http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying
Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker News. The focus should be on figuring out a way to get mental health services to those who need it most. Not a witch hunt for every person who had something to do with Aaron's prosecution for crimes he knowingly committed.
Neither you nor I know that. Suicide is often precipitated by stressful incidents. Is the mental illness the direct cause? What if the stress is the direct cause and the mental illness simply prevents the depressed person from handling it, much as AIDS damaging the immune system so that the victim is killed by some other illness? AIDS is the indirect cause.
The next thing that strikes my eye is "glorification of his suicide." Really? What have you read that suggests his suicide was glorious? I haven't read everything, but what I've seen glorifies his attempts to free information and laments his suicide and the years of his life that have been lost forever.
I'll pick once last thing. "Witch hunt" is an inappropriate metaphor. Witch hunts are McCarthy-esque persecutions of people for something that isn't actually wrong or illegal. For being "un-mutual." The arguments I've seen are that people have been doing something very wrong. If you don't think it's wrong, that's your business. But you can hardly argue that this is a persecution of people for doing little more than being different.
What crimes did Aaron commit? My understanding is that he was alleged to have committed crimes, but this has not been proven in court, so we don't know that he committed crimes, and if he did, we do not know that he did so knowingly.
The innuendo carefully stage-managed by those who stand to gain from a conviction seems persuasive, but people have seemed guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt in the past and have in time been discovered to be innocent.
And in this case, I am reminded of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, who knowingly broke Canada's anti-abortion laws of the day but was declared innocent by juries, leading to changes in the laws. Who knows what might have happened?
I don't know what might have happened. Do you?
IF he did what is alleged, it is pretty hard to see how it could not be knowingly. He had access to JSTOR as part of his work at Harvard. If he didn't know what he was doing was violating the rules, he would have done it at Harvard. He would not have bought a new computer, went to MIT, used a fake name and email address to access the guest network, used MAC address spoofing and a second computer to evade MIT and JSTOR's attempts to stop him, or trespassed and connected his computer directly to the wired network to bypass the guest wireless network.
Here's the indictment: http://web.mit.edu/bitbucket/Swartz,%20Aaron%20Indictment.pd...
We are better than this.
Actually, evidently, no we're not. We will take a single piece of news, and then fly off the handle, careening into supposition after rumor, and proceed to label people whose actions (or inactions) are far from certain, with the most heinous crimes our society knows - up to and including murder.
We will take the news of one man's death and twist that into character attacks against people and groups we don't know, and make blanket statements galore: whether it's about the staff of MIT, all lawyers, all prosecutors, all investigators, all Federal employees, etc, ad nauseum.
We will write posts filled with hyperbole after hyperbole, followed by insinuations, emotion-appealing analogies, and mindless rhetoric.
So no, we are evidently just as knee-jerky reactionary as every other stupid online community.
But we should be better than this.
Those of us who were following the case before Aaron's tragic episode knew that a great injustice was being perpetrated, but that it could not realistically be undone until after the damage had happened.
Ms. Ortiz and Mr. Heymann should be held accountable for their decision to use charges far out of proportion to the damage done. And the correct way to hold them accountable is to remove them from an office they have proven themselves incapable of using appropriately. They do not deserve to have the full power of the law behind their petty vendettas.
A Federal District Attorney in this country, at this time, has almost no checks on her power to prosecute. Petitioning the Whitehouse and the congress to remove one who has clearly overstepped the bounds of propriety is the only recourse we have.
You should sign the petition, because it is the only way that Ms. Ortiz's power will even be questioned officially. Like most online petitions it will accomplish little without a sustained campaign from many directions.
True or False: Lawrence Lessig, Alex Stamos (an expert witness) and Swartz's own family said that the overzealous and vastly disproportionate prosecution was the principal factor in his suicide.
The real witch-hunt was led by Carmen Ortiz and Steve Heymann and ended in Swartz's death. Witches don't exist, and the evil hacker of their imagination did not exist. Your proposal to be "better than this" seems to mean remaining silent, averting our eyes, and pretending that this was some act of nature like a mudslide. As for whether we should have done something beforehand: how could we have? Lessig himself said that the government had effectively muzzled Swartz to prevent him from defending himself online or alerting others to the severity of his situation.
There were specific people here to blame. If you believe the US Attorney's charges were merited, that they should not face discipline, that seeing a sitting US prosecutor forced to resign would not have the requisite "deterrent effect", or that we should all remain silent and accept this -- just say so. Otherwise your critique is contentless, and a recommendation for Aaron's death to be meaningless.
[1] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120917/17393320412/us-gov...
