David Patraeus, Who Leaked Classified Info To His Mistress, Says Snowden Should Be Prosecuted

from the say-that-again? dept

Last week, the Intercept published Ed Snowden's powerful foreword to Jeremy Scahill's new book The Assassination Complex. The foreword is entitled: Whistleblowing Is Not Just Leaking — It’s an Act of Political Resistance. It's really worth reading. In it, among other things, he does note that there are very different kinds of leaking information. There are situations where you are alerting the public to important information. And then there are... other situations. Like what happened to former CIA Director, General David Petraeus:

Not all leaks are alike, nor are their makers. Gen. David Petraeus, for instance, provided his illicit lover and favorable biographer information so secret it defied classification, including the names of covert operatives and the president’s private thoughts on matters of strategic concern. Petraeus was not charged with a felony, as the Justice Department had initially recommended, but was instead permitted to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. Had an enlisted soldier of modest rank pulled out a stack of highly classified notebooks and handed them to his girlfriend to secure so much as a smile, he’d be looking at many decades in prison, not a pile of character references from a Who’s Who of the Deep State.

That's a pretty good summary of the "high court" situation that lets powerful people like Petraeus get away with passing on such information that could have legitimately put people at risk.

So, it was interesting, just days later, to see a long interview in the Financial Times with David Petraeus, in which he's asked about Snowden (warning: the link may be paywalled). The interview covers many subjects, and the comment on Snowden is quite brief:

Should Edward Snowden be prosecuted, I ask? “Unquestionably,” he replies. “If Snowden had wanted to help that debate he could have very easily been a whistleblower who could have gone to the appropriate organisation and offered his views. He didn’t.”

This is bullshit on so many levels. First, it's bullshit because Petreaus himself got off with barely a wrist slap for his own activity, which had nothing to do with whistleblowing and appeared to be much more dangerous than what Snowden did. Second, as Petreaus absolutely knows, the intelligence community does not treat whistleblowers well. Previous whistleblowers, including Thomas Drake, basically had their lives destroyed as punishment for using the "appropriate" channels for whistleblowing. Hell, just last week, we wrote about yet another case of an intelligence community whistleblower, who used the "appropriate" channels, suddenly having her home raided and her career in shambles.

Third, it's bullshit because even in using the "appropriate" channels, as an NSA contractor, Snowden was not protected from direct retaliation for whistleblowing. Fourth, it's bullshit because the "proper channels" would just be to run it up the line of people who thought it was hunky dory to lie to the American public to reinterpret the PATRIOT Act to enable them to spy on everyone's communications data. That wouldn't have done anything. Fifth, it's bullshit because once the information actually did get out through the press -- which never would have happened through "appropriate channels," it has set in motion a number of changes, among companies, individuals, Congress and the intelligence community. That's the point of whistleblowing, to actually change the behavior through alerting more people to what's going on.

But, really, it seems especially idiotic that someone in Petreaus' position would weigh in so hypocritically on Snowden's situation.

Filed Under: david petraeus, ed snowden, high court, leaks, low court, prosecution, whistleblowing

DOJ Issues New Rules On Espionage Investigations To Keep It From Embarrassing Itself So Often

from the it's-not-so-much-the-bad-prosecutions-as-it-is-people-making-fun-of-us dept

A string of aborted federal prosecutions of alleged "traitors" has the DOJ rethinking its national security strategies. The DOJ went after National Weather Service employee Sherry Chen, who shared public web links about reservoir water funding with a senior Chinese official, who also happened to be Chen's friend. It went after Temple University's physics department head Xi Xiaoxang for allegedly sharing secret semiconductor blueprints with Chinese scientists. The case fell apart once the DOJ was informed by actual experts in the field that the shared blueprints weren't for the item the DOJ claimed they were for. Finally, it went after Robin Raphael, a State Department advisor, who it believed was passing on state secrets to Pakistani officials. At this point, the DOJ's case has dissolved into little more than an accusation that Raphael kept classified documents in her home, something others like Hillary Clinton and General Petraeus have managed to walk from unscathed.

The New York Times reports the DOJ has issued some new guidelines for national security prosecutions -- ones that will hopefully result in fewer misguided prosecutions and destroyed lives.

In a letter last month to federal prosecutors nationwide, Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates said that would change. All cases affecting national security, even tangentially, now require coordination and oversight in Washington. That had always been the intention of the rule, but Ms. Yates made it explicit.

