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United States v. Swartz

February 15, 2024

In United States of America v. Aaron Swartz, Aaron Swartz, an American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist, was prosecuted for multiple violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (CFAA), after downloading academic journal articles through the MIT computer network from a source (JSTOR) for which he had an account as a Harvard research fellow. Facing trial and the possibility of imprisonment, Swartz committed suicide, and the case was consequently dismissed.[1][2][3]

United States v. Aaron Swartz
CourtUnited States District Court for the District of Massachusetts
Full case nameUnited States of America v. Aaron Swartz
DefendantAaron Swartz
ProsecutionCarmen Ortiz
Stephen Heymann
Citation(s)1:11-cr-10260
Court membership
Judge(s) sittingNathaniel M. Gorton

Background edit

On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested by MIT Police on state breaking-and-entering charges, in connection with the systematic downloading of academic journal articles from JSTOR.[4][5][6][7] Federal prosecutors eventually charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,[8] charges carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines plus 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution and supervised release.[9]

On January 11, 2013, two years after his initial arrest, Swartz was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment, where he had hanged himself.[10][11][12]

JSTOR is a digital repository that archives − and disseminates online − manuscripts, GIS systems, scanned plant specimens and content from academic journal articles.[13] Swartz was a research fellow at Harvard University, which provided him with a JSTOR account. Visitors to MIT's "open campus" were authorized to access JSTOR through its network.[14]

According to state and federal authorities, Swartz downloaded a large number[i] of academic journal articles from JSTOR through MIT's computer network, over the course of a few weeks in late 2010 and early 2011.[5] They said Swartz downloaded the documents to a laptop computer connected to a networking switch in a controlled-access wiring closet.[15][16][17][18] According to press reports, the door to the closet was kept unlocked.[19][20][21]

Arrest, charges and indictments edit

On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested near the Harvard campus[6][22] by two MIT police officers and a U.S. Secret Service agent. He was arraigned in Cambridge District Court on two state charges of breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony.[4][5][18][23] However, it was widely reported in the press that the door Swartz had used was never locked, making it impossible for him to break and enter.[19][20][21]

On July 11, 2011, Swartz was indicted in federal District Court on four felony counts: wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a protected computer.[1][7][24][25]

On November 17, 2011, Swartz was indicted by a Middlesex County Superior Court grand jury on state charges of breaking and entering with intent, grand larceny, and unauthorized access to a computer network.[26][27]

On December 16, 2011, the district attorney's office filed a nolle prosequi declaration in the case generated by Swartz's initial January 6, 2011, arrest.[5] The state charges against Swartz stemming from the November 17, 2011, indictment were dropped on March 8, 2012.[28] The state charges were dropped due to a deal being reached in which the data was returned by Swartz.[28] A report later submitted to the president of MIT about the Swartz case suggests, however, that Massachusetts state law required the Middlesex district attorney to dismiss the charges after the Boston U.S. Attorneys' Office and the Secret Service failed to promptly hand over evidence requested by Swartz's attorney during the Massachusetts case's discovery process.[29]

Writing in Massachusetts Lawyers' Weekly, Harvey Silverglate reported that lawyers familiar with the original case told him they had expected it to be dismissed after a "'continuance without a finding' ... The charge [would be] held in abeyance ... without any verdict ... for a period of a few months up to maybe a couple of years."[30] After the publication of his Massachusetts Lawyers' Weekly piece, Silverglate explained to CNET's Declan McCullagh that if the defendant manages to stay out of further legal trouble after such a continuance, the case is typically dismissed.[31] "Tragedy intervened," Silverglate had written, "when [U.S. Attorney Carmen] Ortiz's office took over the case to 'send a message.'"[30]

According to Verge reporter Jeff Blagdon[32] and the Huffington Post,[33] federal rather than local prosecutors had been "calling the shots" on the prosecution of the case since Swartz's arrest. Both cited a letter from Swartz's attorneys to the Department of Justice.[34]

The lead prosecutor in Mr. Swartz's [federal] case, AUSA Stephen Heymann ... and [Secret Service] Agent Pickett directed and controlled the investigation of Mr. Swartz from the time of [his] arrest on January 6 ... Heymann's involvement in the case had commenced very early in the investigation.[34]

Federal prosecution edit

On April 13, 2011, as part of their investigation, federal authorities interviewed Swartz's former partner, Wired journalist Quinn Norton; she penned an article, "Life Inside the Aaron Swartz Investigation," detailing her experiences in the case.[35][36]

I mentioned ... a two-year-old public post on ... Aaron's blog. It had been fairly widely picked up by other blogs. I couldn't imagine that these people who had just claimed to have read everything I'd ever written had never looked at their target's blog, which appeared in his FBI file, or searched for what he thought about "open access." They hadn't.
So this is where I was profoundly foolish. I told them about the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto. And in doing so, Aaron would explain to me later (and reporters would confirm), I made everything worse.[35]

On July 19, 2011, the July 11th federal indictment[1][7][24] was unsealed, charging Swartz with two counts of fraud and two counts related to accessing and damaging a protected computer.[1][25] According to the indictment, Swartz surreptitiously attached a laptop to MIT's computer network, which ran a script named "keepgrabbing.py",[1][7] allowing him to "rapidly download an extraordinary volume of articles from JSTOR."[1][37] Prosecutors in the case said Swartz acted with the intention of making the papers available on P2P file-sharing sites.[1][15]

Swartz surrendered to authorities, pleading not guilty on all counts, and was released on $100,000 unsecured bail.[38] After his arrest, JSTOR released a statement saying that though it considered Swartz's access to be a "significant misuse" committed in an "unauthorized fashion," it would not pursue civil litigation against him;[16][38] MIT did not comment on the proceedings.[39]

The New York Times wrote of the case: "a respected Harvard researcher who also is an Internet folk hero has been arrested in Boston on charges related to computer hacking, which are based on allegations that he downloaded articles that he was entitled to get free."[38] The Awl similarly commented that "Swartz is being charged with hacker crimes, not copyright-infringement crimes, because he didn't actually distribute any documents, plus JSTOR didn't even want him prosecuted."[40]

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stephen Heymann and Scott Garland were the lead prosecutors, working under the supervision of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz.[1][17][41] The case was brought under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which was passed in 1986 to enhance the government's ability to prosecute hackers who accessed computers to steal information or to disrupt or destroy computer functionality.[42][43] "If convicted on these charges," said Ortiz, "Swartz faces up to 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and a fine of up to $1 million."[9]

On September 12, 2012, the prosecution filed a superseding indictment adding nine more felony counts.[8][44] George Washington University Law School Professor Orin Kerr, writing on the legal blog Volokh Conspiracy, opined that the risk of a maximum sentence in Swartz's case was not high.[45] In an interview with Boston's WBUR, retired federal judge Nancy Gertner said a sentence of 35 years for a case like Swartz's "never occurs." She questioned the propriety of pressing these charges at all. Referring to decision-making by Ortiz's office, she said "this is the example of bad judgment I saw too often," suggesting that a two-year diversion program leading to expunged charges would have been more fitting.[46]

Plea negotiations edit

Swartz's attorney, Elliot Peters, stated that prosecutors at one point offered a plea deal of four months in prison and pleading guilty to 13 charges, and warned that if Swartz rejected the deal, future deals would be less attractive;[47] and that two days before Swartz's death, that "Swartz would have to spend six months in prison and plead guilty to 13 charges if he wanted to avoid going to trial."[48] Under the six-month deal, after Swartz pled guilty to the 13 charges, the government would have argued for a six-month sentence, and Swartz would have argued for a lesser sentence; the judge would then be free to assign whatever sentence the judge thought appropriate, up to six months.[49] Peters later filed a complaint with the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility, stating that if Swartz didn't plead guilty, Heymann "threatened that he would seek for Mr. Swartz to serve seven years in prison," a difference in duration Peters asserts went "far beyond" the disparity encouraged by the plea-bargain portion of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.[34]

Andy Good, Swartz's initial lawyer, told The Boston Globe: "I told Heymann the kid was a suicide risk. His reaction was a standard reaction in that office, not unique to Steve. He said, 'Fine, we'll lock him up.' I'm not saying they made Aaron kill himself. Aaron might have done this anyway. I'm saying they were aware of the risk, and they were heedless."[50]

