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<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div><a href="http://tarensk.tumblr.com/post/42260548767/why-aaron-died">Tumblr</a><keyword id="715627" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Aaron-Swartz">Aaron Swartz</keyword> and <keyword id="1529996" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Taren-Stinebrickner-Kauffman">Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman</keyword></div>On Tuesday night, <keyword id="54274" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="MIT">MIT</keyword> held a memorial for Aaron Swartz, the hacker, activist, and Reddit cofounder who took his own life in January.
At the memorial, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, Swartz's girlfriend, <a href="http://tarensk.tumblr.com/post/45281114505/mit-memorial-service">questioned whether MIT was doing enough to investigate</a> its role in the federal prosecution that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-swartzs-girlfriend-has-a-damning-theory-about-the-young-reddit-co-founders-suicide-2013-2">she believes drove Swartz to suicide</a>.
Prosecutors had charged Swartz with violating laws in downloading millions of articles from JSTOR, an academic database, over MIT's network.
While JSTOR <a href="http://about.jstor.org/news/jstor-statement-misuse-incident-and-criminal-case">declined to press charges</a>, MIT authorities called in the Secret Service, which ultimately led to Swartz's federal prosecution.
After Swartz's suicide, MIT <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mit-investigation-aaron-swartz-suicide-2013-1">initiated an investigation</a> into its cooperation with authorities, appointing Hal Abelson, a professor well-regarded among Internet-rights activists, to lead it.
But Stinebrickner-Kauffman is concerned that two months on, nothing has come out of the investigation. Here's what she said, according to a prepared version of her remarks:
Immediately after Aaron’s death, MIT’s President Reif announced an investigation into MIT’s involvement in the case, headed by esteemed professor Hal Abelson. I was hopeful. I was hopeful that this investigation might be in the spirit of genuine science, of acknowledging and learning from mistakes. We can never get Aaron back, but MIT can ensure that this kind of injustice and tragedy doesn’t happen again in its community.
But since then I have become less hopeful. I fear that the investigation will instead be in the spirit of a bureaucracy. I fear it will be the kind of “investigation” that Robert Jackall might have written about: A PR exercise, a whitewash. I fear this because of the fact that the General Counsel’s office is itself involved in running the investigation, of which it should be the primary subject. I fear this because it has been two months and my understanding is that neither Aaron’s lawyers nor Aaron’s father have been interviewed by the committee running the investigation, nor has there been any sign that the report will be released until after media interest has blown over.
Another of Aaron’s ideals was asking challenging questions. And that’s why I’m here to ask those questions today.
So here is my challenging question for those of you at this institution who care about its ideals and care about your own moral compasses. Is MIT a scientific enterprise, working to fulfill its mission of bettering the world? Or is MIT a bureaucracy, operating much like for-profit corporations, interested primarily in promoting and protecting itself as an organization?
Here is how you will be able to tell:
If MIT releases its report in a timely fashion. It’s already been two months – how much longer do we have to wait? If the report represents MIT’s critics in this matter fully and fairly; If the report acknowledges serious mistakes by MIT; If the report holds specific people and organizational structures accountable for those mistakes; If the report refers to the morality of the actions of people at MIT in the context of universal ethics, not in the context of organizational security; If MIT implements clear, actionable changes that a reasonable person would believe would have prevented Aaron’s persecution and death, had they been implemented before his case.

Aaron Swartz's Girlfriend Accuses MIT Of Dragging Its Feet On Investigating His Suicide

