
Official Statement from the family and partner of Aaron Swartz - mxfh
http://rememberaaronsw.tumblr.com/post/40372208044/official-statement-from-the-family-and-partner-of-aaron
======
shawn-butler
I am removing MIT as a benefactor from my will and ceasing donations to the
alumni association. I will not reconsider until the institution provides a
full accounting and takes responsibility for the actions of its legal counsel
in deciding to refer the matter to federal authorities.

If you are a current member of the student body or faculty you have a lot more
power than me. Please read about this matter and learn what your institution
chose to do on your behalf and take some action fully in the spirit of MIT to
reclaim what it has lost.

~~~
seiji
This is clearly out of my purview, but why in the world would you have an
institution as a beneficiary unless it's one you control? Are they really that
accomplished at brainwashing people?

~~~
shawn-butler
Not that it is any of your business but because I have no children and the
education of future generations is about the most important thing there is to
me. What is important to you?

Thanks for trolling me. I will try and make your contribution positive by
reminding readers that if they lack a will with benefactors or executors with
real world power, the state generally takes everything often ignoring legal
documents you leave behind.

~~~
randallsquared
"Not that it is any of your business"

If you don't want people to read and comment on something, maybe don't bring
it up to them, hm? It's not trolling to continue a conversation about your
will that you began.

Also, shaming someone for asking a reasonable question with "I will try and
make your contribution positive" seemed deliberately offensive. It's not clear
to me why you lashed out at that person as though they were prying into a
private matter, when you opened the discussion on it.

~~~
BrandonM
I would agree with your comment except that seiji used the derogatory term,
"brainwash," to refer to an activity that shawn-butler clearly chose to
participate in. This frames the conversation in a very negative light (it was
quite unnecessary), and it's not surprising that shawn-butler's response was
not entirely positive. I thought the reply showed appropriate restraint.

~~~
randallsquared
I agree that that seemed a poor choice of word, but the term doesn't seem
deliberately pejorative to me.

------
ghshephard
I've been thinking about the family today, and what might have caused Aaron to
make such a terrible decision. One thing that caught my attention, was
Lessig's comment in his post:

" _... Aaron Swartz be labeled a “felon.” For in the 18 months of
negotiations, that was what he was not willing to accept, and so that was the
reason he was facing a million dollar trial in April — his wealth bled dry,
yet unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his
defense, at least without risking the ire of a district court judge._ "

So - MIT brings in the Feds, the Government threaten him with 30+ years of
Prison, somehow there is no way for him to appeal to the public for support
for his lawsuit (which would have been very popular, I'm certain).

Does he try and look to his family to liquidate everything they have to help
support his defense? Does he plead out to something that _he truly believed
was not wrong_?

I can't even imagine how horrible this situation must have been for him, and
why he couldn't see how he was going to get out of it...

~~~
rdl
I want to know who specifically at MIT was involved in this. It seems
antithetical to the MIT IT people I know (Jeff Schiller, etc.).

There's no hope, really, of replacing the US Attorney Ortiz. MIT, however,
actually has some indirect accountability to the tech community.

~~~
ghshephard
What would cause an MIT IT executive (and this would have to be an executive
decision) to bring in the Secret Service for someone running curl against
academic journal website.

I have done _precisely_ that type of thing dozens of times in the last 10
years, and it would have never occurred to me that I was doing anything wrong.
And yes, I always had to login first through a browser, figure out how the
hell the cookie was stored, export it into a format that curl liked, figure
out the URLs for all the docs, etc, etc...

And yes - when I was younger and more energetic, sticking my laptop in
unlocked cabinet with an open ethernet port is _exactly_ the sort of thing I
would have done, without for a second believing I was doing anything
"criminal".

I have to believe that MIT has hundreds (thousands?) of these types of
webscraping events occurring all the time.

What made this one different from their perspective?

~~~
rdl
He wasn't a member of the MIT Community, and was in a wiring closet.

If they'd charged him with trespassing, I would have contributed to his legal
defense fund and bought him a drink when he finished his ~30 days of community
service or whatever. Minimal harm, minimal foul.