“The term ‘national security issue’ is meant to be a broad one,” she wrote.

Ms. Yates told federal prosecutors that consulting with experienced national security prosecutors in Washington would help “ensure prompt, consistent and effective responses” to national security cases.

This doesn't exactly sound encouraging, but it's a step away from the DOJ's autonomy, which has led to a run of botched prosecutions predicated on next to no evidence. According to the letter shared with the New York Times, the DOJ will now have to consult with "espionage experts" before moving forward with investigations and will face more direct supervision from higher-ranking officials during the investigative process.

This fix -- if that's what it actually is -- will possibly head off misguided investigations before they wreck the lives of people who've done nothing wrong. Sadly, the DOJ doesn't seem to view its high-profile failures as being anything more than a learning experience. There's no effort being made to undo the damage done by the agency during its botched prosecutions. And even though prosecutors dropped all charges against Sherry Chen, the government is still seeking to fire her.

The problem with espionage investigations is that they're a completely opaque process. Tying something to "national security" is a great way to circumvent due process, and the DOJ has used this to pursue extremely dubious cases without having to face any sort of legal challenge until the life-destroying process is well underway. The new guidelines don't appear to open up this process in any appreciable fashion, but any additional eyes on "evidence" collected by the DOJ can only be a good thing as it's obviously terrible at making those determinations on its own.

Filed Under: doj, espionage, investigations, leaks, prosecution, traitors, whistleblowers

Topsite Operator, Who Admitted To Operating Servers With Tons Of Pirated Movies, Gets Off With Just Probation

from the compare-that-to-the-pirate-bay dept

TorrentFreak reports on a somewhat unexpected end to a criminal case against an (oddly unnamed) 50-year-old Swedish man who was accused of and admitted to running the servers for the topsite known as Devil. As anti-piracy folks always like to remind us, topsites "sit at the top of the piracy pyramid" in the warez scene, as that's where pirated content is usually first leaked, before making its way out to the wider internet. In this case, investigators seized the actual servers with 250 terabytes of content and arrested the guy who ran all the servers out of his home. Slam dunk case, right? So that's the odd part: He ended up receiving just probation and some community service.

Given the scale of the case it was expected that punishments would be equally harsh but things did not play out that way.

Despite admitting that he operated servers at his home and in central Stockholm and the court acknowledging that rightsholders had suffered great damage, the man has just been sentenced to probation and 160 hours of community service.

The article admits that the guy may still face civil trials which could come with huge damages, but it's instructive to look at the results of the criminal case here and compare it to another case.

Remember, this is the same country that sued four guys who were no longer associated with The Pirate Bay -- which hosted no infringing content and was more of a search engine -- and not only found them guilty, but gave them jail sentences and millions of dollars in fines.

That seems... weird. The case against this topsite operator seems like exactly the kind of case that's actually a slam dunk. It's not going against a third party or intermediary. It's going against the people actually doing the infringing. One can question whether it's a worthwhile business strategy, but the legal strategy against this guy seems to make perfect sense -- as compared to the weird nonsensical legal strategy against The Pirate Bay -- which, again, hosted no infringing content and only acted as a search engine.

So why the different results?

If you've ever watched the documentary about the trial, TPB AFK, it quickly becomes clear that a big part of the trial against the four people loosely associated with the site was more about the fact that they didn't "respect the system." The situation with Peter Sunde is particularly striking. He had really, really strong legal arguments for why he was innocent. Beyond the fact that the site didn't host any infringing content, his role was as a spokesperson for the site, and he had little to do with the site's actual operations. But -- and this is the important part -- he recognized the whole trial was a joke and treated it as such, making fun of the proceedings and of the lawyers and judges for not understanding very basic things about how the internet worked.

To some extent, you could argue that he and the others were convicted for being smartasses in responding to the "very serious" lawsuit from a bunch of lawyers who clearly didn't understand the technological issues at play.

However, in this case -- involving an actual infringer where it was quite clear that he was, in fact, breaking the law -- things were different. This guy cooperated and treated "the system" with the deference it thinks it deserves:

According to Mitti.se, two key elements appear to have kept the man’s punishment down. Firstly, he cooperated with police in the investigation. Secondly – and this is a feature in many file-sharing prosecutions – the case simply dragged on for too long

The Pirate Bay case dragged on for quite a long time as well. Yet it still ended with huge fines and jail time. It's hard to look at the results of the two cases as anything other than the tax one pays for actually calling out a ridiculous system for being ridiculous, rather than sucking up to the system whose own credibility is called into question.