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><a href="http://rememberaaronsw.com/">Remember Aaron</a><keyword id="715627" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Aaron-Swartz">Aaron Swartz</keyword> and Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman</div></div>In January, a celebrated Internet activist, Aaron Swartz, committed <keyword id="6356238" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Suicide">suicide</keyword>.
Swartz, who had long battled depression, was being prosecuted for downloading – or stealing – 4.8 million academic papers using <keyword id="54274" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="MIT">MIT</keyword>'s network from an online service, JSTOR.
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-swartz-plea-deal-2013-1">Prosecutors charged him with 13 felonies</a> as a result of the hack, which add up to decades in jail. However, Swartz was being offered a plea deal that would only total 4 months behind bars.
Shwartz's family and friends say the prosecution's aggressive charges were a driving force behind Swartz's suicide. They also blame MIT for not defending Swartz as the trial unfolded.
Two days after Swartz's death, MIT's President L. Rafael Reif asked one of its professors, Hal Abelson, to investigate the school's involvement in the matter. After reading through 10,000 pages of material and interviewing more than 50 people, the 150-page report has been published.
The report, which was made public this morning, finds that MIT acted fairly.
Abelson summarizes his key findings in the report's introduction:
<ul>
<li>MIT did not know Aaron Swartz was the person behind the theft of academic papers until his arrest.</li>
<li>MIT did not ask for Swartz to be prosecuted. It also did not ask for him not to be prosecuted, despite please from Swartz's family, lawyers and 2 members of MIT's faculty. </li>
<li>The report says MIT acted this way because it wanted to remain "neutral." It also didn't feel that issuing a statement in support of Swartz would sway prosecutors.</li>
</ul>
"It makes clear that MIT did not 'target' Aaron Swartz, we did not seek federal prosecution, punishment or jail time, and we did not oppose a plea bargain," <a href="http://swartz-report.mit.edu/docs/letter-from-president-reif.pdf">MIT President Reif writes of the report</a>.
He also encourages the community to take a hard look at the fifth section of the report, which calls into question the way MIT acted after Swartz's arrest.
Those include:
<ul>
<li>"What are MIT's obligations to members of our extended community?: (Swartz's father was an MIT grad)</li>
<li>"Should MIT strengthen its activities in support of open access to scholarly publications?"</li>
</ul>
Swartz's girlfriend Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, who found his body in their apartment, vehemently disagrees with the report. 
She says he'd "be alive today if MIT had acted as JSTOR did" against the prosecution. She made a similar statement at Swartz's memorial service earlier this year.
Here is her statement on the report: 
MIT’s behavior throughout the case was reprehensible, and this report is quite frankly a whitewash.
Here are the facts: 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. We have an institution to contrast MIT with – JSTOR, who came out immediately and publicly against the prosecution. Aaron would be alive today if MIT had acted as JSTOR did. MIT had a moral imperative to do so. And even now, MIT is still stonewalling. Wired reporter Kevin Poulsen FOIA’d the Secret Service’s files on Aaron’s case, and judge ordered them to be released. The only reason they haven’t been is because MIT has filed an objection. If MIT is at all serious about implementing any reforms to stop this kind of tragedy from happening again, it must stop objecting to the release of information about the case.”

MIT Concludes It Did Nothing Improper In Case Of Internet Activist's Aaron Swartz's Suicide - Swartz's Girlfriend Calls 'BS'

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div><a href="http://tarensk.tumblr.com/post/42260548767/why-aaron-died">Tumblr</a><keyword id="715627" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Aaron-Swartz">Aaron Swartz</keyword> and his girlfriend, Taren.</div>A few weeks ago, Internet activist and Reddit co-founder <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/26-year-old-reddit-co-founder-aaron-swartz-has-died-2013-1">Aaron Swartz committed suicide.</a>
He left no note in his New York apartment explaining his death. Many assumed the 26-year-old was depressed based on an earlier blog post Swartz had written. 
Swartz was facing potential jail time for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-swartz-plea-deal-2013-1">hacking into MIT's computer network and stealing copies of 4.8 million academic papers. </a>
But Swartz's live-in girlfriend, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, doesn't think depression killed Aaron.
She, like Swartz's father, believes <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-swartzs-father-says-his-son-was-killed-by-the-government-2013-1">the government indirectly killed Swartz.</a> And her words are damning.
<a href="http://tarensk.tumblr.com/post/42260548767/why-aaron-died">From her Tumblr</a>:
"I believe that Aaron’s death was not caused by depression...I say this because, since his <keyword id="6356238" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Suicide">suicide</keyword>, as I’ve tried to grapple with what happened, I’ve been learning. I’ve researched clinical depression and associated disorders. I’ve read their symptoms, and at least until the last 24 hours of his life, Aaron didn’t fit them. 
...I believe Aaron’s death was caused by exhaustion, by fear, and by uncertainty. I believe that Aaron’s death was caused by a persecution and a prosecution that had already wound on for 2 years (what happened to our right to a speedy trial?) and had already drained all of his financial resources. I believe that Aaron’s death was caused by a criminal justice system that prioritizes power over mercy, vengeance over justice; a system that punishes innocent people for trying to prove their innocence instead of accepting plea deals that mark them as criminals in perpetuity; a system where incentives and power structures align for prosecutors to destroy the life of an innovator like Aaron in the pursuit of their own ambitions.
Ask yourself this: If on January 10, Steve Heymann and Carmen Ortiz at the Massachusetts US Attorney’s office had called Aaron’s lawyer and said they’d realized their mistake and that they were dropping all charges — or even for that matter that they were ready to offer a reasonable plea deal that wouldn’t have marked Aaron as a felon for the rest of his life — would Aaron have killed himself on January 11?
The answer is unquestionably no.