Marty Weinberg, who took the case over from Good, said he nearly negotiated a plea bargain in which Swartz would not serve any time. "JSTOR signed off on it," he said, "but MIT would not."[50]

Two days before his death, JSTOR announced on January 9, 2013, that it would make "more than 4.5 million articles" available to the public free of charge. The "Register & Read" service, in beta for the previous 10 months, was capped at three articles every two weeks (78 per year), readable online only, with some downloadable for a fee.[51][52]

After his death, Ortiz's office dismissed the charges against Swartz.[2][3] She said, "This office's conduct was appropriate in bringing and handling this case ... This office sought an appropriate sentence that matched the alleged conduct—a sentence that we would recommend to the judge of six months in a low security setting ... At no time did this office ever seek—or ever tell Mr. Swartz's attorneys that it intended to seek—maximum penalties under the law."[53][54]

On January 12, 2013, Alex Stamos, a computer forensics investigator employed by the Swartz legal defense team, posted an online summary of the expert testimony he had been prepared to present in the JSTOR case, had Swartz lived to see trial. He wrote:

If I had taken the stand as planned and had been asked by the prosecutor whether Aaron's actions were "wrong," I would probably have replied that what Aaron did would better be described as "inconsiderate." In the same way it is inconsiderate ... to check out every book at the library needed for a History 101 paper. It is inconsiderate to download lots of files on shared wifi ...[55]

Federal prosecutory rationale and responses edit

U.S. Attorney Ortiz asserted after the 2011 indictment that "stealing is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars. It is equally harmful to the victim, whether you sell what you have stolen or give it away."[9][40]

About the prosecution edit

At a January 24, 2013, memorial for Swartz, Carl Malamud recalled their work with PACER. He noted that they had brought millions of U.S. District Court records out from behind PACER's "pay wall" and found them full of privacy violations.

We sent our results to the Chief Judges of 31 District Courts ... They redacted those documents and they yelled at the lawyers that filed them ... The Judicial Conference changed their privacy rules.

... [To] the bureaucrats who ran the Administrative Office of the United States Courts ... we were thieves ...

So they called the FBI ... [The FBI] found nothing wrong ...

"Was the overly aggressive posture of the Department of Justice prosecutors and law enforcement officials," he asked, "revenge because they were embarrassed that — in their view at least — we somehow got away with something in the PACER incident? Was the merciless JSTOR prosecution the revenge of embarrassed bureaucrats because they looked stupid in the New York Times, because the U.S. Senate called them on the carpet?"[56]

Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean wrote an article on the legal blog justia.com entitled "Dealing with Aaron Swartz in the Nixonian Tradition: Overzealous Overcharging Leads to a Tragic Result", saying "these are not people who are conscientiously and fairly upholding our federal laws. Rather, they are typically authoritarian personalities who get their jollies from shamelessly beating up on unfortunate people like Aaron Swartz."[57]

George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr wrote on January 15, 2013, that "the charges brought here were pretty much what any good federal prosecutor would have charged."[58][59] Duke University law professor James Boyle replied in The Huffington Post: "I think that in [Kerr's] descriptions of the facts [and of] the issues surrounding prosecutorial discretion ... he tends ... to minimize or ignore facts that might put [Swartz] in a more favorable light."[60]

In response to a piece by Larissa MacFarquhar in the New Yorker, retired journalist Jane Scholz objected to what she perceived as an effort "to turn Swartz into a hero for facing government prosecution after hacking the JSTOR archive", arguing that "Swartz was apparently familiar with laws protecting proprietary-information-management systems, so he should not have been surprised by the severity of the prosecution's response to his crime. It is a crime, and not a victimless one. I am a retired journalist; during my working years, my salary depended, and today my pension relies, on people paying for copyrighted content. In recent years, as the business that supports journalism has declined, thousands of journalists have lost pay, benefits, and, ultimately, their jobs. [ ... ] I find it ironic that Swartz made several million dollars selling the rights to his own copyrighted programming to Conde Nast. Swartz's is a sad story, but it's not a heroic one." Law professor Mike Maddison commented on Scholz's letter: "it is difficult to find a better example of the glib equation of 'my career isn't the success that it once was' and 'somebody committed a crime' that infects contemporary dialogues about IP rights."[61]

David Aaronovitch noted in The Times that JSTOR was itself a "product of philanthropy" but that it had to charge access fees so that it could pay academic publishers for rights to their publications. He decried the "reckless" behavior of a generation which "cannot be persuaded—yet—that copyright matters".[62]

In contrast, Peter Ludlow in The Chronicle of Higher Education argued that due to the publish or perish nature of academia and the importance that journals' reputations have, "[w]hen an academic signs away copyright to an academic publisher, it amounts to a 'contract of adhesion'—meaning a contract in which one party has all the power and it was not freely bargained" and that "like the original authors, JSTOR had to negotiate its licensing agreements from a position of weakness", which Ludlow illustrated with a bargaining agreement from JSTOR's history, which stipulated that the publishers "be compensated if there was a loss to their (minimal) sales of rights to older materials, and they demanded compensation even before JSTOR covered its own expenses". Ludlow concluded that "Until academics get their acts together and start using new modes of publication, we need to recognize that actions like Aaron Swartz's civil disobedience are legitimate."[63]

Rob Weir, who describes himself as an "associate editor of a very small journal", writes in Inside Higher Ed that "Many wonder why money accrues to those whose only 'creation' is to aggregate the labor of others, especially when some form of taxpayer money underwrote many of the articles. That's a legitimate concern, but defending Swartz's method elevates vigilantism above the rules of law and reason." While he concedes that "JSTOR charges university libraries a king's ransom for its services", he also argues that "even a modest journal is expensive to produce" and that "if you want anyone to read your journal, you'll give it to JSTOR or some other aggregator. Unless, of course, you can drum up lots of free advertising". He concludes that the "information wants to be free" adage fails to account for the "hidden costs within the culture of free", and proposes that "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch" is the appropriate summary of production costs in the Information Age, which he transmutes to "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime" for "hackers and info thieves".[64]

Tim Wu, writing in The New Yorker, called out what he perceived as lack of proportionality, writing that "The act was harmless — [ ... ] meaning that there was no actual physical harm, nor actual economic harm. The leak was found and plugged; JSTOR suffered no actual economic loss. It did not press charges. Like a pie in the face, Swartz's act was annoying to its victim, but of no lasting consequence."[65] Wu went on to compare Swartz's act with that of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who, according to Wu, "in the nineteen-seventies, committed crimes similar to, but more economically damaging than, Swartz's. Those two men hacked AT&T's telephone system to make free long-distance calls, and actually sold the illegal devices (blue boxes) to make cash. Their mentor, John Draper, did go to jail for a few months (where he wrote one of the world's first word processors), but Jobs and Wozniak were never prosecuted. Instead, they got bored of phreaking and built a computer. The great ones almost always operate at the edge" writes Wu, in support of this thesis that "We can rightly judge a society by how it treats its eccentrics and deviant geniuses—and by that measure, we have utterly failed [in the case of Swartz]."[66]

About the law edit

After Boyle's Huffington Post column, Kerr returned to the topic, advocating reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) under which Swartz was prosecuted. "The problem raised by the Swartz case is ... [that] felony liability under the statute is triggered much too easily. The law needs to draw a distinction between low-level crimes and more serious crimes, and current law does so poorly ..."[67]

Chris Soghoian, a technology policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, argued similarly, "Existing laws don't recognise the distinction between two types of computer crimes: malicious crimes committed for profit ... and cases where hackers break into systems to prove their skillfulness or spread information that they think should be available to the public."[68] Jennifer Granick, Director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, both defended Swartz and challenged the scope of the law under which he was prosecuted.[69][70]

Law professor Stephen L. Carter agrees that the prosecution of Swartz was ridiculous, but also lays the blame on Congress for creating a new type of federal felony roughly every week.[71] Carter considers that the CFAA is a good example of this phenomenon. He writes: "Enacted in the 1980s, before the Internet explosion, the statute makes a criminal of anyone who 'intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access' and, in the process, obtains financial information, government information or 'information from any protected computer.'" Carter then gives the following example: "You're sitting in your office, when suddenly you remember that you forgot to pay your Visa bill. You take a moment to log on to your bank account, and you pay the bill. Then you go back to work. If your employer has a policy prohibiting personal use of office computers, then you have exceeded your authorized access; since you went to your bank website, you have obtained financial information. Believe it or not, you're now a felon. The likelihood of prosecution might be small, but you've still committed a crime." Carter further writes that the problem with the statute was well-known, and that "some federal courts have given the statute's language a narrow construction, but others have read it broadly, and the Obama administration has opposed efforts in Congress to narrow its scope. Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, warned in an opinion last spring [of 2012] the government's position 'would make criminals of large groups of people who would have little reason to suspect they are committing a federal crime.'"[72]

