Innovation

"At 9:44 a.m. the M.I.T. police were called in; by 10:30 a.m., the Cambridge police were en route, and by 11 a.m., Michael Pickett, a Secret Service agent and expert on computer crime, was on the scene. On his recommendation, a surveillance camera was installed in the closet and a second laptop was connected to the network switch to track the traffic. […] Michael Sussmann, a Washington lawyer and a former federal prosecutor of computer crime, said that M.I.T. was the victim and that, without more information, it had to assume any hackers were “the Chinese, even though it’s a 16-year-old with acne.” Once the police were called in, the university could not back away from the investigation. “After there’s a referral, victims don’t have the opportunity to change their mind.”—Noam Cohen New York Times "How M.I.T. Ensnared a Hacker, Bucking a Freewheeling Culture" 20 January 2013 (link)

"MIT and the U.S. Secret Service conducted the video surveillance of the closet at MIT that discovered Swartz’s downloading. He was charged by the Middlesex County district attorney’s office with breaking and entering in the daytime. Lawyers familiar with the case have told me that it was anticipated that the state charge would be continued without a finding, with Swartz duly admonished and then returned to civil society to continue his pioneering electronic work in a less legally questionable manner. Tragedy intervened when [federal prosecutor Cameron] Ortiz’s office took over the case to send “a message.”—Harvey A. Silverglate Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly "The Swartz suicide and the sick culture of the Justice Dept." 24 January 2013 (link)

"U.S Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz today defended her office’s prosecution of Reddit co-founder and Internet activist Aaron Swartz, expressing sympathy for his family and saying she is “terribly upset” she is being blamed for his suicide. […] “The evidence they had, the charges they brought, this case was fairly and appropriately and reasonably handled,” she added. […] Ortiz’s prosecution of Swartz has drawn harsh nationwide criticism, ranging from Internet freedom circles to Congress…"—John Zaremba and Matt Stout Boston Herald "Emotional Carmen Ortiz `terribly upset’ over Swartz suicide" 17 January 2013(link)