Don’t they also have discretion regarding the penalties they seek - perhaps because some charges aren’t in the interest of justice even if they might fit the applicable statute?
When it comes to this issue, and others like it, I’m reminded of the interview with Dr. Jonas Salk after he created the Polio Vaccine.
Reporter: “So, who owns the patent to this vaccine.”
Salk: “Well, there is no patent. The people own it. Could you patent the sun?”
I support Anonymous. I think more sharing of information the better for us all in the long run. Look at how much knowledge is being stored in Wikipedia.
Breaking and entering charges were dropped. Also, the charges were for entering an unlocked closet on an open campus. Per this article (an interesting read from an expert witness for the defense in the case), the closet was even used by a homeless man for storage.
The real problem is the vagueness of the law and the zeal of the prosecutor. The federal charges against Swartz were related to unauthorized access and fraud, but the MIT network is essentially open, does not prompt users with a TOS, and allows unlimited JSTOR downloads on the network. If using a false name to register is a crime, thousands of felonies are committed daily on airport and coffee house wifi. If Swartz committed criminal fraud in accessing the MIT network and JSTOR files, the bar for a felony is far too low. The MIT network was deliberately run in a very open manner. Swartz took advantage of that hospitality, but I don’t see how it raises to a felony level worth the threat of 30 years in prison.
People have mentioned the PACER incident and cited it as Swartz having a history of criminal activity. What’s neglected is the fact that he was never charged with anything. I’m not even sure what the alleged crime is. Installing a script on a computer? Maybe that violates the TOS, but if violating the TOS is a crime, every banned former SDMB user is a criminal.
I think the tiger metaphor isn’t appropriate. I think it’s a plate of cookies with a sign saying “Free” just inside an unlocked swinging gate. When you come through the gate, you’re charged with stealing the cookies and trespassing.
But those things are unavoidable. An over-zealous criminal prosecution is not.
Well, according the the indictment, the article you linked to is incorrect on several points.
From the linked article:
[QUOTE=Alex Stamos]
MIT operates an extraordinarily open network. Very few campus networks offer you a routable public IP address via unauthenticated DHCP and then lack even basic controls to prevent abuse. Very few captured portals on wired networks allow registration by any visitor, nor can they be easily bypassed by just assigning yourself an IP address. In fact, in my 12 years of professional security work I have never seen a network this open.
[/QUOTE]
The fact that MIT has an open network is trivial and is contradicted in the indictment.
[QUOTE=Indictment]
MIT made JSTOR’s services and content available to its students, faculty, and employees. MIT also allowed guests of the Institute to have the same access to JSTOR, but required guests to register on the MIT network. MIT authorized guests to use its network for no more than fourteen days per year, and required all users to use the network to support MIT’s research, education, and administrative activities, or at least not interfere with these activites; to maintain the system’s security and conform to applicable laws, including copyright laws; and to conform with rules imposed by any networks to which users connected through MIT’s system. These rules explicity notified users that violations could lead to state or federal procsecution. Guest users of the MIT network agreed to be bound by the same rules that applied to students, faculty and employees.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Alex Stamos]
In the spirit of the MIT ethos, the Institute runs this open, unmonitored and unrestricted network on purpose. Their head of network security admitted as much in an interview Aaron’s attorneys and I conducted in December. MIT is aware of the controls they could put in place to prevent what they consider abuse, such as downloading too many PDFs from one website or utilizing too much bandwidth, but they choose not to.
[/QUOTE]
This is also kinda sorta contradicts the indictment.
[QUOTE=Indictment]
17. As JSTOR and then MIT, became aware of these events, each took steps to block communications to and from Swartz’s computer. Swartz, in turn, altered the apparent source of his automated demands to sidestep or circumvent JSTOR’s and MIT’s blocks against his computer, as described below:
[/QUOTE]
snipped
So MIT did try and stop the abuse of the network by blocking Swartz MAC.
[QUOTE=Alex Stamos]
MIT also chooses not to prompt users of their wireless network with terms of use or a definition of abusive practices.
[/QUOTE]
And? Swartz wasn’t using the wireless. He plugged directly into a switch.
[QUOTE=Alex Stamos]
MIT also chooses not to prompt users of their wireless network with terms of use or a definition of abusive practices.
[/QUOTE]
This is also trivial as Swartz bypassed the wireless network. It is also contradicted by the indictment.
[QUOTE=Indictment]
MIT authorized guests to use its network for no more than fourteen days per year, and required all users to use the network to support MIT’s research, education, and administrative activities, or at least not interfere with these activites; to maintain the system’s security and conform to applicable laws, including copyright laws; and to conform with rules imposed by any networks to which users connected through MIT’s system. These rules explicity notified users that violations could lead to state or federal procsecution. Guest users of the MIT network agreed to be bound by the same rules that applied to students, faculty and employees.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Alex Stamos]
At the time of Aaron’s actions, the JSTOR website allowed an unlimited number of downloads by anybody on MIT’s 18.x Class-A network. The JSTOR application lacked even the most basic controls to prevent what they might consider abusive behavior, such as CAPTCHAs triggered on multiple downloads, requiring accounts for bulk downloads, or even the ability to pop a box and warn a repeat downloader.