In 2013, Zoe Lofgren and Ron Wyden have advanced a legislative proposal called "Aaron's Law" to amend the CFAA in order to eliminate the aforementioned vagueness and also eliminate the "redundant provisions that enable a person to be punished multiple times ... for the same crime".[73] In an opinion piece for Wired magazine, they wrote that "This is, in fact, what happened to Aaron Swartz — more than a third of the charges in the superseding indictment against him were under this redundant CFAA provision."[73]

Reactions, complaints and post-dismissal motions edit

See also: Aaron Swartz § Response

Speaking at his son's funeral, Robert Swartz said, "[Aaron] was killed by the government, and MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."[74] Mitch Kapor posted the statement on Twitter.[75] Carmen Ortiz's husband, IBM executive Tom Dolan, replied through his own Twitter feed, @TomJDolan, "Truly incredible that in their own son's obit they blame others for his death and make no mention of the 6 month offer."[76] In Esquire, Charlie Pierce wrote that "the glibness with which her husband and her defenders toss off a 'mere' six months in federal prison, low-security or not, is a further indication that something is seriously out of whack with the way our prosecutors think these days."[77]

Contacted by The Guardian, Ortiz's spokesperson had "no comment" to make on the matter;[76] Reuters reported being unable to contact Dolan.[78] On January 16, 2013, Ortiz released an official statement, in which she reiterated that "I must, however, make clear that this office's conduct was appropriate in bringing and handling this case," and that her subordinates "took on the difficult task of enforcing a law they had taken an oath to uphold, and did so reasonably."[78]

On January 28, 2013, the lawyers for Swartz's estate sent a letter to the Justice Department accusing Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann of professional misconduct.[33][79] They said Heymann "may have misrepresented to the Court the extent of the federal government's [early] involvement in the investigation."[80]

Emails and reports further illustrated ... that AUSA Heymann was himself involved in the investigation even before Mr. Swartz was arrested on January 6, 2011.[34]

The lawyers also said Heymann "abused his discretion when he attempted to coerce" Swartz into pleading guilty:[33][79][80]

Swartz ... naturally felt extreme pressure to waive his rights ... The difference between an offer of four months and a threat of seven years went far beyond the minimal reduction ... that should properly have applied for [a defendant's] "acceptance of responsibility" under the Sentencing Guidelines.[34][80]

On March 15, the lawyers asked the federal court to modify the protective order on Swartz's file to permit public disclosure of the discovery materials, including the names and titles of MIT, JSTOR and law enforcement employees. The lawyers said that withholding the names would make the documents "less intelligible and thus far less useful to Congress."[81] The First Assistant U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, Jack Pirozzolo, said he was taking a role in the discussions and would be asking the court to give the affected employees an opportunity to be heard on the proposed disclosures.[81]

The Department of Justice sought to redact the names of the prosecutors involved in the case. On April 3, 2013, a U.S. Attorney's Office spokesperson said, "Our argument against it is that not only does it have an effect on the people involved in the case, but there's also sometimes a residual effect." The Attorney's Office reported threats and hacking attempts against prosecutors already known to be involved: "threatening emails" received by Ortiz and Heymann, the hacking of Heymann's Facebook account and that "Heymann's father, a Harvard professor, received a postcard with his photo in a guillotine".[82] The postcard and some email excerpts were published by Wired magazine.[83]

On May 13, 2013, the court granted the estate's motion in part, permitting public disclosure of much of the material the estate's lawyers had sought to have unsealed, provided that the names of MIT and government employees were first redacted. The estate's argument for disclosure of these names was "substantially outweighed by the interest of the government and the victims in shielding their employees from potential retaliation," wrote Judge Nathaniel Gorton.[84] The judge also ruled that information disclosing details of computer network security at MIT should not be made public.[84] The prosecutors and Swartz's lawyers were ordered to propose the terms of the disclosures and redactions by May 27, 2013.[84]

Kevin Poulsen filed a FOIA lawsuit and in November 2013 obtained the release of 130 pages from the file that the US Secret Service has on Swartz, out of approximately 20,000 pages that the agency has in relation to Swartz.[85]

Of Heymann, BuzzFeed has noted: "Back in 2008, young hacker Jonathan James killed himself in the midst of a federal investigation led by the same prosecutor."[86]

In January 2013, WikiLeaks claimed through its Twitter account that Swartz had been in contact with Julian Assange through 2010 and 2011, and that Swartz may have been a source of leaked materials.[87] If true, this would offer an explanation as to why charges against Swartz were pursued by the federal government despite JSTOR dropping charges and urging that the government and MIT do the same.[88]