I'm a big supporter in the idea of an impartial judicial system with due process, and especially the idea that the judicial system is "blind" to all but the facts before it. But we all know that's an ideal that is too frequently not met. The widely different results in these two cases further highlights that divide. Play along with the system and get a slap on the wrist -- even if your actual activities clearly violate the law. Don't play along and mock the system, get a huge sentence -- even if your actions don't actually violate the law. In the end, all that seems to matter is the "proper respect" for a system whose own actions shows it deserves none.

Filed Under: copyright, crime, devil, prosecution, sweden, topsite
Companies: the pirate bay

TSA's Investigation Into Groping Agents Ensured They Wouldn't Be Prosecuted

from the because-of-course dept

By now, you may have heard the story about how two TSA agents at Denver International Airport were fired recently after it was revealed that they had worked out a scam by which one agent was able to grope and fondle the genitals of male passengers he found attractive. The plan involved him signalling to a colleague who was working the scanning computer. That agent would tell the computer that the individual being scanned was female, which apparently would set off an "anomaly" alert for the groin area, allowing the male TSA agent to conduct a "pat down" of that area. Leaving aside the fact that these computers even have "male" and "female" settings and it can determine an "anomaly in the genital area" if they don't match -- this kind of thing was exactly what many insisted was going to happen when the TSA put in place these advanced screening procedures. And if you think that this is the only case of it happening, well, then, you probably think the TSA doesn't rifle through and steal stuff from your luggage as well.

Now here's the thing: this only came out because the TSA agent blabbed about it to a colleague, who then reported it, leading to an investigation. Many people find it odd that the two TSA agents (who are still unnamed) merely lost their jobs, rather than got arrested for this activity. Chris Bray, over at TSA News (found via Amy Alkon -- herself no stranger to intrusive TSA searches), went and grabbed the actual Denver police report on the incident, revealing that it appears that the TSA set up its "investigation" in a manner to almost guarantee no criminal charges and that the names of the TSA agents would remain secret.

Specifically, the TSA was first told about this scheme on November 18th of 2014. First, it took nearly two months for the TSA to do anything about it, and it did not contact the police during this time. Instead, on Feburary 9th, TSA investigator Chris Higgins observed the screening area and saw the signal/button push/grope of the genitals. Higgins made no attempt to speak with or identify the victim of this assault (this is important). Instead, he just spoke with the two TSA agents who were terminated at some later time (exact date not clearly indicated). The Denver police were not told about any of this until over a month later, on March 19th, 2015, at which point they noted that without a named "victim" there wasn't much they could do.

On that same day, the inspector, Higgins, told the Denver police that he had also spoken with a deputy district attorney who had told him that without a victim, it was unlikely they could prosecute a case. It's unclear when that conversation took place, but it appears that the TSA had plenty of time to fire the TSA agents and make it basically impossible for the police to file a case before then telling the police what happened. As Bray notes, this all seems rather suspicious, as if the TSA's "investigation" was much more about covering up the TSA's misdeeds, rather than holding the agents responsible:

So in November of 2014, the TSA was warned that two of its officers were currently, actively conspiring to commit sexual assault. But the TSA did not notify the police about that anonymous tip. The Denver Police Department is the agency that regularly polices Denver International Airport; the DIA Bureau is listed on this directory.

If the TSA had notified the police about the tip in November, the police could have been watching the checkpoint to observe the groping incident that was instead witnessed by a TSA employee. But the police didn’t know about an allegation of active, current, ongoing sexual assault, because the TSA didn’t tell them.

And so an act of sexual assault occurred right in front of a TSA investigator — and the investigator let the victim walk away without approaching him and identifying him.

Then, in March 2015, the TSA informed the police of the allegation, and of the evidence of the event that a TSA investigator had personally witnessed more than a month before. But the TSA didn’t notify the police until both employees had been fired — in other words, until both participants in a scheme to commit sexual assault had been removed from the place in which they allegedly committed it.

It’s as if someone called the fire department to report a pile of cold ashes. The TSA waited to call the police until the passengers were long gone, the TSA officers alleged to have committed the crime were long gone, and the crime witnessed by a TSA investigator was more than a month old.

Isn't that convenient?