EDIT:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5052033
And a court would have no choice but to find him guilty, as
that is the purpose of the judiciary. A court cannot let
someone walk after a crime simply because the law itself is
unjust.
I think we should have been better than this too... I think we should have been up in arms while Aaron was still alive. It was wrong then too, but easier to dismiss because it was someone else' fight.
Hate to repeat myself but this information is important:
Aaron's "crime" - http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartz...
Strategies to disable legal defense - http://www.forbes.com/sites/harveysilverglate/2013/01/03/bla... Whithey's case seems to be related the same attorney(Ortiz)
It may be irrational, but it's only human. Humans aren't logical all the time.
Furthermore, on HN at least, your "we" seems to actually be "a vocal minority of us", and by no means represents the pervasive sentiment. I think overall, we're angry at the machine, not the cogs in it. Certainly I am.
In time those of us who mourn Aaron's passing will hopefully channel that anger into productive change. But until then, judging a community's reasonableness in the wake of a tragedy like this is setting a really, really high bar. Emotions. We've all got 'em, even hackers.
I am ashamed to be a part of the same community that you claim to embody.
>calling for the head of everyone and anyone related to the prosecution
Not everyone. I think Lawrence clearly named ONE name. An appointed office. Not an elected representative. Her superior can politely ask her if she'd like to step down.
This is not supposed to be the most difficult part, people.
And all that for trying to do something good.
You describe yourself as a 'public interest lawyer'. I suggest you try to live up to that title and have the public interest at heart. The subject of your little rant definitely had the public interest at heart. At least go and read up a bit more about what actually happened, it's not as if there is a shortage of information.
...I don't quite understand this. Surely he did have an option to "get off without pleading guilty" - to be found not guilty by a jury of his peers.
One could walk across a border, for example. Not the easiest course, not as easy as being released from responsibility for one's actions, but better than death for sure.
But he didn't do it then, did he? It's absurd to think that these things are completely unconnected. (Look at the timing, for one thing.) A severely depressed person is perhaps more likely to commit suicide than a person who is not severely depressed, but that's no reason to think that the actions of a severely depressed person (in relation to suicide or, for that matter, anything else) are independent of what else is going on in his or her life.
It's furthermore frankly insulting to think that (a) anyone is glorifying his suicide (or did you miss the many suicide hotline links, links to posts saying "don't do what Aaron did", etc., on the front page yesterday?), or that (b) someone who is already depressed/suicidal hasn't already engaged in some suicidal ideation.
(Who would commit suicide in order to get attention? You can't get attention when you're dead.)
As someone who has contemplated suicide, I've had significant moments when I'd (1) recognize that my ideation was a direct reaction to someone else's actions or inactions, (2) remind myself that this was a bad reason to commit, (3) stop myself. It was not "getting attention" so much as a willful desire to punish. It was not sane. But it was also real.
Not saying that this is what Aaron went through, but if you're going to generalize, that's not the right question to ask.
While I fully agree with you that this is not glorifying suicide, it does normalize suicide and create social proof that may make it easier for others to carry out theirs. The specific application of this to suicide is sometimes called the Werther effect (after Goethe's character), after an alleged "wave" of suicides across Europe after the publication of The Sorrows of Young Werther in 1774.
For a more modern take, according to Cialdini's book "Influence" (I have read the book but not chased down the refenced paper), Phillips, D.P.'s "Airplane Accidents, Murder and the Mass Media: Towards a Theory of Imitation and Suggestion" estimates almost 50 excess deaths due to airplane and car crashes alone in the US in the few months following a highly publicized suicide.
Of course it is hard to prove a direct causal link here, but a particularly chilling part of this research that makes the causation likely showed that there was a strong correlation between the type of "accidents" and the type of suicide: If the publicized suicide was "just" a suicide, the largest increase in car accidents was lone drivers driving into obstacles etc. If it was a murder-suicide, the largest increase in "accidents" were drivers with passengers and/or drivers hitting other cars.
The "Werther effect" is well known enough that in many places, journalists self-censor reporting of them. E.g. in Norway it was until very recently considered ethically dubious for newspapers to report a suicide (the death would be reported, but the cause would be left out or obscured), and while that's loosened up somewhat, media is still generally very cautious about it.
I'm not saying people should not discuss this suicide. But on the other hand, downplaying the effect it is likely to have on other people who may be on the cusp of making the decision, is not great either.
The focus should be on getting mental health services to those that need it most AS WELL AS ceasing to judge prosecutors based on their prosecution rate.
This sets the stage for over-prosecution and can blind the prosecutor into not just trying to prove everyone guilty, but force them into submitting that they are guilty whether they are or not.
Police officer's used to be judged on arrest rate, we figured out that wasn't actually doing any good, and changed the criteria to lower crime rates.