Notes edit

^ The MIT network administration office told MIT police that "approximately 70 gigabytes of data had been downloaded, 98% of which was from JSTOR."[5] The first federal indictment alleged "approximately 4.8 million articles ... 1.7 million [of which] were made available by independent publishers for purchase through JSTOR's Publisher Sales Service."[1] The superseding indictment characterized the amount as "a major portion of the total archive in which JSTOR had invested ... " removing the estimates.[89]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i July 2011 Initial Federal Indictment of Aaron Swartz. Posted by New York Times, 19 July 2011. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  2. ^ a b Landergan, Katherine (2013-01-14). "US District Court drops charges against Aaron Swartz - MIT - Your Campus". Boston.com. Retrieved 2013-01-23.
  3. ^ a b United States v. Swartz, 1:11-cr-10260, 106 (D. Mass. filed Jan. 14, 2013).
  4. ^ a b Gerstein, Josh (July 22, 2011). "MIT also pressing charges against hacking suspect". Politico. Swartz['s] alleged use of MIT facilities and Web connections to access the JSTOR database … resulted in two state felony charges for breaking into a 'depository' and breaking & entering in the daytime, according to local prosecutors.
  5. ^ a b c d e Commonwealth v. Swartz, Nos. 11-52CR73 & 11-52CR75, MIT Police Incident Report (Mass. Dist. Ct. dismissed Dec. 16, 2011) ("MIT's IS&T Department … explained that they were able to determine that this laptop was illegally downloading…. IS&T had put an approximate value on the downloaded information at $50,000.… The suspect … was arrested for two counts of Breaking and Entering in the daytime with the intent to commit a felony.").
  6. ^ a b Hak, Susana; Paz, Gabriella (January 26, 2011). "Compilation of December 15, 2010–January 20, 2011" (PDF). Hak–De Paz Police Log Compilations. MIT Crime Club. p. 6. Jan. 6, 2:20 p.m., Aaron Swartz, was arrested at 24 Lee Street as a suspect for breaking and entering….
  7. ^ a b c d Kirschbaum, Connor (August 3, 2011). "Swartz indicted for JSTOR theft". The Tech. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved January 12, 2013.
  8. ^ a b "September 2012 Superseding Federal Indictment of Aaron Swartz" (PDF). wired.com. 2012-09-12. Retrieved 2013-05-20.
  9. ^ a b c US Attorney's Office District of Massachusetts (July 19, 2011). . Press release. Archived from the original on May 26, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  10. ^ Thomas, Owen (January 12, 2013). "Family of Aaron Swartz Blames MIT, Prosecutors For His Death". Business Insider. Retrieved January 12, 2013.
  11. ^ "Aaron Swartz, internet freedom activist, dies aged 26". BBC News. January 13, 2013. Retrieved 2013-01-13.
  12. ^ "Aaron Swartz, Tech Prodigy and Internet Activist, Is Dead at 26". Time. January 13, 2013. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
  13. ^ "Terms and Conditions of Use". JSTOR. New York: ITHAKA. January 15, 2013. JSTOR's integrated digital platform is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to … scholarly materials: journal issues …; manuscripts and monographs; …; spatial/geographic information systems data; plant specimens; …
  14. ^ Granick, Jennifer, Towards Learning from Losing Aaron Swartz: Part 2, The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School blog, 15 January 2013. Retrieved 26 January 2013.
  15. ^ a b Lindsay, Jay (July 19, 2011). "Feds: Harvard fellow hacked millions of papers". Boston. Associated Press. Retrieved 2013-01-15.
  16. ^ a b "JSTOR Statement: Misuse Incident and Criminal Case". JSTOR. Retrieved January 12, 2013.
  17. ^ a b Carter, Zach; Grim, Ryan; Reilly, Ryan J (January 12, 2013). "Aaron Swartz, Internet Pioneer, Found Dead Amid Prosecutor 'Bullying' In Unconventional Case". Huffington Post.
  18. ^ a b Cohen, Noam (January 20, 2013). "How M.I.T. ensnared a hacker, bucking a freewheeling culture". The New York Times. p. A1. 'Suspect is seen on camera entering network closet' [in an unlocked building].…  Within a mile of MIT … he was stopped by an MIT police captain and [U.S. Secret Service agent] Pickett.
  19. ^ a b Peters, Justin (February 7, 2013). . Slate. N.Y.C. 6. Archived from the original on February 10, 2013. Retrieved February 10, 2013. The superseding indictment … claimed that Swartz had 'contrived to break into a restricted-access wiring closet at MIT.'  But the closet door had been unlocked—and remained unlocked even after the university and authorities were aware that someone had been in there trying to access the school's network.
  20. ^ a b Larissa MacFarquhar (March 11, 2013). "Requiem for a dream: The tragedy of Aaron Swartz". The New Yorker. [Swartz] wrote a script that instructed his computer to download articles continuously, something that was forbidden by JSTOR's terms of service.…  He spoofed the computer's address….  This happened several times.  MIT traced the requests to his laptop, which he had hidden in an unlocked closet.
  21. ^ a b Merritt, Jeralyn (January 14, 2013). "MIT to conduct internal probe on its role in Aaron Swartz case". TalkLeft (blog). Att'y Jeralyn Merritt. The wiring closet was not locked and was accessible to the public.  If you look at the pictures supplied by the Government, you can see graffiti on one wall.
  22. ^ Lipinski, Pearle and Joseph Maurer, Police Log (12/19-2/5), The Tech, 18 February 2011 (Volume 131, Issue 6). Retrieved 24 January 2011.
  23. ^ Singel, Ryan (February 27, 2011). "Rogue academic downloader busted by MIT webcam stakeout, arrest report says". Wired. N.Y.C. Swartz is accused … of stealing the articles by attaching a laptop directly to a network switch in … a 'restricted' room, though neither the police report nor the indictment [mentions] a door lock or signage indicating the room is off-limits.
  24. ^ a b Kao, Joanna The Tech’s coverage of Aaron Swartz 2017-10-31 at the Wayback Machine The Tech, 12 January 2013. Retrieved 18 May 2013
  25. ^ a b Bilton, Nick (July 19, 2011). "Internet Activist Charged in Data Theft". Boston: Bits Blog, The New York Times Company. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  26. ^ Hawkinson, John (November 18, 2011). "Swartz indicted for breaking and entering". The Tech. MIT. p. 11. Swartz … was indicted … in Middlesex Superior Court … for breaking and entering, larceny over $250, and unauthorized access to a computer network.
  27. ^ "Cambridge man indicted on breaking & entering charges, larceny charges in connection with data theft" (Press release). Middlesex District Attorney. November 17, 2011. Swartz … was indicted today on charges of Breaking and Entering with Intent to Commit a Felony, Larceny over $250, and Unauthorized Access to a Computer Network by a Middlesex Superior Grand Jury.
  28. ^ a b Hawkinson, John State drops charges against Swartz; federal charges remain The Tech, 16 March 2012. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
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External links edit

  • Case Docket: USA v. Swartz
  • "Overview". JSTOR Evidence in United States vs. Aaron Swartz. JSTOR  . July 30, 2013. from the original on September 23, 2013.
  • "Summary of Events". JSTOR Evidence in United States vs. Aaron Swartz. JSTOR  . July 30, 2013. from the original on September 21, 2013.
  • "Documents". JSTOR Evidence in United States vs. Aaron Swartz. JSTOR  . July 30, 2013. from the original on August 15, 2013.. Over 300 subpoenaed documents available for download.
  • Guerilla Open Access Manifesto

