This may in fact be true, but this claim is leveled with the implication that MIT is responsible for his death. They surely could have responded better; taking a "non-neutral" position (actively supporting lessened punishment), but this claim seems overreaching and narrow.
Certainly the prosecution was overbearing, and MIT could have been more on Aaron's side. But if we're going to reach into the realm of "If X had done Y Aaron would be alive today" then I think it would be distressing to think how many X's there could be.
So how about we take the more obvious Xs and condemn THOSE?
It's not like anyone blames Lincoln for going to the theater that day instead of having a quit dinner at home.
I'd also posit that its hypocritical of people who support the legalization of suicide as a "victimless crime" to engage in such exercises.
To be clear: I do feel the case against Aaron was unjust, but we can't give extra attention to a case due to suicide.
It must be terribly painful to have strangers commenting on the loss of a loved one, especially in such a politically charged and public arena.
I wish I could track down her paper on southern states putting urban minority prisoners in rural white area prisons. They are put on the rural census and removed from urban census. Not only do they not get to vote, their representation power goes to the white rural voters.
Certainly it doesn't mean she's wrong, but we should think critically, just as we would if Ms. Ortiz were making a statement.
It is clearly true that Shwartz's prosecution was a major factor in his suicide, and, according to Taren, it is equally clear that MIT was a non-neutral party in assisting this prosecution. If these statements are true; it is perfectly reasonable to call misrepresentations by MIT about its participation a "whitewash" and a serious matter.
What's with this fear of reaching a conclusion and assigning blame?
Better give the individual that hanged himself the benefit of the doubt, than an organization like MIT that acted against him.
If you want to prevent the next gifted hacker from hanging themselves, however, then it pays to search for the truth so that lessons can be learned from what actually happened, not merely from what scenario received the most benefit of the doubt.
Note I'm not saying the MIT Report constitutes the truth if Taren's assertions don't.
I've commented on threads like these before, and have mentioned that I lost a loved one to suicide. It was abundantly clear through journal entries and conversations as to what the impetus of self-harm was, but attributing those events as the things "responsible" for her suicide would have been shortsighted.
This thread seems to have devolved into an argument about whether Aaron or MIT was responsible for his suicide. That's the wrong question. We can all agree that MIT surely could and should have handled the situation differently, and I'm hesitant to say anything about Aaron's actions because I'm not informed enough.
In many jurisdictions (in the US) the legal standard of 'negligence' has two requirements. First, proximate cause. That's the "but for" part, that op mentions here. "But for MIT's actions, Aaron would be alive today." The other part is foreknowledge. Someone must have known, or reasonably should have known, that their actions would result in the bad consequence to meet this second standard. I don't think it would be fair to say that MIT could reasonably have foreseen Swartz's suicide.
It's interesting to note that Heymann, the federal prosecutor, arguably does meet both of these standards. But for his overzealous -- and I would add abusive -- prosecution, Swartz would still be alive. Further, Swartz's lawyers warned Heymann the day before that Swartz was an imminent risk of suicide, so it seems pretty safe to say that he also meets the foreknowledge standard.
I want both Heymann and Ortiz to be fired, and my sense of vengeance wants it to be both public and messy. Wishful thinking.
IANAL, blah blah blah and all that.
Taren's eulogy for Aaron was one of the best eulogies/call-to-actions I've watched (http://www.livestream.com/democracynow/video?clipId=pla_f83c...) and it sheds some more light on the difficulties Aaron was facing in this case.
However, when looking at additional facts, including those provided by Taren and others close to Aaron, it kind of rubs me the wrong way to treat the prosecution's causality of Aaron's suicide as fact.
via Taren: http://tarensk.tumblr.com/post/42260548767/why-aaron-died
> I don’t know exactly why Aaron killed himself. I don’t know exactly what was going through his mind. If I had known those things on January 11, if I had even known the right questions to ask, maybe I could have stopped him. Since January 11, I think about it every hour of every day.
> The Aaron I knew was active. He worked out most days until he got the flu two weeks before he died.
It's hard to second-guess someone who lived with Aaron and say, "Well, us armchair psychologists know better than you"...but the fact is, Taren was the closest person to Aaron and yet can't identify any particular warning signs that Aaron was going to kill himself. She provides compelling evidence that the trial was a huge burden on Aaron...but the question here is: why suicide on that day? There was a procedural deadline, but it didn't seem much more of a conclusive event than anything so far. It's not as if Aaron had been convicted, was on house arrest, and had just heard his appeal had been denied.
But as Taren said, Aaron was unusually sick up until the day of his suicide...at least sick enough to stop exercising, which, pedantic as it sounds, is a huge factor in mood swings. Enough to cause someone to commit suicide?...
Who knows? I guess why this all bothers me is that, by arguing that Aaron's death was conclusively caused by malicious actors perpetuates the misunderstanding that suicide and depression are, in general, caused by life circumstances....but it seems that some depression is due to physiological factors that aren't related to the "bigger picture". People who face horrific tragedy don't often kill themselves; people who seem to live in enviable circumstances sometimes do.