Bray asked the TSA why it didn't contact the police earlier, and received a boiler plate response about how "intolerable" the actions were, but no substantive response to Bray's actual questions.

Yes, the groping scheme is a scandal, but it seems like a much bigger scandal is how the TSA handled the case -- first allowing the criminal activities to go on for two months without notifying police, and then making sure that no one could be actually charged with a crime.

Filed Under: assault, denver, denver police, groping, prosecution, tsa

Irony Alert: DOJ Leaked To Press Decision Not To Force Reporter James Risen To Reveal Who Leaked Info To Him

from the doj-made-a-lol dept

On Friday, we wrote about reports that the DOJ had decided not to force Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James Risen to reveal an intelligence community source for a story he wrote years ago -- though he still may be subpoenaed and put on the stand about other stuff (and it's not entirely clear if he'll agree to do that). However, there was a bit of irony in all of this: the DOJ leaked this information to the press. Risen's lawyer told reporter Jana Winter that they hadn't received any official word when the stories started appearing in the press, and there hadn't been any official government filing. The NY Times reports the same thing. Instead, it was just reported in the press as "according to a person familiar with the decision."

In other words, it "leaked" from the DOJ.

Or, more specifically, it leaked from the DOJ that it wouldn't seek to put a reporter in jail for refusing to say who leaked other information to him, as it still looks to put that original leaker in jail.

The entire situation was driven by the DOJ's attempt to totally crackdown on leaks that the administration doesn't like. As we've discussed, the Obama administration has (like no other administration in history) declared war on leakers and whistleblowers. It has used the Espionage Act (which is supposed to be used against spies) more than double all other Presidents combined to prosecute those involved in leaks, including journalists. The administration has set up an "Insider Threat Program" and produced a document comparing leaks to "aiding the enemies of the United States."

And, yet... when the government leaks out information that makes the administration look good, suddenly no one has a problem. For years, even when there are leaks that might be said to "compromise national security," so long as they make the administration "look good" no one cares. There are no investigations or freakouts or threats to put reporters or leakers in jail.

And thus, here we are, with the final chapter in the ridiculous Risen intimidation saga involving the DOJ leaking to the press the information that it won't seek to put him in jail for not revealing who leaked him information.

I'm guessing that there will be no investigation at all into who "leaked" this particular information.

Filed Under: doj, eric holder, james risen, leaks, prosecution, subpoena, whistleblowers

County Prosecutor Looking To Arrest Housing Official After Agency Demands $16,000 To Fulfill FOIA Request

from the a-bandwagon-worth-jumping-on dept

This may be about 60% stunt and 40% forceful nudge, but I'm still behind it 100%. For far too long, public officials have treated Freedom of Information laws as an annoyance... at best. In many cases, information designated as eligible for freedom has to be pried out of officials' hands using lawsuits, needlessly-protracted appeals processes or crowd-sourced tenacity.

Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley said he will issue an arrest affidavit today against Rodney Forte, the executive director of the Metropolitan Housing Alliance in Little Rock, for a violation of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.

First off, you can be arrested for violating this act. In Arkansas, any violation of its FOIA law can result in this penalty.

Any person who negligently violates any of the provisions of this chapter shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine of not more than two hundred dollars ($200) or thirty (30) days in jail, or both, or a sentence of appropriate public service or education, or both.

It's nice to see someone following the letter of the law. Not following the letter of the law (and steamrolling its spirit) is what put Forte in the prosecutor's sights. Forte had decided to greet a FOIA request he didn't want to fulfill with the time-honored anti-FOIA tactic of pricing his agency out of the market.

The action comes after the Metropolitan Housing Alliance sent an invoice to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette late Tuesday,charging more than $16,000 to hire outside workers to help the agency comply with a records-release request -- a practice the Little Rock city attorney and other Arkansas Freedom of Information Act experts say is illegal.

It may be illegal, but plenty of agencies do it without suffering anything more than a loss in the court of public opinion. Sure, they may eventually face lawsuits, but that's really just public money being spent in defense of a publicly-funded agency's desire to keep the public separated from public documents. It's about as painful to the offending agency as being punched in someone else's wallet.

This particular form of enforcement is rarely (if ever) deployed, although Arkansas seems to be more aggressive than most states when it comes to punishing violators. In Jegley's 23 years as a county prosecutor, he's never seen this happen. Usually some sort of compromise between requester and requestee is reached before it gets to this point. But that hasn't happened in this dispute, which has been ongoing for several months now -- even involving Little Rock's mayor's intervention on behalf of the requesting party, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola contacted Forte on Wednesday in an attempt to intervene in the latest dispute over records. Stodola is a former Little Rock city attorney and Pulaski County prosecutor.

