On January 22, 2013, eleven days after the suicide of Aaron Swartz, L Rafael Reif, president of MIT, asked Professor Hal Abelson to undertake a review of MIT's involvement in the preceding events. Abelson has now published the results of that review.
Abelson's key findings are firstly that MIT did not know the identity of the person downloading JSTOR files until his arrest. "Thus, we find that MIT did not focus on Aaron Swartz at any time during its own investigation of the events that led to his arrest," says the report.
Secondly, "MIT never requested that a criminal prosecution be brought against Aaron Swartz."
Thirdly, "In keeping with its stance of neutrality, MIT never issued a public statement about Swartz’s prosecution... MIT did inform the prosecution that it was not seeking punishment for Swartz, and it did inform the defense that it was not seeking any civil remedy from him."
Fourthly, however, the report indicated that MIT's position of neutrality possibly went too far. For example, while it asked that the prosecution should not be under the impression that it was seeking jail time, "MIT did not say it was actually opposed to jail time." Nor did it actively consider Swartz's standing as a contributor to internet technology, that he was being prosecuted under a widely criticized law, or that the government "was pursuing an overtly aggressive prosecution." In short, says the report, MIT "did not duly take into account the wider background of information policy against which the prosecution played out and in which MIT people have traditionally been passionate leaders."
Notwithstanding this last criticism, Reif has claimed that the report "sets the record straight by dispelling widely circulated myths. For example, 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."
Swartz's partner, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, is, however, far from satisfied. In a statement published this week, she said, "MIT’s behavior throughout the case was reprehensible, and this report is quite frankly a whitewash."
She dismissed the claim that MIT has been neutral. MIT, she said, gave the prosecution total access to witnesses and evidence while refusing the defense access to the same witnesses and evidence. She also contrasted MIT's behavior with that of JSTOR "who came out immediately and publicly against the prosecution."
Even now, she continued, "MIT is still stonewalling. Wired reporter Kevin Poulsen FOIA’d the Secret Service’s files on Aaron’s case, and [the] judge ordered them to be released. The only reason they haven’t been is because MIT has filed an objection."
Lawrence Lessig, a friend and mentor of Aaron Swartz and professor of law at Harvard Law School, has made a quick comment on the report pending a more detailed analysis. "The report says that MIT never told the prosecutor that Aaron’s access was 'unauthorized.' They indicated that his machine was not supposed to be plugged into the ethernet jack it was plugged into, but there is no law against abusing an ethernet jack... If indeed Aaron’s access was not 'unauthorized' – as Aaron’s team said from the start, and now MIT seems to acknowledge – then the tragedy of this prosecution has only increased."