The prosecutor who grossly over-charged Aaron (and is obviously technically illiterate) should be forced to resign. If you think that sending someone to jail for 30 years (or even the minimum of 5) for downloading academic articles is fair, then you should do the right thing and resign from your position as a state level prosecutor too.
The justice system can be a game[2], strong players have it their way, and the seminal work by Aaron's "Demand Progress" was a direct affront to very strong players. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs", and tragic events like these are what move people in one direction and make things change. His mental state is secondary to the injustice he suffered.
[1] http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartz... [2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/harveysilverglate/2013/01/03/bla...
Aaron was worth 100 Federal prosecutors.
As many this week-end I have thought about it a lot. I don't know what factor his problems with the DOJ weighed in his decision to commit suicide. But I know few things, when he committed his actions he was very young, moreover what he did is certainly not criminal. The system must be fair must be proportional and balanced. This is a remainder that there is a difference between a citizen taking an action and a system, you can not compare both. The system has an history, has some experience and knows that the decisions it take may affect life of human beings. This is life and deaths decisions. When you represent the justice you can not decide on your own that you want to make an example or that you will seek the harshest penalties possible, you must be fair you must think about the consequences of your decisions, your are responsible, you have duties. I think the persons in charge of this case failed in this regard.
P.S. Putting scare-quotes around the word hacker isn't likely to endear you to many in this place.
looking the other way in order not to encourage copycats doesn't sound right.
a Chinese official would say media attention just encourages people to set themselves on fire in Tienanmen Square, so we should pay no heed to them or to root causes.
fair warning to would-be suicides, if you're not an Internet / tech leader HN isn't going to front-page you.
the media circus surrounding mass killers is more problematic.
What do you think the logic might have been behind "doubling down" on the felony charges last September?
Instead, I'd just like to try an analogy on for size. Two people are blindfolded and beaten equally during a robbery. One, a 20 year old, suffered only minor injuries, the second, a 70 year old woman with a heart condition, died from a stress induced heart attack during the beating.
Was she murdered or did she die naturally of a heart condition?
Its possible the prosecution knew all about Aaron's depression and history. That might actually make what they did worse and not better. He clearly needed the help you speak of... his "crimes" may even have been a symptom. Did anyone consider this or try to help him?
That said there are many things being confused and mixed up here - I and probably most on HN feel a sense of incredible loss; I did not know him personally but I wish I had, I admired Aarons hacking skills, his guts, his convictions, and his sheer brilliant intellect. He made the world a better place. I was looking forward to his next big thing. - The loss to his actual friends and family; all we can do is express out heartfelt condolences. - His work and your opinion of it - its unrelated to the above and seems insignificant in comparison. - The governments actions; surely, the man has struck back, those actions were unreasonable, and despicable. But insignificant in comparison with our sense of loss. The government did not kill him - don't give them that victory. We can continue to push back and support open leaks, hacktivists, bradley manning, and so on. This is a fight about power, and its fought between the people and the corporations - even if not everybody is aware of it.
On behalf of the public, I'll say that you don't serve our interests.
Historically, accusations of "mental illness" has been one of the most common ways of denying and shielding abuse, and then provided as an explanation when victims commit suicide. Its downright scary that this same term is being bandied about without any sensitivity to its historical context. People who commit suicide may be mentally ill, or they may be trying to escape intolerable and unbearable events in their life - but simply defining suicide as a symptom of mental illness ignores the underlying complexities of why someone might reach this decision.
Imagine the case of a young girl being sexually abused over many years by a close family member whom she fears. Her behaviour becomes more erratic over time, and is diagnosed as being mentally ill and forced to take medication. In a state of unrelenting emotional anguish, and unable to share her pain with a world that is motivated to explain everything as mental illness and unwilling to look at a dark reality they would rather avoid than confront, she takes her own life. Was she mentally ill? Well obviously something wasn't right, but to describe her as suffering a "disorder" when clearly the problem was something external being imposed seems almost inhuman. What if she hadn't committed suicide, and eventually escaped her abusers and went on to live life, but continued to suffer depression and anxiety decades later. Would you describe her as mentally ill then? A doctor today almost certainly would.
Who knows why Aaron committed suicide. Clearly he was faced with extraordinary life stress - can anyone here really imagine what it must be like to face 35 years in jail for doing something he though was right? It would be reasonable to assume this played a part, probably a large part, is his decision. However, the actual reasons for his suicide, or the nature of his "crimes", does not excuse the prosecution for it's excessive and overblown nature. It would have been just as wrong had Aaron not taken this decision, and instead received a lengthy jail term for a fairly benign crime, as the present tragic outcome.