I did way worse stuff from my machines at MIT when I was an undergrad. I
actually was called to testify in a federal case over it, but told them to eat
a bowl of dicks (well, more politely, and through the awesome attorney
Jennifer Granick -- I was out of the country and didn't return until the trial
was over, because you NEVER win if you set foot in a federal court, even as a
witness).

MIT sold out Drink or Die, too, so fuck them in general.

~~~
ghshephard
Secret Service was involved prior to MIT knowing who was web-scraping JSTOR.
Does MIT normally call the Secret Service when they find Laptops w/Hard Drives
in wiring closets, particularly unlocked wiring closets that Homeless people
were known to store their stuff in? This is all very strange.

From: [http://chronicle.com/article/Rogue-Downloaders-
Arrest/128439...](http://chronicle.com/article/Rogue-Downloaders-
Arrest/128439/)

"On January 4, MIT police officers were notified that a member of the
university's technical-security staff had discovered a laptop in the wiring
closet. That morning, a team including a Secret Service agent and police
officers from Cambridge and Boston visited the site and installed a
Webcam....JSTOR never contacted any law-enforcement authorities about the
matter. The decision to pursue criminal charges, she says, was not JSTOR's."

~~~
waterlesscloud
That morning? Wow, that seems incredibly fast action.

------
toyg
Fuck yes, make them bleed.

I can understand a US Attorney being reckless, but I cannot believe MIT would
act so cowardly. If not even hacker-friendly institutions like MIT will side
with people like Aaron, it's a sad state of affairs.

~~~
jhuni
> _If not even hacker-friendly institutions like MIT will side with people
> like Aaron, it's a sad state of affairs._

MIT hasn't been a hacker-friendly institution since the early 1980s which is
why Richard Stallman left MIT to found the free software movement.

~~~
wololo
What changed?

~~~
duaneb
He's being hyperbolic; MIT is still a very friendly hacker school. Aaron DID
break the law, and I would not expect ANY school to stand behind him when he
blatantly violated the law. It's pretty simple: don't break the law, much less
using MIT resources to do so.

That said, they could have handled it with a lot more finesse, especially when
it is such horrible publicity for them. I suspect this has more to do with
eager lawyers than it does MIT's culture.

Keep in mind that MIT is an academic organization and is committed to, well,
academics, not politics; e.g. Stallman did not belong there anyway.

~~~
Evbn
Yeah, what do academics have to say about law, government, management, or
medicine, anyway? These important fields should be left to professionals, why
are schools sticking their noses in?

~~~
duaneb
> Yeah, what do academics have to say about law, government, management, or
> medicine, anyway? These important fields should be left to professionals,
> why are schools sticking their noses in?

You misunderstand me. Of course, you are correct, but it's not the role of the
school to be political, but instead to inform their students on how to be
political. When people choose a school to go to, it should be about their
academics and should not be swayed by politics. (Of course, politics always
creeps in, which is why I'm never going to give one of my alma maters and
money.)

------
igravious
I don't think that I've ever seen anything like this (the sheer number of
submissions related to one event) on HN before. I, like most others, follow
the tussle between those who desire a world where the barrier to access
information is lower and those who want to copyright, lock up and monetize all
the information that we generate.

Most of the time I feel that it is like a high tech soap opera but this events
brings it home to me that alarmingly the stakes can be very high and that the
weight of the collective system can crush any one individual. Is this naive of
me but would it be possible to set up some kind of fund or foundation that
could provide real monetary support to help those that are a braver than the
rest of us when they confront the system and as a result get overwhelmed.

Apologies if this is inappropriate in any way.

~~~
biot
I am only vaguely familiar with Aaron Swartz, so the magnitude of the response
on this site surprised me and reminds me of the HN front page when Steve Jobs
died: <http://www.waybackletter.com/archive/20111005.html>

~~~
jlgreco
Unlike Jobs, Aaron was actually one of us.

~~~
biot
It's rather presumptuous for you to speak on behalf of everybody. I would
consider them both "one of us", though I prefer to leave "us" vs. "them"
labels to religious, political, and sports nuts.

~~~
jlgreco
By "one of us" I mean a part of our community (Hacker news in particular, and
the internet hacker/programmer community at large), and I am referring to his
involvement in Y Combinator.

