The author of this filing is making an argument before the court, not chiding Swartz personally. More importantly: I'm unclear on whether its author is US Attorney Carmen Ortiz or her deputy AUSA Stephen Heymann. I believe the distinction is meaningful; Heymann would have been responsible for the superseding indictment and the overall prosecution strategy; the former is a political appointee who may be supporting her deputies just like anyone else in her position would be doing.
Heymann is a nationally recognized authority in the prosecution of computer crimes, and if he's responsible for the overall strategy used by the prosecution, it's him most of all you'd want to see accountable; not just because removing Ortiz (which will for what it's worth never happen) wouldn't remove him, but also because he's the key national influencer in cybercrime prosecution, not Ortiz.
I lived this situation when I was around 14. My father was an executive in a firm that was being investigated for fraud. Most of my father's peers (using the term lightly) went to jail (and rightfully so), but the prosecution could never find anything on my father.
Despite that fact, our family had to endure 6 years of constant threats, extortion attempts and harassment for crimes that were never committed- I've had a few heart to heart conversations with my father and am convinced that he never committed a crime. As a result, the situation put my father into a depression and just destroyed his spirit, something I'm still trying to help him restore 20 years later. The (us attorney) prosecution was responsible for the attacks, but it was always at the behest of the share holders.
I believe the MIT owns the lion's share of the responsibility in the situation. The burden of these charges can be completely overwhelming. I just wish that Aaron understood the situation he was getting himself into. Some people seemingly handle these situations well (Julian Assange?), but most of us would buckle under the constant pressure. I think he may have felt that MIT would eventually come to their senses and have some compassion for his plight.
> Some people seemingly handle these situations well (Julian Assange?)
Julian Assange knew that he'd be pursued to the point of death, both legally and illegally (assassination) by various governments around the world. He knew exactly what he was getting into when he started Wikileaks.
And so he did so fully aware of the potential consequences, which so far haven't actually been as bad as one would have expected. (By now, one would have expected him to have been "finished off" by one of the many governments he's pissed off.)
I am glad to see more attention paid to Heymann's role in this affair. His career and professional history deserves far more scrutiny than has been paid thus far.
"More importantly: I'm unclear on whether its author is US Attorney Carmen Ortiz or her deputy AUSA Stephen Heymann"
Ortiz would have gotten all the positive, "tough on crime...saved us from big bad person...," press so let her get the other side. The buck stops at her, it's not like this wasn't a famous case, that she was unaware of it.
However, if MIT (the "victim") had publicly said to forget it, USDOJ, politically, would have found it almost impossible to continue the trial and waste considerable resources.
Heymann is a nationally recognized authority in the prosecution of computer crimes, and if he's responsible for the overall strategy used by the prosecution, it's him most of all you'd want to see accountable; not just because removing Ortiz (which will for what it's worth never happen) wouldn't remove him, but also because he's the key national influencer in cybercrime prosecution, not Ortiz.