February 15, 2024
united, states, swartz, united, states, america, aaron, swartz, aaron, swartz, american, computer, programmer, writer, political, organizer, internet, activist, prosecuted, multiple, violations, computer, fraud, abuse, 1986, cfaa, after, downloading, academic,. In United States of America v Aaron Swartz Aaron Swartz an American computer programmer writer political organizer and Internet activist was prosecuted for multiple violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 CFAA after downloading academic journal articles through the MIT computer network from a source JSTOR for which he had an account as a Harvard research fellow Facing trial and the possibility of imprisonment Swartz committed suicide and the case was consequently dismissed 1 2 3 United States v Aaron SwartzCourtUnited States District Court for the District of MassachusettsFull case nameUnited States of America v Aaron SwartzDefendantAaron SwartzProsecutionCarmen OrtizStephen HeymannCitation s 1 11 cr 10260Court membershipJudge s sittingNathaniel M Gorton Contents 1 Background 2 Arrest charges and indictments 3 Federal prosecution 3 1 Plea negotiations 3 2 Federal prosecutory rationale and responses 3 2 1 About the prosecution 3 2 2 About the law 3 3 Reactions complaints and post dismissal motions 4 Notes 5 See also 6 References 7 External linksBackground editOn January 6 2011 Swartz was arrested by MIT Police on state breaking and entering charges in connection with the systematic downloading of academic journal articles from JSTOR 4 5 6 7 Federal prosecutors eventually charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 8 charges carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of 1 million in fines plus 35 years in prison asset forfeiture restitution and supervised release 9 On January 11 2013 two years after his initial arrest Swartz was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment where he had hanged himself 10 11 12 JSTOR is a digital repository that archives and disseminates online manuscripts GIS systems scanned plant specimens and content from academic journal articles 13 Swartz was a research fellow at Harvard University which provided him with a JSTOR account Visitors to MIT s open campus were authorized to access JSTOR through its network 14 According to state and federal authorities Swartz downloaded a large number i of academic journal articles from JSTOR through MIT s computer network over the course of a few weeks in late 2010 and early 2011 5 They said Swartz downloaded the documents to a laptop computer connected to a networking switch in a controlled access wiring closet 15 16 17 18 According to press reports the door to the closet was kept unlocked 19 20 21 Arrest charges and indictments editOn January 6 2011 Swartz was arrested near the Harvard campus 6 22 by two MIT police officers and a U S Secret Service agent He was arraigned in Cambridge District Court on two state charges of breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony 4 5 18 23 However it was widely reported in the press that the door Swartz had used was never locked making it impossible for him to break and enter 19 20 21 On July 11 2011 Swartz was indicted in federal District Court on four felony counts wire fraud computer fraud unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer 1 7 24 25 On November 17 2011 Swartz was indicted by a Middlesex County Superior Court grand jury on state charges of breaking and entering with intent grand larceny and unauthorized access to a computer network 26 27 On December 16 2011 the district attorney s office filed a nolle prosequi declaration in the case generated by Swartz s initial January 6 2011 arrest 5 The state charges against Swartz stemming from the November 17 2011 indictment were dropped on March 8 2012 28 The state charges were dropped due to a deal being reached in which the data was returned by Swartz 28 A report later submitted to the president of MIT about the Swartz case suggests however that Massachusetts state law required the Middlesex district attorney to dismiss the charges after the Boston U S Attorneys Office and the Secret Service failed to promptly hand over evidence requested by Swartz s attorney during the Massachusetts case s discovery process 29 Writing in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly Harvey Silverglate reported that lawyers familiar with the original case told him they had expected it to be dismissed after a continuance without a finding The charge would be held in abeyance without any verdict for a period of a few months up to maybe a couple of years 30 After the publication of his Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly piece Silverglate explained to CNET s Declan McCullagh that if the defendant manages to stay out of further legal trouble after such a continuance the case is typically dismissed 31 Tragedy intervened Silverglate had written when U S Attorney Carmen Ortiz s office took over the case to send a message 30 According to Verge reporter Jeff Blagdon 32 and the Huffington Post 33 federal rather than local prosecutors had been calling the shots on the prosecution of the case since Swartz s arrest Both cited a letter from Swartz s attorneys to the Department of Justice 34 The lead prosecutor in Mr Swartz s federal case AUSA Stephen Heymann and Secret Service Agent Pickett directed and controlled the investigation of Mr Swartz from the time of his arrest on January 6 Heymann s involvement in the case had commenced very early in the investigation 34 Federal prosecution editOn April 13 2011 as part of their investigation federal authorities interviewed Swartz s former partner Wired journalist Quinn Norton she penned an article Life Inside the Aaron Swartz Investigation detailing her experiences in the case 35 36 I mentioned a two year old public post on Aaron s blog It had been fairly widely picked up by other blogs I couldn t imagine that these people who had just claimed to have read everything I d ever written had never looked at their target s blog which appeared in his FBI file or searched for what he thought about open access They hadn t So this is where I was profoundly foolish I told them about the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto And in doing so Aaron would explain to me later and reporters would confirm I made everything worse 35 On July 19 2011 the July 11th federal indictment 1 7 24 was unsealed charging Swartz with two counts of fraud and two counts related to accessing and damaging a protected computer 1 25 According to the indictment Swartz surreptitiously attached a laptop to MIT s computer network which ran a script named keepgrabbing py 1 7 allowing him to rapidly download an extraordinary volume of articles from JSTOR 1 37 Prosecutors in the case said Swartz acted with the intention of making the papers available on P2P file sharing sites 1 15 Swartz surrendered to authorities pleading not guilty on all counts and was released on 100 000 unsecured bail 38 After his arrest JSTOR released a statement saying that though it considered Swartz s access to be a significant misuse committed in an unauthorized fashion it would not pursue civil litigation against him 16 38 MIT did not comment on the proceedings 39 The New York Times wrote of the case a respected Harvard researcher who also is an Internet folk hero has been arrested in Boston on charges related to computer hacking which are based on allegations that he downloaded articles that he was entitled to get free 38 The Awl similarly commented that Swartz is being charged with hacker crimes not copyright infringement crimes because he didn t actually distribute any documents plus JSTOR didn t even want him prosecuted 40 Assistant U S Attorneys Stephen Heymann and Scott Garland were the lead prosecutors working under the supervision of U S Attorney Carmen Ortiz 1 17 41 The case was brought under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act which was passed in 1986 to enhance the government s ability to prosecute hackers who accessed computers to steal information or to disrupt or destroy computer functionality 42 43 If convicted on these charges said Ortiz Swartz faces up to 35 years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release restitution forfeiture and a fine of up to 1 million 9 On September 12 2012 the prosecution filed a superseding indictment adding nine more felony counts 8 44 George Washington University Law School Professor Orin Kerr writing on the legal blog Volokh Conspiracy opined that the risk of a maximum sentence in Swartz s case was not high 45 In an interview with Boston s WBUR retired federal judge Nancy Gertner said a sentence of 35 years for a case like Swartz s never occurs She questioned the propriety of pressing these charges at all Referring to decision making by Ortiz s office she said this is the example of bad judgment I saw too often suggesting that a two year diversion program leading to expunged charges would have been more fitting 46 Plea negotiations edit Swartz s attorney Elliot Peters stated that prosecutors at one point offered a plea deal of four months in prison and pleading guilty to 13 charges and warned that if Swartz rejected the deal future deals would be less attractive 47 and that two days before Swartz s death that Swartz would have to spend six months in prison and plead guilty to 13 charges if he wanted to avoid going to trial 48 Under the six month deal after Swartz pled guilty to the 13 charges the government would have argued for a six month sentence and Swartz would have argued for a lesser sentence the judge would then be free to assign whatever sentence the judge thought appropriate up to six months 49 Peters later filed a complaint with the DOJ s Office of Professional Responsibility stating that if Swartz didn t plead guilty Heymann threatened that he would seek for Mr Swartz to serve seven years in prison a difference in duration Peters asserts went far beyond the disparity encouraged by the plea bargain portion of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines 34 Andy Good Swartz s initial lawyer told The Boston Globe I told Heymann the kid was a suicide risk His reaction was a standard reaction in that office not unique to Steve He said Fine we ll lock him up I m not saying they made Aaron kill himself Aaron might have done this anyway I m saying they were aware of the risk and they were heedless 50 Marty Weinberg who took the case over from Good said he nearly negotiated a plea bargain in which Swartz would not serve any time JSTOR signed off on it he said but MIT would not 50 Two days before his death JSTOR announced on January 9 2013 that it would make more than 4 5 million articles available to the public free of charge The Register amp Read service in beta for the previous 10 months was capped at three articles