Public interest lawyers are far more valuable contributors to HN, and especially to this discussion, then the histrionics and hyperbole of him and his ilk.
Both play a part.
Aaron's high expectations for himself sure made it hard for him to live up to them and be satisfied with whatever he was doing but....
Nurture plays a role in suicide. In this case, the Feds were definitely trying to stop this beautiful flower from growing.
It was having trouble on his own.
What they should have done, the "appropriate" thing to do, as Larry put it was to cut the weeds nearby and any sick branches he may have had. JSTOR apparently death with it pretty well and tied to cut off the sick branches that Aaron had on him.
No one has gloried the suicide either. He will just truly be missed. AND it is especially sad that he was put in a situation that was blown out of proportion and tried to crush him. It could happen to you.
Say you're in Cancun and some people find you having sex in public and then throw some cocaine at you, trying to accuse you of drug smuggling but it just so happens you don't have the money or the connections to ward them off. (This is everyday life in Latin America)
This is a bit naive, no? Look at Eric Schneiderman.
e.g. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/yes-really-truly-no-j...
That was a much more contrite and accountable message than I had expected. When he said "not attempt to summaraize...Now is a time for..." I expected the sentence to end with "now is the time to grieve and celebrate Aaron's life, not cast blame"...
Certainly, the same message and promises won't be made by the government handlers.
Not just the number of suicides, but also the contexts (Elizabeth Shin's story is particularly chilling - that one stuck with me because I used to live with her former roommate's brother).
The fact that they are taking this so seriously speaks volumes...too bad it took Aaron killing himself for them to analyze their actions.
The art of understatement is alive and well I see.
The appointment of Hal Abelson is the first little bit of good news in two days, and the promise of being completely transparent with his findings the second.
MIT used Federal law as a weapon against Aaron Swartz, and all it takes for you to excuse them is an assurance that they will investigate themselves.
But no such thing with respect to the government, of course. This makes it plain to me that you are using the Swartz case as a vehicle for anti-federal politics
Mr. Abelson has a long and very distinguished history in including excellent standing in the field of ethics.
1) President Reif is brand new in the role -- the majority of events would have happened under Susan Hockfield, the previous president. It makes sense that he would want a report of what happened previously since he wasn't here yet.
2) Professor Abelson is a very well respected member of the MIT community, and the fact that he is heading up the investigation leaves me comforted. He's helped me before in the past and is so incredibly smart and kind hearted I can't think of a better guy for the job.
He was a major supporter of Star Simpson when most of the MIT administration hung her out to dry. He has as good a chance as anyone at understanding Aaron's goals in liberating JSTOR's archive: he's a founding director of the FSF, Creative Commons, and Public Knowledge. He led the creation of MIT's OpenCourseWare and the class Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier.
He's also just a deeply good guy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Knowledge
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/... coming from someone with a life long career as a teacher and thesis advisor.
They write, "The case is one that we ourselves had regretted being drawn into from the outset..."
But in Lawrence Lessig's http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bull... he writes, "Early on, and to its great credit, JSTOR figured “appropriate” out: They declined to pursue their own action against Aaron, and they asked the government to drop its."
According to Lessig, JSTOR was hardly "drawn into" their case against Swartz: they withdrew their own legal action against Swartz.
MIT was involved collaterally as the scene of the crime, and ceased to be involved after JSTOR and the Feds took over.
Yes, this is understood. They could have been drawn into the case to that extent only, without pressing any charges.
MIT was involved collaterally as the scene of the crime, and ceased to be involved after JSTOR and the Feds took over.
So JSTOR had a case to withdraw. Their involvement was not limited to being the target of Swartz's actions--they played an active role, only to withdraw later.
But I could be mistaken and my reading of Lessig could be wrong. How did JSTOR take over? How did it come to pass that JSTOR dropped its case? What was its case? Could filing such a case count as "being drawn in" to a case?
What I hope happens afterward is that MIT take in the report and create meaningful changes. This however is not in the nature of universities and is where the challenge will be if MIT want to learn from this tragedy.
A university is an institution that tries to teach young people the wisdom of the old. It has always resisted quick changes. If one need an example, one can take a look on how long time it took to adapt electronic aids in classes outside computer science. An other fact is that universities has previously been a place unique with having access to high amount of books (information). This is no longer unique for universities, but many aspects of universities still work as if the main purpose of a university is easy access to a library.
edit : and why is this on pastebin?
PS: 26 years, is too short of a life, you deserved much more than this. For the least, I will try on my part, to not let something similar to happen to even a enemy.
It feels like MIT should change their policy and specifically state, that wired connections to their network are Ok.