"I am not familiar with any request for payment for such a large nature as this and based on my interpretation of the Freedom of Information Act, the computer systems that the agency has are required to make this information readily available," Stodola said.

"These kinds of document requests are routine, and when I was prosecutor, virtually all of this kind of information [at most agencies] is kept in an electronic format that can be downloaded quite easily."

Forte claims proprietary software is involved and all documents would need to be printed and scanned before they could be released, but has failed to detail what software the agency is using or released any other technical details. He has also hasn't discussed his agency's failure to comply with another section of the state's FOIA law.

Arkansas Code Annotated 25-19-105 (g) states that any software acquired by an agency "shall be in full compliance with the requirements" of the Freedom of Information Act and "shall not impede public access to records in electronic form."

So, Jegley has answered Forte's obfuscatory power play with one of his own. At this point, Forte's arrest is in the hands of a judge. Jegley still needs to turn his affidavit into a warrant, at which point it may expand to include others involved in the Metropolitan Housing Authority's $16,000 fiasco.

Hopefully, this move will force the documents out of the agency's hands. Clearly, there's something in there it wants hidden -- something likely related to agency's addition of a $92,000/yr deputy executive director during a period when it was shedding nearly a third of its staff and reducing pay to non-salaried employees.

Even if this goes nowhere, it's still incredibly refreshing to see public servants acting to hold other public servants accountable. Other states should take a good look at Arkansas' FOIA law and think about giving their own a few teeth by making violations an arrestable offense.

Filed Under: arkansas, arrest, fees, foia, journalism, larry jegley, little rock, prosecution, rodney forte

NYPD Tells Brooklyn Officers To Continue Making Low-Level Drug Arrests DA Has Stated He Won't Prosecute

from the work-harder,-not-smarter dept

New York's finest, formerly Mayor Bloomberg's Personal Army, has decided it's going to do things its own way, even if it means generating truly meaningless arrests.

The NYPD is telling its officers to keep making the lower-level marijuana busts that they had been, despite a recent memo from Brooklyn DA Kenneth Thompson that his office would no longer prosecute such cases…

Yes, no one tells the NYPD what to do, not even the District Attorney. The NYPD's memo -- one that plainly states it will arrest people who will never be prosecuted -- is required reading for Brooklyn precincts for the next 10 days, just to ensure those police officers understand their workday will contain a certain amount of deliberate futility.

On one hand, the memo does contain a good point -- law enforcement should be consistent across all of New York's boroughs. On the other hand, it plainly states that the NYPD is more interested in generating paperwork and empty arrest statistics than approaching the DA's announcement in a more reasonable fashion.

Here's what DA Thompson was hoping to accomplish with his decision to not pursue low-level drug offenders.

The move was intended to "make better use of limited law enforcement resources and to prevent offenders – who are disproportionately young men of color – from being saddled with a criminal record for a minor, non-violent offense," according to a statement.

This could have been seen as an indication of where the department should head -- towards a more reasonable stance on drug enforcement. Instead, it's been viewed as "inconsistency" and responded to with all the obstinance the department is famous for.

DA Thompson's order really doesn't eliminate that many possession arrests. His memo stated that those smoking in public (especially around children), 16-17-year-old offenders (who will be placed into a diversion program) and people with existing criminal records will still be prosecuted. This just leaves mainly the truly harmless: recreational users.

But the War on Drugs is every bit as essential to the NYPD as the War on Terror, and the NYPD (with new chief Bill Bratton's blessing) will continue to make meaningless arrests -- arrests made even more meaningless by DA Thompson's announcement.

If nothing else, this ensures the sort of job security that's usually only touted in sarcastic tones by the deeply cynical. According to the New York Times, arresting recreational users is full-time work for Brooklyn cops.

Over the past 15 years, marijuana arrests in New York have soared, partly because a rising number of stop-and-frisk encounters led to searches of people’s pockets.

There were 8,150 cases in Brooklyn in which the top count was a minor marijuana possession charge in the year ending June 30, according to the memo on Tuesday. Marijuana arrests have decreased during the first six months of this year, compared with the same period in 2013.