every two weeks 78 per year readable online only with some downloadable for a fee 51 52 After his death Ortiz s office dismissed the charges against Swartz 2 3 She said This office s conduct was appropriate in bringing and handling this case This office sought an appropriate sentence that matched the alleged conduct a sentence that we would recommend to the judge of six months in a low security setting At no time did this office ever seek or ever tell Mr Swartz s attorneys that it intended to seek maximum penalties under the law 53 54 On January 12 2013 Alex Stamos a computer forensics investigator employed by the Swartz legal defense team posted an online summary of the expert testimony he had been prepared to present in the JSTOR case had Swartz lived to see trial He wrote If I had taken the stand as planned and had been asked by the prosecutor whether Aaron s actions were wrong I would probably have replied that what Aaron did would better be described as inconsiderate In the same way it is inconsiderate to check out every book at the library needed for a History 101 paper It is inconsiderate to download lots of files on shared wifi 55 Federal prosecutory rationale and responses edit U S Attorney Ortiz asserted after the 2011 indictment that stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar and whether you take documents data or dollars It is equally harmful to the victim whether you sell what you have stolen or give it away 9 40 About the prosecution edit At a January 24 2013 memorial for Swartz Carl Malamud recalled their work with PACER He noted that they had brought millions of U S District Court records out from behind PACER s pay wall and found them full of privacy violations We sent our results to the Chief Judges of 31 District Courts They redacted those documents and they yelled at the lawyers that filed them The Judicial Conference changed their privacy rules To the bureaucrats who ran the Administrative Office of the United States Courts we were thieves So they called the FBI The FBI found nothing wrong Was the overly aggressive posture of the Department of Justice prosecutors and law enforcement officials he asked revenge because they were embarrassed that in their view at least we somehow got away with something in the PACER incident Was the merciless JSTOR prosecution the revenge of embarrassed bureaucrats because they looked stupid in the New York Times because the U S Senate called them on the carpet 56 Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean wrote an article on the legal blog justia com entitled Dealing with Aaron Swartz in the Nixonian Tradition Overzealous Overcharging Leads to a Tragic Result saying these are not people who are conscientiously and fairly upholding our federal laws Rather they are typically authoritarian personalities who get their jollies from shamelessly beating up on unfortunate people like Aaron Swartz 57 George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr wrote on January 15 2013 that the charges brought here were pretty much what any good federal prosecutor would have charged 58 59 Duke University law professor James Boyle replied in The Huffington Post I think that in Kerr s descriptions of the facts and of the issues surrounding prosecutorial discretion he tends to minimize or ignore facts that might put Swartz in a more favorable light 60 In response to a piece by Larissa MacFarquhar in the New Yorker retired journalist Jane Scholz objected to what she perceived as an effort to turn Swartz into a hero for facing government prosecution after hacking the JSTOR archive arguing that Swartz was apparently familiar with laws protecting proprietary information management systems so he should not have been surprised by the severity of the prosecution s response to his crime It is a crime and not a victimless one I am a retired journalist during my working years my salary depended and today my pension relies on people paying for copyrighted content In recent years as the business that supports journalism has declined thousands of journalists have lost pay benefits and ultimately their jobs I find it ironic that Swartz made several million dollars selling the rights to his own copyrighted programming to Conde Nast Swartz s is a sad story but it s not a heroic one Law professor Mike Maddison commented on Scholz s letter it is difficult to find a better example of the glib equation of my career isn t the success that it once was and somebody committed a crime that infects contemporary dialogues about IP rights 61 David Aaronovitch noted in The Times that JSTOR was itself a product of philanthropy but that it had to charge access fees so that it could pay academic publishers for rights to their publications He decried the reckless behavior of a generation which cannot be persuaded yet that copyright matters 62 In contrast Peter Ludlow in The Chronicle of Higher Education argued that due to the publish or perish nature of academia and the importance that journals reputations have w hen an academic signs away copyright to an academic publisher it amounts to a contract of adhesion meaning a contract in which one party has all the power and it was not freely bargained and that like the original authors JSTOR had to negotiate its licensing agreements from a position of weakness which Ludlow illustrated with a bargaining agreement from JSTOR s history which stipulated that the publishers be compensated if there was a loss to their minimal sales of rights to older materials and they demanded compensation even before JSTOR covered its own expenses Ludlow concluded that Until academics get their acts together and start using new modes of publication we need to recognize that actions like Aaron Swartz s civil disobedience are legitimate 63 Rob Weir who describes himself as an associate editor of a very small journal writes in Inside Higher Ed that Many wonder why money accrues to those whose only creation is to aggregate the labor of others especially when some form of taxpayer money underwrote many of the articles That s a legitimate concern but defending Swartz s method elevates vigilantism above the rules of law and reason While he concedes that JSTOR charges university libraries a king s ransom for its services he also argues that even a modest journal is expensive to produce and that if you want anyone to read your journal you ll give it to JSTOR or some other aggregator Unless of course you can drum up lots of free advertising He concludes that the information wants to be free adage fails to account for the hidden costs within the culture of free and proposes that there ain t no such thing as a free lunch is the appropriate summary of production costs in the Information Age which he transmutes to if you can t do the time don t do the crime for hackers and info thieves 64 Tim Wu writing in The New Yorker called out what he perceived as lack of proportionality writing that The act was harmless meaning that there was no actual physical harm nor actual economic harm The leak was found and plugged JSTOR suffered no actual economic loss It did not press charges Like a pie in the face Swartz s act was annoying to its victim but of no lasting consequence 65 Wu went on to compare Swartz s act with that of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak who according to Wu in the nineteen seventies committed crimes similar to but more economically damaging than Swartz s Those two men hacked AT amp T s telephone system to make free long distance calls and actually sold the illegal devices blue boxes to make cash Their mentor John Draper did go to jail for a few months where he wrote one of the world s first word processors but Jobs and Wozniak were never prosecuted Instead they got bored of phreaking and built a computer The great ones almost always operate at the edge writes Wu in support of this thesis that We can rightly judge a society by how it treats its eccentrics and deviant geniuses and by that measure we have utterly failed in the case of Swartz 66 About the law edit After Boyle s Huffington Post column Kerr returned to the topic advocating reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act CFAA under which Swartz was prosecuted The problem raised by the Swartz case is that felony liability under the statute is triggered much too easily The law needs to draw a distinction between low level crimes and more serious crimes and current law does so poorly 67 Chris Soghoian a technology policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union argued similarly Existing laws don t recognise the distinction between two types of computer crimes malicious crimes committed for profit and cases where hackers break into systems to prove their skillfulness or spread information that they think should be available to the public 68 Jennifer Granick Director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society both defended Swartz and challenged the scope of the law under which he was prosecuted 69 70 Law professor Stephen L Carter agrees that the prosecution of Swartz was ridiculous but also lays the blame on Congress for creating a new type of federal felony roughly every week 71 Carter considers that the CFAA is a good example of this phenomenon He writes Enacted in the 1980s before the Internet explosion the statute makes a criminal of anyone who intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access and in the process obtains financial information government information or information from any protected computer Carter then gives the following example You re sitting in your office when suddenly you remember that you forgot to pay your Visa bill You take a moment to log on to your bank account and you pay the bill Then you go back to work If your employer has a policy prohibiting personal use of office computers then you have exceeded your authorized access since you went to your bank website you have obtained financial information Believe it or not you re now a felon The likelihood of prosecution might be small but you ve still committed a crime Carter further writes that the problem with the statute was well known and that some federal courts have given the statute s language a narrow construction but others have read it broadly and the Obama administration has opposed efforts in Congress to narrow its scope Alex Kozinski chief judge of the U S Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit warned in an opinion last spring of 2012 the government s position would make criminals of large groups of people who would have little reason to suspect they are committing a federal crime 72 In 2013 Zoe Lofgren and Ron Wyden have advanced a legislative proposal called Aaron s Law to amend the CFAA in order to eliminate the aforementioned vagueness and also eliminate the redundant provisions that enable a person to be punished multiple