Aaron Swartz's Girlfriend Has A Damning Theory About The Young Reddit Co-Founder's Suicide

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:401px"><div class="image"></div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ragesoss/3835494997/">ragesoss/Flickr</a></div>Famed Internet activist <keyword id="715627" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Aaron-Swartz">Aaron Swartz</keyword> was honored Friday by the American Library Association. He became the first person to posthumously receive the association's James Madison Award.
This is an award for those who champion public access to government information.
The 26-year-old Swartz committed suicide in January. He faced criminal hacking charges in what many describe as an overzealous prosecution, led by government attorneys apparently intent on sending Swartz to prison.
In 2010, Swartz downloaded 4.8 million academic papers from JSTOR, an academic database. He planned to make them publicly available for free. Swartz was protesting how JSTOR limited academic research, meant for the expansion of public knowledge and often funded by government grants, to those who had paid accounts.
This year, JSTOR changed its policies and made several million academic journal articles available to anyone for free.
That was too late for Swartz.
Yesterday, Swartz's lawyer <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/130195421/2013-01-28-Redeacted-OPR?secret_password=so12oi0h97ttjzodvha">publicly released a letter sent</a> to the Justice Department that accuses Assistant United States Attorney Stephen Heymann of prosecutorial misconduct. It details the lengths he went to in investigating Swartz and accuses him of coercing Swartz into a guilty plea.
It's a sad and depressing story.
So the library award is a silver lining for Swartz's family, loved ones, and supporters.
Swartz is known as a co-founder of a company that became part of Reddit, and the inventor of Really Simple Syndication, a technology for distributing Web content. He founded the online group Demand Progress, which helped defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act.
Here's the full press release about the James Madison Award.
Aaron Swartz Awarded American Library Associations’ James Madison Award
Family, Partner and President of the ALA React
WASHINGTON, DC - Today, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) posthumously awarded activist Aaron Swartz the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2013 James Madison Award during the 15th Annual Freedom of Information Day in Washington, D.C. According to the American Library Association, “Swartz will receive the award for his dedication to promoting and protecting public access to research and government information.”
“Aaron loved libraries. I remember how excited he was to get library privileges at Harvard and be able to use the Widener library there. I know he would have been humbled and honored to receive this award. We thank you,” said Robert Swartz, Aaron’s father, in reaction to the award. “Aaron's goal was to make knowledge freely available to everyone and we can all further his legacy by making this happen.”
The James Madison Award honors individuals who have championed, protected, and promoted public access to government information and the public’s right to know national information. ALA has long been a supporter of open access policies that increase the amount of research made available to the public.
"We are honored for Aaron to become the first person to win the James Madison Award posthumously. Librarians have always understood the importance of open access better than anyone, and they were great friends to Aaron. Aaron fought to ensure that the corpus of human knowledge would be available to anyone who wanted to learn, not just those with the privilege of access to a major research university. He saw the revolutionary potential of the internet in this regard,” said Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, Swartz’s partner. “I hope that Aaron's death and this award can serve as a wake-up call to the U.S. Congress and the federal government: We must no longer allow corporate greed to be the bottleneck to people's access to academic knowledge."
“We are pleased to honor Aaron Swartz, a young man who was dedicated to promoting and protecting public access to research and government information,” said Maureen Sullivan, president of the American Library Association. “He embodied the ALA principles that valued transparency and equal, unrestricted access to information.”

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Aaron Swartz's Girlfriend Accuses MIT Of Dragging Its Feet On Investigating His Suicide

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