That decrease in marijuana arrests is directly related to the decline in stop-and-frisk encounters after a court decision and a new city law curbed this controversial program. It's quite obviously not (the NYPD's directive confirms it) the result of the NYPD shifting its focus to more serious criminal activity.

There's hardly anything more ridiculous than deploying law enforcement officers -- with all their expertise and training -- to bust users of a drug that has been legalized in two states for recreational use and in a host of other states for medical use. There's nothing more ridiculous than sending officers out to bust recreational users and serve them up to a DA who's just going to let them go -- and one that specifically told the department he would not prosecute.

Filed Under: brooklyn, drug arrests, kenneth thompson, marijuana, nypd, prosecution

Virginia Prosecutor Educates Sexting Teens Rather Than Prosecuting Them

from the good-guys dept

When a moral panic really gets rolling, it often seems like there isn't enough inertia in the world to slow it down. It sure seemed that way to me when it came to "sexting", the term for people, often young folks who don't fully appreciate the consequences, sending around naked pictures of themselves or their friends. I think there might be a great many older folks who forget what it was like to be a kid and then couple that with a general fear of digital technologies and suddenly the sky is falling. That's how you end up with prosecutors who look to charge young people who engage in sexting under child pornography laws, despite the inherent ridiculousness of that situation.

Fortunately, there are indeed some smart people in government, such as Louisa County prosecutor Rusty McGuire of Virginia, who has decided against charging young people for sexting and instead do a bit of education.

According to reports from the Central Virginian and the Associated Press, an investigation by the county sheriff’s office uncovered more than 1,000 nude or sexually suggestive photos posted to Instagram accounts and shared between more than 100 teenagers in Louisa and surrounding counties. But unlike other teen sexting rings that have made national news—where sexters have been brought up on felony pornography charges or disciplined by their schools—Louisa has opted to respond to the scandalous headlines with a refreshing dose of common sense. Major Donald Lowe told the AP that although the Louisa County Sheriff’s Office is still scouring student cellphones for signs of nonconsensual sexual activity, which could result in criminal charges, most students involved won’t be prosecuted. “We said from the beginning that we’re not going to label everyone who participated in this a sex offender,” he said. “There’s no reason to destroy people’s lives and careers over this.”

Now, for those of you already getting your ire up for a rebuttal, the question should always be, "How is justice best served?" I would think the answer to that question should generally be to stop illicit or unwanted behavior while making sure everyone involved is impacted as beneficially as possible. That isn't done by prosecuting children who simply aren't capable of a full understanding of the consequences of their actions. Educating them on the law and the consequences, on the other hand, seems to do the job nicely. With that in mind, McGuire is actively engaging students on their turf.

Louisa schools are expanding programs to teach teenagers “the dangers of social media and how to make smart choices” and are launching a program for parents to help discuss the issue with their kids. McGuire “talks about the importance of not doing any [sexting] activities,” Straley told me. “If you put it out there, it doesn’t go away. Teenagers need to know that and understand that when they put it out there, they’re more or less saying that they’re OK with the world seeing this.”

This is called hitting the nail on the head. Instead of throwing the legal book at someone, you educate everyone. Share some stories about how these kinds of actions have had negative impacts, get parents involved on the issue, and meet kids on a level playing field where you openly and honestly discuss why this might not be such a good idea. Kids are kids and teenagers are going to be interested in sex, no matter what you do. But kids are also generally smarter than I think most of us adults give them credit for and they can grasp the true impact of these actions if someone takes the time to lay it out for them.

Meanwhile, no children are suddenly living with a sexual predator label for the rest of their lives. That's the best solution all around.

Filed Under: education, prosecution, prosecutor, sexting, teens, virginia

Details Show MIT Employees Gleefully Helped With Prosecution And Persecution Of Aaron Swartz

from the sad dept

Last summer, MIT tried (weakly) to defend what it called its "neutral" stance on Aaron Swartz, allowing the case to proceed even though the only party that had a legitimate claim to "harm," JSTOR, had come out almost immediately after Swartz's indictment to say that it did not support the prosecution. Around the same time, we noted that MIT was in the midst of a legal fight to block the release of Swartz's Secret Service file. Some found this effort a bit odd -- but the reasons are now becoming clear. An investigative report by the Boston Globe, scouring 7,000 pages of discovery documents in the case, found that some employees at MIT appeared to gleefully support going after Swartz with all of the powers of the DOJ.