times for the same crime 73 In an opinion piece for Wired magazine they wrote that This is in fact what happened to Aaron Swartz more than a third of the charges in the superseding indictment against him were under this redundant CFAA provision 73 Reactions complaints and post dismissal motions edit See also Aaron Swartz Response Speaking at his son s funeral Robert Swartz said Aaron was killed by the government and MIT betrayed all of its basic principles 74 Mitch Kapor posted the statement on Twitter 75 Carmen Ortiz s husband IBM executive Tom Dolan replied through his own Twitter feed TomJDolan Truly incredible that in their own son s obit they blame others for his death and make no mention of the 6 month offer 76 In Esquire Charlie Pierce wrote that the glibness with which her husband and her defenders toss off a mere six months in federal prison low security or not is a further indication that something is seriously out of whack with the way our prosecutors think these days 77 Contacted by The Guardian Ortiz s spokesperson had no comment to make on the matter 76 Reuters reported being unable to contact Dolan 78 On January 16 2013 Ortiz released an official statement in which she reiterated that I must however make clear that this office s conduct was appropriate in bringing and handling this case and that her subordinates took on the difficult task of enforcing a law they had taken an oath to uphold and did so reasonably 78 On January 28 2013 the lawyers for Swartz s estate sent a letter to the Justice Department accusing Assistant U S Attorney Stephen Heymann of professional misconduct 33 79 They said Heymann may have misrepresented to the Court the extent of the federal government s early involvement in the investigation 80 Emails and reports further illustrated that AUSA Heymann was himself involved in the investigation even before Mr Swartz was arrested on January 6 2011 34 The lawyers also said Heymann abused his discretion when he attempted to coerce Swartz into pleading guilty 33 79 80 Swartz naturally felt extreme pressure to waive his rights The difference between an offer of four months and a threat of seven years went far beyond the minimal reduction that should properly have applied for a defendant s acceptance of responsibility under the Sentencing Guidelines 34 80 On March 15 the lawyers asked the federal court to modify the protective order on Swartz s file to permit public disclosure of the discovery materials including the names and titles of MIT JSTOR and law enforcement employees The lawyers said that withholding the names would make the documents less intelligible and thus far less useful to Congress 81 The First Assistant U S Attorney for Massachusetts Jack Pirozzolo said he was taking a role in the discussions and would be asking the court to give the affected employees an opportunity to be heard on the proposed disclosures 81 The Department of Justice sought to redact the names of the prosecutors involved in the case On April 3 2013 a U S Attorney s Office spokesperson said Our argument against it is that not only does it have an effect on the people involved in the case but there s also sometimes a residual effect The Attorney s Office reported threats and hacking attempts against prosecutors already known to be involved threatening emails received by Ortiz and Heymann the hacking of Heymann s Facebook account and that Heymann s father a Harvard professor received a postcard with his photo in a guillotine 82 The postcard and some email excerpts were published by Wired magazine 83 On May 13 2013 the court granted the estate s motion in part permitting public disclosure of much of the material the estate s lawyers had sought to have unsealed provided that the names of MIT and government employees were first redacted The estate s argument for disclosure of these names was substantially outweighed by the interest of the government and the victims in shielding their employees from potential retaliation wrote Judge Nathaniel Gorton 84 The judge also ruled that information disclosing details of computer network security at MIT should not be made public 84 The prosecutors and Swartz s lawyers were ordered to propose the terms of the disclosures and redactions by May 27 2013 84 Kevin Poulsen filed a FOIA lawsuit and in November 2013 obtained the release of 130 pages from the file that the US Secret Service has on Swartz out of approximately 20 000 pages that the agency has in relation to Swartz 85 Of Heymann BuzzFeed has noted Back in 2008 young hacker Jonathan James killed himself in the midst of a federal investigation led by the same prosecutor 86 In January 2013 WikiLeaks claimed through its Twitter account that Swartz had been in contact with Julian Assange through 2010 and 2011 and that Swartz may have been a source of leaked materials 87 If true this would offer an explanation as to why charges against Swartz were pursued by the federal government despite JSTOR dropping charges and urging that the government and MIT do the same 88 Notes edit The MIT network administration office told MIT police that approximately 70 gigabytes of data had been downloaded 98 of which was from JSTOR 5 The first federal indictment alleged approximately 4 8 million articles 1 7 million of which were made available by independent publishers for purchase through JSTOR s Publisher Sales Service 1 The superseding indictment characterized the amount as a major portion of the total archive in which JSTOR had invested removing the estimates 89 See also editAcademic journal publishing reformReferences edit a b c d e f g h i July 2011 Initial Federal Indictment of Aaron Swartz Posted by New York Times 19 July 2011 Retrieved 20 May 2013 a b Landergan Katherine 2013 01 14 US District Court drops charges against Aaron Swartz MIT Your Campus Boston com Retrieved 2013 01 23 a b United States v Swartz 1 11 cr 10260 106 D Mass filed Jan 14 2013 a b Gerstein Josh July 22 2011 MIT also pressing charges against hacking suspect Politico Swartz s alleged use of MIT facilities and Web connections to access the JSTOR database resulted in two state felony charges for breaking into a depository and breaking amp entering in the daytime according to local prosecutors a b c d e Commonwealth v Swartz Nos 11 52CR73 amp 11 52CR75 MIT Police Incident Report Mass Dist Ct dismissed Dec 16 2011 MIT s IS amp T Department explained that they were able to determine that this laptop was illegally downloading IS amp T had put an approximate value on the downloaded information at 50 000 The suspect was arrested for two counts of Breaking and Entering in the daytime with the intent to commit a felony a b Hak Susana Paz Gabriella January 26 2011 Compilation of December 15 2010 January 20 2011 PDF Hak De Paz Police Log Compilations MIT Crime Club p 6 Jan 6 2 20 p m Aaron Swartz was arrested at 24 Lee Street as a suspect for breaking and entering a b c d Kirschbaum Connor August 3 2011 Swartz indicted for JSTOR theft The Tech Massachusetts Institute of Technology Retrieved January 12 2013 a b September 2012 Superseding Federal Indictment of Aaron Swartz PDF wired com 2012 09 12 Retrieved 2013 05 20 a b c US Attorney s Office District of Massachusetts July 19 2011 Alleged Hacker Charged With Stealing Over Four Million Documents from MIT Network Press release Archived from the original on May 26 2012 Retrieved January 17 2013 Thomas Owen January 12 2013 Family of Aaron Swartz Blames MIT Prosecutors For His Death Business Insider Retrieved January 12 2013 Aaron Swartz internet freedom activist dies aged 26 BBC News January 13 2013 Retrieved 2013 01 13 Aaron Swartz Tech Prodigy and Internet Activist Is Dead at 26 Time January 13 2013 Retrieved January 13 2013 Terms and Conditions of Use JSTOR New York ITHAKA January 15 2013 JSTOR s integrated digital platform is a trusted digital repository providing for long term preservation and access to scholarly materials journal issues manuscripts and monographs spatial geographic information systems data plant specimens Granick Jennifer Towards Learning from Losing Aaron Swartz Part 2 The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School blog 15 January 2013 Retrieved 26 January 2013 a b Lindsay Jay July 19 2011 Feds Harvard fellow hacked millions of papers Boston Associated Press Retrieved 2013 01 15 a b JSTOR Statement Misuse Incident and Criminal Case JSTOR Retrieved January 12 2013 a b Carter Zach Grim Ryan Reilly Ryan J January 12 2013 Aaron Swartz Internet Pioneer Found Dead Amid Prosecutor Bullying In Unconventional Case Huffington Post a b Cohen Noam January 20 2013 How M I T ensnared a hacker bucking a freewheeling culture The New York Times p A1 Suspect is seen on camera entering network closet in an unlocked building Within a mile of MIT he was stopped by an MIT police captain and U S Secret Service agent Pickett a b Peters Justin February 7 2013 The Idealist Aaron Swartz wanted to save the world Why couldn t he save himself Slate N Y C 6 Archived from the original on February 10 2013 Retrieved February 10 2013 The superseding indictment claimed that Swartz had contrived to break into a restricted access wiring closet at MIT But the closet door had been unlocked and remained unlocked even after the university and authorities were aware that someone had been in there trying to access the school s network a b Larissa MacFarquhar March 11 2013 Requiem for a dream The tragedy of Aaron Swartz The New Yorker Swartz wrote a script that instructed his computer to download articles continuously something that was forbidden by JSTOR s terms of service He spoofed the computer s address This happened several times MIT traced the requests to his laptop which he had hidden in an unlocked closet a b Merritt Jeralyn January 14 2013 MIT to conduct internal probe on its role in Aaron Swartz case TalkLeft blog Att y Jeralyn Merritt The wiring closet was not locked and was accessible to the public If you look at the pictures supplied by the Government you can see graffiti on one wall Lipinski Pearle and Joseph Maurer Police Log 12 19 2 5 The Tech 18 February 2011 Volume 131 Issue 6 Retrieved 24 January 2011 Singel Ryan February 27 2011 Rogue academic downloader busted by MIT webcam stakeout arrest report says Wired N Y C Swartz is accused of stealing the articles by attaching a laptop directly to a network switch in a restricted room though neither the police report nor the indictment mentions a door lock or signage indicating the room is off limits a b Kao Joanna The Tech s coverage of Aaron Swartz Archived 2017 10 31 at the Wayback Machine The Tech 12 January 2013 Retrieved 18 May 2013 a b Bilton Nick July 19 2011 Internet Activist Charged in Data Theft Boston Bits Blog The New York Times Company Retrieved July 19 2011 Hawkinson John November 18 2011 Swartz indicted for breaking and entering The Tech MIT p 11 Swartz