[/QUOTE]
This is also contradicted in the indictment. See above. On a side note, what is up with the mention of a class A network? That has nothing to do with the issue.
[QUOTE=Alex Stamos]
Aaron did not “hack” the JSTOR website for all reasonable definitions of “hack”. Aaron wrote a handful of basic python scripts that first discovered the URLs of journal articles and then used curl to request them. Aaron did not use parameter tampering, break a CAPTCHA, or do anything more complicated than call a basic command line tool that downloads a file in the same manner as right-clicking and choosing “Save As” from your favorite browser.
[/QUOTE]
This depends on what you consider hacking. Physical hacks are covered at Defcon which this guy should know. Plugging into a network you are not supposed to access is a physical hack.
[QUOTE=Alex Stamos]
Aaron did nothing to cover his tracks or hide his activity, as evidenced by his very verbose .bash_history, his uncleared browser history and lack of any encryption of the laptop he used to download these files. Changing one’s MAC address (which the government inaccurately identified as equivalent to a car’s VIN number) or putting a mailinator email address into a captured portal are not crimes. If they were, you could arrest half of the people who have ever used airport wifi.
[/QUOTE]
This is contradicted by the indictment.
[QUOTE=Indictment]
26. …Apparently aware of or suspicious of a video camera, as Swartz entered the wiring closet, he help his bicycle helmet like a mask to shield his face…
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Alex Stamos]
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.
[/QUOTE]
This is also contradicted by the indictment.
[QUOTE=Indictment]
16. The effect of these rapid and massive downloads and download requests was to impair computers used by JSTOR to provide articles to client research institutions
[/QUOTE]
If you think you are being hacked, cutting off the source of the potential hackers is standard operating procedure.
So, the security expert hired by the defense has a totally different take on it than the prosecutors. That isn’t surprising. Additionally, if MIT has lax network security it has no bearing on whether Swartz actions are illegal. If someone leaves their front door unlocked it does not give anyone the right to enter the house. Same principle here.
I will agree that the law needs to be tightened up. And I do agree that using long sentences to push defendants into pleading out is a rather nasty practice. However, it is standard operating procedure as far as I know.
As far as the PACER thing goes, I don’t know why they did not charge him. And installing a script/program/whatever on a government computer is illegal. It is not a TOS issue. I’ll hunt up the cite tomorrow.
Slee
Huh?
Being dumped and having a cheating spouse are no more unavoidable (or avoidable) than is an “over-zealous prosecution.” She or he could have worked it out with me. Or stayed faithful. Bad things will happen in life, many of them unfair. Mostly that is unavoidable. (And when you take on fighting for a cause you can pretty well bank on some bad things happening along the way. It is a fight after all, you have to expect being knocked down a few times. You want to avoid that? Don’t get in the ring.)
Bad things happen and can worsen a depression. They do not however cause the illness and suicide from depression is an avoidable complication of the disease. Depression is treatable the vast majority of the time.
What works the vast majority of the time for truly clinically depressed people? In my youth, I used to think maybe I was depressed on occasion, but later I realized I was just bored, and of course later realizing coitus being a great picker-upper.
Different treatment approaches work for different people. For many it is a combination of psychotherapy and antidepressants and/or other medications. Some respond to exercise as an important adjunct. A few need hospitalization to keep them safe until they are not a serious risk of harm to themselves. I know that ECT evokes all sorts of strong responses but I have seen it work well in a loved one with severe treatment resistant depression. The point is that depression (yes, depression, not the blues) need not be fatal.
Working mostly as a placebo? And I suppose that is fine if that all it is, provided the medications didn’t cause any adverse side effects and if someone truly needed it as such. And perhaps maybe loved ones and others giving another some extra attention when they needed it also had a significant influence in people getting better. Just seems like antidepressants should show a significant better difference than a placebo.
Cecil noted with the FDA’s low standards, drug companies don’t “limit the number of trials, enabling drug manufacturers to keep rolling the dice until they get the desired result.” The review found that “on average antidepressants didn’t meet the criteria for ‘clinical significance.’”
Despite it all, he says as primary-care doctors have higher patient loads and with an aging America, pills is probably are going to be all they are going to ever get.
You are welcome to open up yet another thread debating the efficacy of antidpressants prescribed by primary care docs, versus care with a psychiatrist and/or with counselling and/or other. Cecil’s column is not however authoritative nor does it dispute the claim that depression is treatable most of the time.
The point stands: depression is treatable and suicide from depression is avoidable. If you want to claim that depression is not treatable, that suicide from depression is not avoidable, or that all seriously and severely depressed people need is a good placebo and extra attention from loved ones, then please open a thread about those beliefs.
No need for another thread, and not sure why you feel like one question needs its own. You’ve spent a bit of time on depression here, I believe every post in this thread, and nobody suggested you open up another thread on it each and every time.
