MIT to Review Case Against Swartz

Anonymous hits MIT site after Reddit co-founder's suicide
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Suggested by Guvner
Posted Jan 14, 2013 1:29 AM CST
Updated Jan 14, 2013 3:03 AM CST
MIT to Review Case Against Swartz
This Dec. 8, 2012 photo provided by ThoughtWorks shows Aaron Swartz, in New York.    (AP Photo/ThoughtWorks, Pernille Ironside)

MIT has ordered a review of its case against Aaron Swartz amid accusations that the institution helped drive the 26-year-old digital rights activist to his suicide last week, reports Mashable. Swartz was facing up to 35 years in jail and $1 million in fines for allegedly downloading millions of academic papers from the university's archive. MIT president Leo Rafael Reif says there will be "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."

"Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT," Reif said in a statement. "I want to express very clearly that I and all of us at MIT are extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many. It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy." In a tribute to Swartz, Anonymous hackers attacked MIT's website yesterday and succeeding in taking it down for most of the day, the New York Times reports. (More Aaron Swartz stories.)

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