~~~
biot
Thanks for clarifying; that makes sense now.

------
unimpressive

      Beware would be activists of the forces you put to your axe.
      Like the tip of an iceberg, their great heft can remain unseen.
      These machinations have no appreciation for hacks.
      Even lawful men have much to fear from their vision keen.
      The unlucky must contend with a 13 stringed marionette.
      Whose deadly snare targets all free men.
      Probing at the six lines in every hearts quartet.
      The song it plays is fell indeed.
    
      Moments of silence won't bring this man back.
      But we can rally as our thoughts are often not thought alone. [0]
      We can repel the forces who's wishes for the public domain is to sack.
      We can refuse to reap for us what others have sewn.
      Don't falter at the sight of a martyers fall.
      There is always work to be done with one less hand at the helm.
      Stand up and shout, silence strangles us all!
      Strangled, by this intellectual miasma that seeks to  consume our world with hell.
    
      And though this life has been bought,
      full speed ahead! Eight knots!
    

[0]: In the interest of honesty, I don't feel like I'm doing enough.

------
andrewpbrett
> Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and
> at MIT contributed to his death.

Damning

~~~
sonabinu
Is anyone reminded of Alan Turing?

~~~
Gorbzel
Without any disrepect to Aaron's memory (very sad news), no.

Interested to hear what reminded you, but Turing committed suicide based on an
unjust persecution of a minority by society as a whole. While Aaron's
situation also involved injustice, I hadn't (and probably wouldn't) link the
two.

~~~
sonabinu
Did you not feel like his death was the result of authority pushing a him into
a corner? Wasn't Turing persecuted by authority as well? Two brilliant tech
minds lost before their time.

~~~
colechristensen
Aaron was accomplished, but Turing far overshadowed. Turing was forced or
compelled to take synthetic estrogen because he was gay as well as being
convicted and stripped of his security clearance. The hormone replacement
could be seen as rather more directly responsible for his suicide than the
still relevant stresses of overzealous prosecution.

------
zepolud
Extremely happy to see so strong and direct words. We owe him that much.

------
sadfasdf
This is the state of America, a kid with a laptop will go to jail for 30 +
years and a banker cunt that stole billions or laundered billions for drug
cartels gets nothing.

How sad it all is.

~~~
Evbn
They don't get nothing; they get millions of dollars.

------
sonabinu
It is good to see that those who loved him the most are direct without
euphemism.

~~~
jacquesm
The apple apparently did not fall very far from the tree.

------
lemming
_He used his prodigious skills as a programmer and technologist not to enrich
himself but to make the Internet and the world a fairer, better place._

Here's hoping his memory inspires more folk both here and elsewhere in the
world to do the same.

------
rogerthis
Being a chronic depressed and chronic pain sufferer, I wonder how much
problems like these contributed to him killing himself. I think about killing
myself everyday. I haven't done it yet because I am a devout Catholic and I
believe I can be in a worst place (or better) after death.

~~~
colechristensen
By all means let us know what we can do to keep life interesting!

~~~
rogerthis
Don't worry. I have the support from doctors, family, friends. And the
afterlife keeps this life interesting.

------
larrys
Perhaps someone could explain or confirm how anyone really knows that this is
actually the "official" statement of the family and partners of Aaron. I
understand that this was linked to in some major media, but I can find any way
of determining that by the page itself or in any of the stories linking to it.
There isn't any contact info and the domain name (which redirects there) was
registered by this person:

Domain name: rememberaaronsw.com

Registrant Contact:

    
    
       Brian Guthrie ()
       
        
       179 Stockwell Dr
       Mountain View, CA 94043
       US
    

As I've mentioned in a comment elsewhere it seems odd to me that all these
people got together and got this up so quickly after such a shocking event.

Here is one of the stories linked to it that doesn't verify the source:

[http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2013/01/online-
activi...](http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2013/01/online-activist-
aaron-swartz-26-found-dead/)

~~~
bguthrie
I was a colleague of Aaron's at ThoughtWorks (he joined early last year), and,
I hope, a friend. We're devastated by his loss. For a history of the work he
was doing over the last year, check
<https://github.com/victorykit/victorykit>.

We're in close contact with Aaron's family and partner Taren. You can take my
word for it or not, I guess, but the site and the statement are official.

