
  ...because they are guilty as hell?
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    And/or because people move on, forget about things.
jfirebaugh 13y ago
As far as I've been able to find, Hal Abelson's last statement was on May 13, when he wrote that the report would be released "this summer". http://tech.mit.edu/V133/N26/swartz/2.html http://tech.mit.edu/V133/N26/swartz/2.html This is indeed much delayed from his initial statement on January 22 that he hoped the report would be ready "in a few weeks." http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N63/abelson.html http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N63/abelson.html It's disappointing that it's taken this long.
NelsonMinar 13y ago
I'm eagerly awaiting that report too. Hal Abelson is a very respected professor, one of the good guys, and he's put his reputation on the line writing this report. I sure hope he's got the freedom to make it honest.

cowsandmilk 13y ago

(Note, this is purely informational, I completely disagree with what MIT is doing in this case) It is interesting that they have never heard of third party's intervening in FOIA cases because it actually is a common occurrence in academia. Many times, a professor at another university will file a FOIA request for your grant application. If you feel your research plans are threatened by having the details of your grant passed along to this other professor, your university will intervene on your behalf in the FOIA request. This is especially true if there is patentable material in the grant that they fear will be threatened by wide dissemination of the contents of the grant. Even if they fail in blocking the FOIA request, they usually can at least delay the release long enough to file a preliminary patent on the material described in the grant application. I can understand reporters not having heard of this tactic, but I'm surprised an expert FOIA litigator would be unfamiliar with these cases.

angersock 13y ago
I thought academia couldn't get any more childish, and then here we are. Wow.
- davorak 13y ago
  What gives you the impression that it is childish rather then just working with a system they can not change?
  - angersock 13y ago
    Issuing FOIA requests to screw over a competitor seems a bit much, right? Then again, there may well be some aspect of this I'm missing.
  - wavefunction 13y ago
    There is another option, which is to do your own research and live (and die) by a personal code of ethics. I don't believe that people "sell out," though I do believe that people "buy in." Adhering or conforming to a system you do not believe in is "buying in" to it.

mythz 13y ago

The Streisand effect will come into play here. If they fail in their bid, everyone's going to pay extra attention to look for what they were trying to hide.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

afarrell 13y ago

I'll wait to see the actual motion, but it seems reasonable that they would want the names of staff redacted to prevent them from getting death threats from people that equate them to leaders of the hitler youth. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5050412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5050412

scottshea 13y ago
From the article: "But it’s worth noting that names of third parties are already redacted from documents produced under FOIA." So it would appear that the names are already redacted
Amadou 13y ago
There is no evidence of death threats in that link. Equating them to the leaders of the hitler youth may be an extreme interpretation but is not threatening. My understanding is that the two prosecutors in the Aaron Schwartz case have reported receiving threats -- One email gloating at doxing him, one postcard of a guillotine and one of them had their facebook account hacked. I've always assumed that people in high profile jobs like that receive threats on a regular basis, and that given the unpredictability of 4chan / anonymous that the number and types of threats were unexpectedly tame. http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-swartz-prosecutors-threats-hacking-2013-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-swartz-prosecutors-thre...
wavesounds 13y ago
I'm in no way condoning violence, threats or harassment of any kind. But the faceless bureaucracy is the problem. If people can make stupid decisions then not take responsibility because someone somewhere on the internet said something dumb then these problems will never get fixed.

mullingitover 13y ago

I recall a wise man once said, "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."

thinkcomp 13y ago

The actual case docket is here: http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2489830 http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2489830

locusm 13y ago

If the NSA cant keep a secret... This case is so profoundly sad.

MWil 13y ago

Can anyone answer this: wouldn't this information have been forced to be public as part of any successful criminal trial? Wasn't MIT's network setup directly at issue?

dedward 13y ago
Evidence introduced at trial, yes. Investigative materials and whatnot used to put the case together, things not directly used as evidence... perhaps not.
sadfaceunread 13y ago
Nope. Certain elements of evidence are routinely kept secret from the public at trials and may be kept under judicial seal.

beedogs 13y ago

MIT must've done something really embarrassingly awful to want to suppress this.

incongruity 13y ago
And are, in turn, doing something embarrassingly awful by moving to suppress this. (IMHO, of course).
- malandrew 13y ago
  So they are forced to choose the lesser of two embarrassments. I'm really curious what they are trying to hide.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Yeah, they are really not leaving me with any choice but to assume the worse possible circumstance...
    - e3pi 13y ago
      >... not leaving me with any choice but to assume the worse possible circumstance... What would that be?

akg_67 13y ago

MIT is no exception when it comes to the current class of inverse heroes. Recent events have shown that every person or organization will stoop as low as they can go to protect self-interest while preaching ethics and accountability to others and expecting them to follow in any condition. "While in the past people of rank or status were those and only those who took risks, who had the downside for their actions, and heroes were those who did so for the sake of others, today the exact reverse is taking place. We are witnessing the “rise of a new class of inverse heroes, that is, bureaucrats, bankers, Davos-attending members of the I.A.N.D. (International Association of Name Droppers), and academics with too much power and no real downside and/or accountability. They game the system while citizens pay the price.” Excerpt From: Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.”

SagelyGuru 13y ago
Agreed. Further, if helping the secret service to prosecute under these just new laws <sic> is such a worthwhile cause, what are they so afraid of? Should they not be proud to be identified? >"MIT claims it’s afraid the release of Swartz’s file will identify the names of MIT people who helped the Secret Service and federal prosecutors pursue felony charges against Swartz for his bulk downloading of academic articles from MIT’s network in 2011." Let me get this straight. There are academics involved, who are supposed to be professionally on the side of the freedom of information. They instead choose to inform on a colleague and ruin his life and then, knowing what they had done is morally objectionable on many levels, they use the fact that they might well be criticised for it to stifle information again and try to justify anonymity for themselves?!? If I was a bright young student I would no longer consider MIT. What can one hope to learn from people like these? Sadly, this whole case brings up uncomfortable parallels with anonymous informants always crawling out of the woodwork and taking delight in ruining their neighbours' lives, whenever a despotic regime takes hold of a society.
- sadfaceunread 13y ago
  This is a ridiculous line of argument. Let me re-contextualize with a parallel scenario. Suppose you are the victim of any of crime. Suppose your teenage daughter is the one who actually called the police. Suppose the perpetrator of the crime was an animal rights activist with a large cohort of people with similar viewpoints who occasionally in a mob mentality anonymously engage in violence, or threats of violence. During the prosecution of the crime, the DoJ goes a little crazy and the accused commits suicide. The estate of the animal rights activist wants to release your daughter's bus route home from school, email address, and cell phone number. Do you file to prevent this information to be released?

venomsnake 13y ago

Are all organisations lately competing in some limbo tournament? How low can you set the bar and still move below it? There is no point of saving the face if it makes you look like an ass ...

JumpCrisscross 13y ago

Does anyone have the breakdown of MIT's total funding from: (i) tuition, (ii) alumni donations, (iii) endowment distributions, (iv) government contracts, grants, etc., and, (v) non-alumni non-governmental sources (other)?

jkldotio 13y ago
It seems they raise tens of millions from donations each year.[1] Given the calibre, and number, of speakers at Aaron Swartz's public eulogy who made some very pointed comments about the political dimensions of the case beyond their praise for Aaron's life I imagine there is potential for the issue to affect donations. [1] http://alum.mit.edu/pages/sliceofmit/2013/03/08/mit-ranks-11th-in-alumni-donations/ http://alum.mit.edu/pages/sliceofmit/2013/03/08/mit-ranks-11...

BrokenPipe 13y ago

Very sad.