But evidently most of the depression getting treated is because of a placebo being administrated by antidepressants. His column can’t be good news for the pharmaceuticals, primary care doctors, and psychiatrists that prescribes these medicines, and many in those fields who would love for you to think that XYZ INC latest drug really is all of that and more. The FDA has such low standards; it looks like with enough trials just about any drug could get through.
Another thread on that too? Not making the claim that depression isn’t treatable or suicide from depression isn’t avoidable either. But if it is severe depression, it’s going to probably need something more than a placebo.
You know what? You don’t have to feel sorry for him. We don’t need to legislate your emotions.
But he was treated shabbily by the prosecution, and Aaron dying was an unfortunate outcome.
In this thread we are talking about severe/extreme depression and suicide as an avoidable outcome of that disease. Cecil’s article’s harshest critical review? A study that showed antidepressants only were better than placebo for “patients rated as extremely depressed.”
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Pertinent to this discussion no debate from Cecil’s article that medication is effective for those with severe depression, who of course by definition are those at risk for the most severe adverse outcome of depression, suicide.
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Medication is not the only treatment for depression and while seem to be using a mention of depression as a knee jerk jump off to hijack about how ineffective medication alone is for mild depression (which has been the subject of many past threads here), you are going farther and claiming that therefore most depression is not treatable. Your cited article makes no such claim and does not support one. Your cited article merely complains that a shortage of primary care doctors will, in the author’s view, result in more depressed people being treated inadequately for depression - with quick pill prescriptions only. Not necessarily a logical thought process but one that in no way contradicts the point that depression is treatable and its most severe adverse outcome, suicide, avoidable. Nor the point that as a society we need to improve the delivery of comprehensive mental health services.
This thread is about Aaron Swartz’s death. He died of as a result of depression, not as a result of prosecutorial over reach. Did he get adequate treatment for his depression? Were there barriers that prevented his getting adequate treatment? Do others face those same barriers, or even greater ones? He was already identified as someone with depression and at risk with access to resources and yet a life stress that not unpredictably exacerbated his disease managed to get to the point of killing him. Why?
Antidepressants alone may have only small efficacy over “active placebos” (i.e. placebos with side effects that mimic antidepressant side effects). I completely agree that we need better than that.
Sorry had to run out and posted before I was really done …
razncain, maybe I am just not understanding what your point pertinent to this thread is. You questioned specifically my statement that depression is mostly treatable and suicide as an outcome is avoidable. Your reason for questioning that seems to be desire to get on a soapbox about how antidepressants alone may have only slight efficacy over active placebos, not to actually comment on whether or not serious depression, such as Swartz had, is treatable.
What am I missing? How exactly do your posts relate to Mr Swartz’s death or my comment that his death was caused by his depression not Ms. Ortiz’s responsibility? How do they relate to the comment that we as a society do a crappy job of taking care of depression and that his death painfully illustrates that? How is it not a complete hijack?
No. No, no and no. You don’t get to do that. There was definitely prosecutorial over-reach, it was definitely the major cause of his depression, you don’t get to whip out the “mental illness” card and sweep Ortiz’s villainy under the rug.
Bullshit.
I have no strong opinion about prosecutorial over-reach although the conversation here has me mostly convinced it likely occurred (albeit I see no “villainy” here) But your facts are out and out wrong. He had depression, wrote about his depression, before this event ever occurred. It was most definitely not “the major cause of his having depression.” It was one of any number of life stressors, fair and unfair, that can occur that can trigger an episode of depression in some who has either recurrent depression or bipolar depression as a chronic illness.
I just looked up his blog … “Raw Thought” … skimming found this in a September entry:
I am not sure what to make of it in the context of someone with a long history of depression. But it makes me sad. Was he a brilliant mind who thought something was to be gained by suffering with his depression rather than adequately treating it? I don’t pretend to know. But again, so sad.
Some laws are wrong. People who break those laws shouldn’t be prosecuted, and the officials who arrest, charge, prosecute and sentence people for breaking those laws are morally wrong.
I don’t know if Aaron killed himself over this case or not. Even if he did, it was a trigger for his depression which wasn’t anyone’s fault. He probably would have done it sooner or later anyway.
That doesn’t mean the justice system wasn’t massively in the wrong here when they drove someone to suicide just for downloading some academic papers. And it would have been massively wrong even if Aaron were still here, taking it all in good stride. It’s just fucking wrong for that to be a crime, especially a felony with a 35 year max prison sentence.
Is this the world you want to live in?
I agree with the first sentence. I totally disagree with the second. We do not want officials deciding which laws to defend and which to ignore. It’s up to the law makers to decide.
Government holds power only through the grace of its citizens. If juries, police, prosecutors and judges all decided to stop enforcing shitty, immoral laws, the legislators and lobbyists who enacted those laws would have to throw in the towel and stop screwing over the public. This is a democracy after all. Haven’t you heard of the social contract?
But single people can easily be corrupted. What do you do when Officer Bubba decides to stop enforcing certain laws to keep his buddies out of jail? The correct response is to force the law makers to change the laws, not let law officers decide what they don’t feel like enforcing.