TechtechnologyStephen Heymannaaron swartz suicide

Aaron Swartz Prosecutors Threatened With Guillotine Postcards

'Vindictive Individuals' Threaten Aaron Swartz Prosecutors, U.S. Complains
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Senior Justice Reporter, HuffPost

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WASHINGTON -- Two federal prosecutors involved in the case against the late Aaron Swartz have faced "harassing and, at times, threatening communications" from supporters of the Internet activist, the Justice Department said in a court filing.

Government lawyers argued that the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts should not disclose to the public or to Congress the names of individuals in investigative documents related to Swartz's prosecution. Whatever "additional public benefit might exist by disclosing those names" is "outweighed by the risk to those individuals of becoming targets of threats, harassment and abuse," the government said in the court filing on Friday.

Jack W. Pirozzolo, first assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, said in the filing that Harvard Law professor Philip Heymann, the father of Swartz prosecutor Stephen Heymann, had received a postcard showing his "disembodied head" on a guillotine. Stephen Heymann received a similar postcard with a photo of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz with the caption "Heckuva job, Steve" and a photo of the MIT president's head under a guillotine.

"We know two simple things," Pirozzolo wrote in the court filing. "First, there is now an unrestrained desire of unidentified individuals and groups to retaliate against people and organizations associated with the prosecution of Mr. Swartz and their family members. Second, the more people’s names and their involvement in the events leading up to the arrest of Mr. Swartz is publicized, the more likely they are to come to the attention of these vindictive individuals and groups and the more likely they are to be subject to harassment and threats."

MIT was at the center of the criminal case against Swartz, who had campaigned against Internet censorship. He was charged in 2011 with computer fraud for allegedly downloading millions of MIT online documents. Prosecutors had sought a prison term. Swartz, 26, hanged himself in January.

The House Oversight Committee is investigating how prosecutors handled the case. Lawyers for Swartz have accused Heymann of misconduct.

MIT also has argued that personal information in the case should be kept secret. The school pointed to (among other things) comments left on a Huffington Post story earlier this month. Some said MIT deserved to be harassed because of the Swartz case.

(H/T Main Justice)

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Before You Go

Remembering Aaron Swartz
Quinn Norton, Freelance Journalist And Swartz's Close Friend(01 of08)
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"We used to have a fight about how much the internet would grieve if he died. I was right, but the last word you get in as the still living is a hollow thing, trailing off, as it does, into oblivion."Read more here. (credit:Flickr: quinnums)
Cory Doctorow, Science Fiction Author And Swartz's Friend(02 of08)
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"Whatever problems Aaron was facing, killing himself didn't solve them. Whatever problems Aaron was facing, they will go unsolved forever. If he was lonely, he will never again be embraced by his friends. If he was despairing of the fight, he will never again rally his comrades with brilliant strategies and leadership. If he was sorrowing, he will never again be lifted from it."Read more here. (credit:Jonathan Worth/Wikimedia)
Swartz Family Statement(03 of08)
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“Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death.”Read more here. (credit:AP Photo/ThoughtWorks, Pernille Ironside)
Lawrence Lessig, Director Of The Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics At Harvard University(04 of08)
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"The question this government needs to answer is why it was so necessary that Aaron Swartz be labeled a 'felon.' For in the 18 months of negotiations, that was what he was not willing to accept, and so that was the reason he was facing a million-dollar trial in April -- his wealth bled dry, yet unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his defense, at least without risking the ire of a district court judge. And so as wrong and misguided and fucking sad as this is, I get how the prospect of this fight, defenseless, made it make sense to this brilliant but troubled boy to end it."Read more here. (credit:Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)
JSTOR, Academic Archive(05 of08)
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"We are deeply saddened to hear the news about Aaron Swartz. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Aaron’s family, friends, and everyone who loved, knew, and admired him. He was a truly gifted person who made important contributions to the development of the internet and the web from which we all benefit."Read more here. (credit:JSTOR)
L. Rafael Reif, MIT President(06 of08)
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"I have asked professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT's involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in Fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it."Read more here. (credit:AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)
Anonymous, Hacktivist Collective(07 of08)
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On Sunday night, one day after Swartz's death, Anonymous knocked out Internet access at MIT, according to The Tech, a campus newspaper. Two MIT-affiliated websites were rewritten with the following message from the hacktivist group:"Whether or not the government contributed to his suicide, 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 - freeing the publicly-funded scientific literature from a publishing system that makes it inaccessible to most of those who paid for it - enabling the collective betterment of the world through the facilitation of sharing - an ideal that we should all support."Read the full text of the hack here. (credit:Anonymous)
Danny O'Brien, Journalist And Swartz's Friend(08 of08)
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"Ada [O'Brien's daughter] cried, then we hugged, then Ada suggested we have a goodbye party, with ice-cream and sprinkles and a movie, and make a board where we could pin all our memories. We laughed at how funny he was. Aaron taught her so well."Read more here.Correction: This slide originally reported that Ada was Aaron Swartz's daughter, not Danny O'Brien's. The Huffington Post regrets this error. (credit:Flickr: Joi)
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