In a handful of e-mails, individual MIT employees involved in the case aired sentiments that were far from neutral. One, for example, gushed to prosecutor Stephen P. Heymann about the quality of the indictment of Swartz.

“Nicely done Steve and kudos! All points . . . are as accurate as I’ve ever seen,” wrote the information technology employee. “(I only say that because every time I’ve ever given an interview, details are always slightly to horribly munged; not that I ever expected any less, it’s just a true relief and very refreshing to see your accuracy and precision).”

Elsewhere, it becomes clear that MIT helped escalate the case when calling in law enforcement. The Globe highlights a note taken by an MIT library staffer who noted that it was "now a federal case" and "All we provide is by choice -- not subpoenaed." Even more damning, a senior MIT network engineer basically seemed to think he was now working for the DOJ:

That cooperation with law enforcement also extended to a senior MIT network engineer who monitored traffic to and from Swartz’s laptop and appeared to be looking to Pickett for instructions. On Jan. 5, having collected 70 gigabytes of network traffic, he e-mailed the agent, “I was just wondering what the next step is.”

The documents also demonstrate that MIT employees "prodded JSTOR to get answers for prosecutors more quickly -- before a subpoena had been issued." That hardly seems "neutral."

The report also notes that MIT -- as admitted by an internal investigation -- "paid little attention to the details of the charge" including the key fact that the CFAA charge depended on this being "unauthorized access." However, since MIT's network was wide open to guests, it was hard to say that it was unauthorized. Yet MIT did little to explain that to prosecutors.

The report also delves into JSTOR's side of things, suggesting that, contrary to its public stance, before Swartz was revealed, it too was pretty angry (often at MIT) and considered calling in law enforcement repeatedly. However, in the end it appears that cooler heads prevailed there, as the organization decided not to pursue those actions. If only the same had happened at MIT.

Filed Under: aaron swartz, doj, mit, prosecution, stephen heymann
Companies: jstor, mit

Members Of Congress Ask Eric Holder To Try Again In His Explanation Of The Prosecution Of Aaron Swartz

from the this-time,-with-some-reality-involved dept

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the unfortunate passing of Aaron Swartz. Senators John Cornyn and Al Franken, along with Rep. Darryl Issa, have now sent Attorney General Eric Holder yet another request for an explanation concerning the investigation and prosecution of Swartz. This follows on a similar request from last year, but these elected officials note both that the DOJ's response was inadequate, and that it was also contradicted by the eventual report on the prosecution that came out of MIT.

We regret that the information your Department has provided to date has not been satisfactory -- among other things, it painted a picture of prosecutors unwilling or unable to weigh what charges to pursue against a defendant, something which you have instructed federal prosecutors is "among [their] most fundamental duties."

The account also is inconsistent with findings in the report prepared by MIT about the prosecution of Mr. Swartz, dated July 26, 2013 ("MIT Report"). A letter provided by the Department in May states that "the charging and sentencing decisions made by Department. lawyers were properly based on the law and the facts of the case . . . and not on inappropriate considerations, such as Mr. Swartz's exercise of his legal rights as a citizen." The MIT Report indicates that Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann considered other factors in advance of the return of the superseding indictment. He told MIT that "the straw that broke the camel's back" was an internet webpage soliciting signatures on Mr. Swartz's behalf by Demand Progress, an activist group founded by Mr. Swartz.

In other words, despite the claims from Holder that the charges against Aaron were not based on Swartz exercising his right to free speech, Stephen Heymann has since admitted that, in fact, Swartz's friends speaking out on his behalf were what made him decide to try to throw the book at Swartz. The letter points out further claims from Holder that appear to be contradicted by the MIT report and note:

Inconsistencies such as these require serious responses to the original letter, and indeed raise more questions about the prosecution of Mr. Swartz. One year ago, we sought the basis for the U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz's determination that her office's conduct was "appropriate." We have received no such information, not even the sentencing memoranda that surely were prepared in a case such as this.

In March, you testified that Mr. Swartz's case was "a good use of prosecutorial discretion." We respectfully disagree. We hope your response to this letter is fulsome, which would help re-build confidence about the willingness of the Department to examine itself where prosecutorial conduct is concerned.

Given how Holder and the DOJ have responded to these issues in the past, I wouldn't expect any real response to be forthcoming any time soon.

Filed Under: aaron swartz, al franken, darrell issa, doj, eric holder, john cornyn, prosecution, stephen heymann