was indicted in Middlesex Superior Court for breaking and entering larceny over 250 and unauthorized access to a computer network Cambridge man indicted on breaking amp entering charges larceny charges in connection with data theft Press release Middlesex District Attorney November 17 2011 Swartz was indicted today on charges of Breaking and Entering with Intent to Commit a Felony Larceny over 250 and Unauthorized Access to a Computer Network by a Middlesex Superior Grand Jury a b Hawkinson John State drops charges against Swartz federal charges remain The Tech 16 March 2012 Retrieved 14 May 2013 Harold Abelson Peter A Diamond Andrew Grosso Douglas W Pfeiffer July 26 2013 Report to the President MIT and the Prosecution of Aaron Swartz PDF Report p 36 Retrieved June 6 2017 After the state indictment Martin Weinberg filed demands for discovery In state prosecutions that involve joint investigations with outside law enforcement agencies or foreign jurisdictions Massachusetts state law governing criminal discovery requires that the District Attorney obtain from those agencies and jurisdictions certain evidence that may be relevant to the case Some of this evidence was in the sole possession of the Boston U S Attorney s Office and the U S Secret Service Mr Weinberg demanded this material as discovery from the DA s Office and the USAO refused to produce it to that office As a result the DA s Office could not comply with the Massachusetts discovery laws so as to continue its prosecution and it dismissed its charges a b Silverglate Harvey January 23 2013 The Swartz suicide and the sick culture of the DOJ Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly Archived from the original on January 29 2013 Retrieved April 4 2013 McCullagh Declan Swartz didn t face prison until feds took over case report says cnet 25 January 2013 Retrieved 7 February 2013 Blagdon Jeff March 14 2013 US Attorney s Office accused of deliberately withholding evidence in Aaron Swartz trial The Verge Vox Media Swartz s laptop w as seized by the Cambridge Police Department on January 6th 2011 when Swartz was first arrested Heymann had an email proving that the US Attorney s Office not the Cambridge Police Department was calling the shots on the search and seizure a b c Grim Ryan Reilly Ryan March 14 2013 Aaron Swartz lawyers accuse prosecutor Stephen Heymann of misconduct Huffington Post The handling of the case has already stunted the career of U S Attorney Ortiz who has become politically toxic and is no longer discussed seriously as a contender for judicial vacancies a b c d e Peters Elliot Daniel Purcell January 28 2013 Re United States v Aaron Swartz Letter to Robin Ashton Counsel US Dept of Justice Keker amp Van Nest LLP The federal prosecutors remarkably suggest the Cambridge Police Department not the Secret Service was in possession of the computer equipment The Secret Service was plainly in charge of the investigation at MIT a b Norton Quinn March 3 2013 Life inside the Aaron Swartz investigation The Atlantic D C Retrieved 2013 03 08 Madrigal Alexis March 3 2013 Editor s note to Quinn Norton s account of the Aaron Swartz investigation The Atlantic D C Retrieved 2013 03 08 Lundin Leigh July 31 2011 The Thief Who Stole Knowledge Computer Crimes Criminal Brief a b c Schwartz John July 19 2011 Open Access advocate is arrested for huge download The New York Times Lessig Lawrence January 12 2013 Prosecutor as bully Retrieved January 12 2013 a b Was Aaron Swartz Stealing The Awl Poulsen Kevin January 12 2013 Aaron Swartz Coder and Activist Dead at 26 Wired McCool Grant July 30 2012 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act The 1980s Era Hacking Law Out Of Step With Today s Internet Analysts Say Huff Post Tech Reuters Retrieved 2013 01 17 Sims Nancy October 2011 Library licensing and criminal law The Aaron Swartz case College amp Research Libraries News Association of College and Research Libraries 72 9 534 37 doi 10 5860 crln 72 9 8637 hdl 11299 198485 ISSN 0099 0086 Retrieved January 13 2013 US Government Ups Felony Count in JSTOR Aaron Swartz Case From Four To Thirteen Tech dirt 2012 09 17 Retrieved January 12 2013 Orin Kerr January 16 2013 The Criminal Charges Against Aaron Swartz Part 2 Prosecutorial Discretion Retrieved January 16 2013 Boeri David Retired Federal Judge Joins Criticism Over Handling Of Swartz Case WBUR Retrieved 17 May 2013 This is the example of bad judgment I saw too often When asked if she was referring to the bad judgement of Carmen Ortiz Gertner responded That s right Daly Michael 15 January 2013 Aaron Swartz s Unbending Prosecutors Insisted on Prison Time The Daily Beast Retrieved 6 January 2017 Lavoie Denise January 14 2013 Mass lawyer told federal prosecutors Swartz suicidal Associated Press Archived from the original on January 16 2013 Retrieved 2013 02 08 Orin Kerr 16 January 2013 The Criminal Charges Against Aaron Swartz Part 2 Prosecutorial Discretion The Volokh Conspiracy Retrieved 6 January 2017 a b Cullen Kevin January 15 2013 On humanity a big failure in Aaron Swartz case Boston Globe Archived from the original on January 17 2013 Schwartz Meredith January 9 2013 Many JSTOR Journal Archives Now Free to Public Library Journal Archived from the original on January 12 2013 Retrieved January 14 2013 Register amp Read About JSTOR Retrieved January 14 2013 Laura Smith Spark January 17 2013 Prosecutor defends case against Aaron Swartz CNN Retrieved January 17 2013 Ortiz Carmen M Jan 16 2013 Statement of United States Attorney Carmen M Ortiz Regarding The Death of Aaron Swartz US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Retrieved Jan 17 2013 Stamos Alex January 12 2013 The truth about Aaron Swartz s crime Unhandled Exception The government provided no evidence that these downloads caused a negative effect on JSTOR or MIT except due to silly overreactions such as turning off all of MIT s JSTOR access due to downloads from a pretty easily identified user agent Malamud Carl January 24 2013 Aaron s Army Speech at Memorial for Aaron Swartz Public Resource Org T he bureaucrats who ran the Administrative Office of the U S Courts called the FBI They found nothing wrong Dealing With Aaron Swartz in the Nixonian Tradition Overzealous Overcharging Leads to a Tragic Result verdict justia com January 25 2013 Retrieved 2013 01 26 Lauerman John January 15 2013 MIT s embrace of Web freedom clashes with hacking case Bloomberg N Y C Kerr Orin January 14 2013 The criminal charges against Aaron Swartz Part 1 The law The Volokh Conspiracy Eugene Volokh Boyle James January 18 2013 The Prosecution of Aaron Swartz A reply to Orin Kerr Huffington Post Copyright Crime The Legacy of Aaron Swartz madisonian net Aaronovitch David January 17 2013 Even if everything s free there can be a price The death of hacker Aaron Swartz reveals a young generation unaware of its own great power or responsibilities The Times p 23 Retrieved 2013 01 20 Aaron Swartz Was Right The Chronicle Review The Chronicle of Higher Education Essay argues that Aaron Swartz was wrong Inside Higher Ed Will Aaron Swartz s suicide spark copyright reform The Week How the Legal System Failed Aaron Swartz and Us The New Yorker Kerr Oren Aaron s Law Drafting the Best Limits of the CFAA And A Reader Poll on A Few Examples Volokh Conspiracy 27 January 2013 Retrieved 23 April 2013 Wagner Daniel Verena Dobnik January 13 2013 Swartz death fuels debate over computer crime Associated Press JSTOR s attorney Mary Jo White formerly the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan had called the lead Boston prosecutor in the case and asked him to drop it said Peters Towards Learning from Losing Aaron Swartz Part 2 Cyberlaw stanford edu January 15 2013 Retrieved 2013 01 20 With the CFAA Law and Justice Are Not The Same A Response to Orin Kerr Cyberlaw stanford edu 2013 01 14 Retrieved 2013 01 20 CBA National Magazine Copyright and I m right to nuke you ethics The Overzealous Prosecution of Aaron Swartz Bloomberg a b Lofgren Zoe and Ron Wyden Introducing Aaron s Law a Desperately Needed Reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Wired 20 June 2013 Retrieved 9 December 2013 Guy Sandra January 15 2013 Aaron Swartz was killed by government father says at funeral Chicago Sun Times Archived from the original on August 24 2014 Retrieved December 10 2013 Murphey Shelly US attorney s husband stirs Twitter storm on Swartz case The Boston Globe 16 January 2013 Retrieved 9 December 2013 a b Aaron Swartz husband of prosecutor criticises internet activist s family Technology theguardian com Pierce Charles P January 17 2013 Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz Esquire Retrieved January 18 2013 a b Prosecutor defends her actions after Aaron Swartz suicide Archived from the original on 2013 12 13 Retrieved 2013 12 10 a b Castillo Michael March 14 2003 J accuse Aaron Swartz s lawyers fight prosecutors with document dump Upstart Business Journal a b c Merritt Jeralyn March 13 2013 Aaron Swartz lawyers seek misconduct review against prosecutor TalkLeft blog Att y Jeralyn Merritt a b Anderson Derek March 16 2013 Swartz estate seeks release of documents Papers are under protective order Boston Globe p B2 Pirozzolo has become involved in the Swartz case Smith Erin April 3 2013 U S attorney Keep names out of Aaron Swartz case Boston Herald Threatening emails have been sent to Ortiz and Heymann Kravets David April 2 2013 Aaron Swartz s Prosecutors Were Threatened and Hacked DOJ Says Wired a b c Mullin Joe Aaron Swartz prosecutors will unseal evidence but won t name names 13 May 2013 arstechnica Retrieved 26 May 2013 Poulsen Kevin November 7 2013 Secret Service Report Noted Aaron Swartz s Depression Problems Wired Internet Activist s Prosecutor Linked to Another Hacker s Death BuzzFeed WikiLeaks claims Aaron Swartz was an ally and possible source breaking anonymity 19 January 2013 Aaron Swartz Case US DOJ Drops All Pending Charges Against The JSTOR Liberator Days After His Suicide International Business Times 15 January 2013 Superseding Indictment USA v Swartz 1 11 cr 10260 No 53 D Mass Sep 12 2012 Docketalarm com 2012 09 12 Retrieved 2013 01 23 External links editCase Docket USA v Swartz Overview JSTOR Evidence in United States vs Aaron Swartz JSTOR nbsp July 30 2013 Archived from the original on September 23 2013 Summary of Events JSTOR Evidence in United States vs Aaron Swartz JSTOR nbsp July 30 2013 Archived from the original on September 21 2013 Documents JSTOR Evidence in United States vs Aaron Swartz JSTOR nbsp July 30 2013 Archived from the original on August 15 2013 Over 300 subpoenaed documents available for download Guerilla Open Access Manifesto Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title United States v Swartz amp oldid 1195965085, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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