The world would make more sense if everyone committed suicide out of fear, hopelessness, or even weakness (as those who accused Aaron of "rage-quitting" seemed to do)...but this isn't the case, and this belief is unhelpful for those who suffer depression because of physiological, treatable factors...but who may avoid treatment because they think, "Well, I'm not being persecuted, so I must not really be depressed and thus have no reason to seek help"
I know I'm being naively idealistic here...because if Aaron hadn't died, if he had only suffered a drawn out trial and even a conviction, the call to reform the U.S attorney's office and the MIT administration would have much more diffuse support without the catalyst of his death. But I do think it's worth being mindful that the issue of treating depression isn't obfuscated.
Either way, what a tragedy. Reading Taren's words again really underscores how much of a loss Aaron's death was for civic reform.
It's natural to look for someone to blame. Should we lay the blame on MIT? If they had called off an overzealous D.A. from throwing the book at him, he might be alive today. Why not blame the D.A.? Or JSTOR? In any case, aiding in prosecution did not cause his death directly.
The decision to commit suicide was ultimately his own. Of all the options he had available to him, he consciously chose that option. I'm reminded of a quote by Viktor Frankl:
"Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation."
Aaron had the power to choose right until his last choice. Why do some people survive terrible hardships, and others don't?
According to his close friends' personal accounts, Aaron suffered from suicidal thoughts and depression for many years. Long before the JSTOR case, and long before MIT ever got involved. As long as we're speculating about things we can't know for sure, I'm guessing depression was really to blame for his suicide. That won't satisfy everyone, since it doesn't give them a powerful organization to rage against. But reality doesn't always work that way.
That's bad reasoning.
That "some people survive terrible hardships, and others don't" can just as well prove the reverse: that NOT all people have the same "power to choose".
Especially a self-professed depressive like Aaron.
Some people are more thick-skinned, either due to temperament, upbringing, genetics, circumstances etc.
>I'm guessing suicidal depression was really to blame for his suicide.
And this "suicidal depression" was unknown to MIT/his prosecutors? Or they found it nice to taunt and threaten someone suffering with such, over a non-issue?
>That won't satisfy everyone, since it doesn't give them a powerful organization to rage against. But reality doesn't always work that way.
I'm finding pop psychology explanations like your serve another plausible rationalization mechanism: it makes those saying them feel superior and more logical compared to the naives that "seek a powerful organization to rage against". (If you allow me the same pop psychology)
In the real world, putting the blame with Aaron and his depression doesn't solve anything (even if it was true).
Blaming MIT and the prosecution will prevent people from being fucked for trying similar benfifical hacks in the future.
> Blaming MIT and the prosecution will prevent people from being fucked for trying similar benfifical hacks in the future.
So MIT and the prosecution unfairly targeted Aaron to serve their personal motives. And now you're suggesting we unfairly pin his death on them to serve your personal motives.
I'm done with this.
> And this "suicidal depression" was unknown to MIT/his prosecutors? Or they found it nice to taunt and threaten someone suffering with such, over a non-issue?
Even if you know someone is suicidal, that doesn't make you accountable for them committing suicide.
The mental anguish of being ruthlessly sued by a government, with the cooperation and possible collusion of your school, and facing the potential for many years in prison is inarguably substantial. How well would you have handled the same thing?
Whether a more stable person would have been able to suck it up is inconsequential - they still did the damage that they did. In his case, it was too much. The damage is there either way. They may not be responsible for the ultimate outcome, but they are responsible for the anguish that put him there.
Aaron went to Stanford, and was for a time a fellow at Harvard. To my knowledge he was never an MIT student, and chose MIT for the network hack for separate reasons.
Do need weigh every prosecution against the ability of the accused to act rationally? Do rational actors break laws or go to extremes to do so?
I am all for levying some culpability on MIT, but it started with him
False dilemma. I am capable of blaming both.
One can argue that both MIT and the DOJ needlessly helped exacerbate a problem over a victimless crime of providing free access to publicly funded research.
http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/July/SwartzAaronPR.....
"AARON SWARTZ, 24, was charged in an indictment with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a protected computer. If convicted on these charges, 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."
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/15/humanity-deficit...
"Andy Good, Swartz’s initial lawyer, is alternately sad and furious.
'The thing that galls me is that I told Heymann the kid was a suicide risk,' Good told me. '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.'"
"Marty Weinberg, who took the case over from Good, said he nearly negotiated a plea bargain in which Swartz would not serve any time. He said JSTOR signed off on it, but MIT would not.
'There were subsets of the MIT community who were profoundly in support of Aaron,' Weinberg said. That support did not override institutional interests."
Sorry, I'm just curious, but how do you propose funding the scanning, organizing and hosting of this research? JStor is a non-profit that has spent tons of money going back and doing all of this for millions of articles, and continues to spend money doing it so researchers can access the data without having to flip through thousands of paper research journals in some library.
People on HN like to remind others about need to take responsibility for one's own actions. They did it to Aaron before his death and do this after. Being a passive observer while something awful is being done to another human being is a bit uncomfortable, it is much easy and self-comforting to our consciousness to think about the victim as being the one who is solely responsible for and is causing the awful things being done to him.