~~~
jacquesm
Thank you Brian, for all you're doing in what must be incredibly hard times. I
can't begin to express how this all makes me feel, it will take weeks to sort
it all out I'm still too stunned to properly react. What a terrible loss. I
have a short list of people that I think I've identified that will change the
world in a material way, Aaron was at the top of that list. The fact that we
persecute such people rather than give them the benefit of the doubt and
encourage them to right what is obviously wrong is what bothers me most, the
one thing that stands out for me about Aaron at the moment is that he
consistently came down on the right side of any argument.

------
sonabinu
The Washington Post calls him an American Hero ... he was one, wasn't he?
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/12/a...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/12/aaron-
swartz-american-hero/)

~~~
FireBeyond
At the risk of antagonizing an upset crowd - to me, no, he wasn't.

A hero is someone admired for courage and/or other noble qualities.

It's also a word greatly overused in culture today.

Swartz was accomplished, certainly. Though to me "co-founded the website
reddit.com, co-wrote one of many specifications for syndicating content and
repeatedly hacked and trespassed to download content to which he was not
authorized" does not a hero make.

~~~
jacquesm
Before you make a bigger fool of yourself why don't you go and read up on what
Aaron did besides the things you know about:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz>

~~~
lawnchair_larry
I agree with GP, even after having read that. It is okay for people to have
different definitions of "hero", without one of them having to be a fool.

In a way it hits home even more, because it shows how any poor sap not unlike
myself can be steamrolled by the justice system. I've probably done "worse",
or at least comparable things.

Weev is about to go to jail for something equally preposterous.

------
xijuan
I don't know what to say anymore. It really saddens me to see such a great
person ending his life. I can imagine the amount of stress he was going
through..RIP..

------
dinkumthinkum
One sort of reform many have not discussed, or I have not seen, is in changing
the way federal prosecutors pursue cases and sentencing. Very, very few
federal cases ever go to trial because of obscenely long prison sentences. The
defendant in federal cases is at such a disadvantage.

------
so898
If we use the death of this great person to do what we want, there is no
different between we and the BAD people. Justice will be served. At this
moment, I think we should just wish Aaron Swartz R.I.P..

------
stesch
tumblr.com gets autobanned on reddit. _sigh_

~~~
worldsayshi
Huh? You mean by vote?

~~~
stesch
No. Every post with a tumblr.com link gets automatically banned.

A week ago I posted something to a subreddit I've founded and it got banned.
This spam filter isn't even allowing moderators to post these links. But I was
allowed to unban it.

So, I wrote to the moderators of /r/technology a few minutes ago and instead
of unbanning it they said that tumblr.com is banned reddit wide. No, he hasn't
unbanned the link. :-(

~~~
colechristensen
Despite the occasional high value link, the reddit ban on tumblr makes reddit
better.

~~~
colmvp
Whereas quickmeme.com is edifying?

~~~
colechristensen
Fortunately or not, there are whole sections of Reddit devoted more or less to
quickmeme.com. Some subreddits auto-ban quickmeme which I highly encourage,
but a sitewide ban is unreasonable because of how engrained it is in the
culture.

Image captioning is, in our opinion, a bit worthless, but this is what we
actually find objectionable not just one site of many which provides this.

Blogging itself is not what is objectionable just the general quality of the
content from Tumblr, so comparing quickmeme to tumblr is unfair.

~~~
stesch
Where is the option to auto-ban certain domains? I've never seen it.

~~~
skeletonjelly
Doesn't exist. Spam filter learns.

------
skorgu
Assuming the address is findable would it be weird to leave flowers? I feel
like this shouldn't stay bits on wires.

~~~
Evbn
Seems he would have preferred you give to givewell or an endorsed
organization.

Cut flowers just die in a week.

------
jbrooksuk
Damn, I just had to zoom to 150% to read this.

------
OGinparadise
" _Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and
at MIT contributed to his death...The US Attorney’s office pursued an
exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in
prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims."_

It's nothing personal, just business. They use these cases to run for higher
office by "being tough on crime" and other nauseating BS.

