Donate Today!


Sign-Up for Newsletter!


Popular content

Anonymous Hacks MIT Calling for Systemic Reforms

'You were the best of us; may you yet bring out the best in us.'

- Lauren McCauley, staff writer

In response to what has been described as prosecutorial bullying, inflated sentences, "grotesque miscarriage of justice" and subsequent tragedy of Aaron Swartz's suicide, the hacker collective Anonymous broke into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology website over the weekend and replaced the homepage with a tribute, “In Memoriam, Aaron Swartz.”

Swartz, an outspoken advocate of open information, had been recently embroiled in a legal battle over digital copyright for allegedly harvesting four million academic papers from MIT's JSTOR online database.

Salon's Natasha Lennard adds that, "although JSTOR told federal prosecutors it had no interest in pursuing charges against Swartz, the DoJ, led by a harsh and zealous Boston prosecutor, threw everything they could at the young activist."

'The government's prosecution of Swartz was a grotesque miscarriage of justice, a distorted and perverse shadow of the justice that Aaron died fighting for.' Calling for computer crime law reform, Anonymous's statement decried the lawsuit, writing:


Additionally, a statement released by the web pioneer's family and partner on Sunday directed their grief over Swartz's tragic suicide towards the institutions —the U.S. government and MIT—that threatened the brilliant technologist and social justice activist with jail for, by some counts, up to 50 years:


In a blog post this weekend, Swartz's longtime friend and mentor Lawrence Lessig called the prosecution a "bully," writing:




Swartz's trial was set to start this spring and his attempts to reach a plea-bargain with the government recently fell apart after Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann told Swartz's lawyer, Elliot Peters, "Mr. Swartz would need to plead guilty to every count, and the government would insist on prison time."

The Washington Post reports, in an update to the statement (which has since been taken down), Anonymous said it "does not blame MIT for Swartz’s death," citing a letter from MIT President Rafael Reif that said the school would investigate the role MIT played in Swartz’s case.

In response to the tragic news, supporters have started a White House petition to remove U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, who supervised the prosecution of in Swartz’s case, saying that "a prosecutor who regularly uses the threat of unjust and overreaching charges... is a danger to the life and liberty of anyone who might cross her path."