Just as it's much easier to heap the blame on a villain, rather than consider that Aaron had other options and a life still full of potential.
My point is that both perspectives are one-dimensional and both rely heavily on speculation about things that you and I don't really know about.
And more to the point, both downplay the reality that Aaron suffered from severe depression for years preceding the trial. If MIT was the tipping point, so be it. But often the tipping point is just the proverbial straw, and shouldn't be held responsible for Aaron's actions.
> Aaron suffered from [...] depression for many years.
This answers the question, although I would prefer not to use the term 'suicidal depression', which is not a medical term.
As someone who's attempted suicide, I also believe your choice of quote is both wrong and unfair. Surviving the holocaust is in no way comparable to surviving the things your mind can convince you to do when you suffer from anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder or any other such condition.
My impression of depression is that it's pervasive and crippling, and often the events surrounding it can be incidental. Not to say that one event couldn't be a tipping point, but neither is it fair to put all blame on one event or one organization or one person, as it downplays the effect of the underlying condition.
You don't rebuke the text you quote of her's.
So he has no responsibility for the decisions he made, up to and including the final one?
Yes, MIT's actions may have had influence. Or they may have hastened the inevitable - a person who makes this choice is not untroubled to begin with, and it's never about just one thing.
Ultimately, it was his choice in the end. The responsibility is his.
- If the murderer's mother had refused to have sex with the murderer's father, the victim would be alive today.
- If the train driver had had a sudden impulse to stop his train, the suicide could not have taken place.
- If he had subscribed to the protection racket scheme, his family would not have been harmed.
Responsibility is finer than causality.
Organizations have no conscience and no "human rights". Kicking an organization for bad judgement is cool.
Again - the mentality that leads to suicide does not develop in isolation. It is not "weev has picked on me and I am a loser and have no choice or other way out". That may be back-breaking straw, but it's not the underlying issue.
There are a host of contributing factors that can add up to this - so while it's great when we have a face to assign to The Bad Guy in these cases, and it's a perfectly natural response... it's seldom the correct one.
His death shouldn't be seen so much as a cause and effect so much as a wake up call that acting in the way MIT, JSTOR, and the government did isn't right and is hurting people in ways we don't necessarily pay attention to or care about when it's just some small news item about a trial.
IF A is responsible for X THEN B is not responsible for X
is false, in general.
Responsibility does not mutually exclude. It is often arranged that responsibilities do not overlap, but this is an organisational expediency. It is not a moral principle.
So saying "the responsibility was his" as if that somehow means that no-one else can have any responsibility is wrong.
Even if Aaron was still alive, the things MIT did would be no less wrong, so let's bring the focus back to that.
So as we do bring focus on back to it, I only ask that we do so without clouding the issue by branding them as murderers for their wrong actions.
No, he has the same responsibility a raped woman has.
She could opt to NOT dress provacately, after all.
/s
This report claims that MIT was “neutral” — but MIT’s lawyers gave
prosecutors total access to witnesses and evidence, while refusing
access to Aaron’s lawyers to the exact same witnesses and evidence.
That’s not neutral. The fact is that all MIT had to do was say
publicly, “We don’t want this prosecution to go forward” – and
Steve Heymann and Carmen Ortiz would have had no case.
and the surrounding comments.
Instead, because of their pigheadedness, the govt. got a chance to threaten him him with a very large Jail sentence leading to the completely avoidable tragedy that happened.
Whitewash indeed...his death is certainly attributable to MIT & Carmen Ortiz, et al.
[1] http://gothamist.com/2013/01/15/aaron_swartzs_lawyer_mit_ref...
MIT’s counsel stated that, while the government might believe that jail time was appropriate in this case, the government should not be under the impression that MIT wanted a jail sentence for Aaron Swartz. The prosecutor responded that the government believed that some custody was appropriate. He said the government had to consider not only the views of the immediate victims, but also general deterrence of others.
Those aren't really facts, those are assertions that could use some documentation. Which specific witnesses and pieces of evidence did the defense request (and is there a record of this) but were denied to them (and is there a record of that)?
There should be record of both and if I'm not wrong, not handing over discovery materials to the defense is against the law. This is the same type of behavior Zimmerman's defense team alleged when Angela Korey failed to turn over evidence from Trayvon's phone.
I'm sorry, but where exactly did this report, or any other literature on the case, indicate that MIT refused access to the defense's lawyers?
What we have and have had for some time is a democracy (or republic depending on which brand of kool aid one drinks) behind closed doors, by a government that is publicly funded submitting to the will of private institutions. Not that what is going on here is better than anyone else…
[0] http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010...
Long live Aaron's spirit and his zeal.
Well, the author's proposal for action by MIT is also not "neutral." Though I hold the same opinion about how MIT should have acted, I feel it's [inadvertently] written with this juxtaposition that goes from a level-headed "that's not neutral and here's why" to an emotional "they should have done X instead" which I fear reduces the effect of this statement.
However, there's been boatloads of public outcry over this whole thing and I'm certain I feel that MIT should address each and every issue people continue to raise, regardless of the how emotionally charged such statements might be.
Dow Chemical bought Union Carbide