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Speaker 1: Zone Media. Hey everybody, Robert here, it's the Christmas two

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Speaker 1: parter and every year we try to use our holiday

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Speaker 1: episodes to do something good. This year, we're asking you

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Speaker 1: to support the mutual aid project that James Stout over

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Speaker 1: at It Could Happen Here, has been a part of

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Speaker 1: for nearly six months in a remote part of the

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Speaker 1: US Mexico border near Yacoomba, California. While you're hopefully warm

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Speaker 1: and dry, the border patrol is detaining thousands of migrants,

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Speaker 1: including children and the elderly, in the desert without food, water,

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Speaker 1: or shelter when overnight temperatures drop below freezing. Volunteers provide

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Speaker 1: hot meals, blankets and toys for children. They build shelters

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Speaker 1: even though the Border patrol destroys them, and keep rebuilding

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Speaker 1: them so that people have a place to sleep out

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Speaker 1: in the freezing wind. Everyone there, including James, has spent

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Speaker 1: a lot of their own money supporting this effort, and

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Speaker 1: you can hear more about the efforts of volunteers over

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Speaker 1: on It Could Happen Here. But your support would mean

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Speaker 1: the world to James and the other people trying to

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Speaker 1: help migrants over at the border, and of course those

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Speaker 1: migrants themselves. You can donate to this effort at go fundme.

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Speaker 1: If you just type Yakumba j A c U m

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Speaker 1: b A Migrant Camps, go fund me, Yakumba Migrant Camps,

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Speaker 1: go fund me, you'll get it. Or you can use

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Speaker 1: the link TinyURL dot com slash border a GFM that'll

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Speaker 1: take you right to the fundraiser. So thank you. Welcome

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Speaker 1: back to Behind the Bastards, Welcome Radio Voice Super Slam Edition.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, why are you doing this?

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Speaker 1: Welcome back? What is the Holidays in the Morning podcast? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: With Robert Evans.

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Speaker 1: Morning Zoo with Robert Evans and Sophie Lichterman and Margaret Killjoy.

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Speaker 1: We're the Opie and Anthony of not having one of

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Speaker 1: our people clearly be a sex pest. Wow, what an introduction.

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Speaker 3: I think you say you might have saved the best

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Speaker 3: one for the end of the year. Great job, Robert.

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Speaker 1: I went into it. I actually like op and I

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Speaker 1: remember them from when I was like I can't write

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Speaker 1: there were they were big, and I had been aware

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Speaker 1: of a few of their sketches. I was never a

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Speaker 1: regular listener, so I just you know, I was aware

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Speaker 1: there were things. Was like, I wonder what happened to them.

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Speaker 1: It feels like they should be a big thing in

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Speaker 1: podcasts given where they were. I read up and I

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Speaker 1: was like, oh, that's what happened to them. Oh my

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Speaker 1: As an end of the video treat job Robert, Yes,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't. I wasn't surprised. It wasn't like one of

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Speaker 1: those things that you hear and you're like, oh my god,

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Speaker 1: how could that have been? Going like, yeah, that completely scance.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, when are we surprised by when people who have

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Speaker 3: too much power abuse that power?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, particularly men in media, men in comedy, right, yeah, where.

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Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, very close, men in bands, it's it's

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Speaker 3: roughly the same thing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we're yeah, we're when when one of them is

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Speaker 1: not a sex pest. Yeah, I would love to see

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Speaker 1: the statistic by occupation. Yes, anyway, we're back. We're continuing

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Speaker 1: our series on Aaron Schwartz, one of the people who

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Speaker 1: invented the Internet as we know it and where we

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Speaker 1: are right now. Aaron's in his early twenties, you know,

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Speaker 1: less than a decade into his career. He's been part

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Speaker 1: of the creation of RSS, he's been part of the

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Speaker 1: creation of the Open Library. He's one of the founders

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Speaker 1: of Reddit, and he's helped to create the Creative Commons. Right,

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Speaker 1: if that is what you can say about your life

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Speaker 1: at the end of forty years of full time work,

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Speaker 1: you have had a full career, right. Yeah, Aaron is

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Speaker 1: like eight or nine less than a decade in right,

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Speaker 1: Like just an astonishing CV you know if you want

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Speaker 1: to think of it that way.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The next thing he's going to get on after he bounces,

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Speaker 1: you know, from he goes to this thing he writes,

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Speaker 1: helps write the Gorilla Open Access Manifesto. Aaron returns to Cambridge,

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Speaker 1: mass and he gets involved with a new project, public

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Speaker 1: dot Resource dot org, which want to increase access to

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Speaker 1: public legal documents. Documents are collectively owned by all of

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Speaker 1: us here in the old loss of status. You need us, right,

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Speaker 1: we own them all. None of them are property of

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Speaker 1: a court, of a lawyer or whatever. Right, if it's

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Speaker 1: introduced to court, it's everybody's. That is the way this

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Speaker 1: shit works, with very few exceptions. But that doesn't mean

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Speaker 1: you can just get access to it for free. Right Theoretically,

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Speaker 1: if you like go to a legal library or something,

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Speaker 1: you can get it. But like if you want to

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Speaker 1: get it from the government. The government provides access to

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Speaker 1: all this stuff that we all own via a system

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Speaker 1: called PACER, And as a journalist having used PACER, I

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Speaker 1: can tell you it sucks. Boiling dog shit. It is

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Speaker 1: a fucking horrible program. It's really badly coded. It's very

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Speaker 1: expensive to use if you're trying to get any meaningful

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Speaker 1: amount of information. And this is a problem because this

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Speaker 1: is access to stuff people need for their own legal cases.

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Speaker 1: Lawyers need to defend their clients, Journalists need to report

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Speaker 1: on things that involve the law. This is all critical

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Speaker 1: part of engaging with the legal system. And it's paywalled

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Speaker 1: effectively right and in fact, because of how expensive it is,

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Speaker 1: the government was profiting at this point by about one

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million a year, you know, off of

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Speaker 1: the fees they cause. It's not insignificant. And you know,

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Speaker 1: in addition to that, it's just a fucking nightmare to use.

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Speaker 1: So the plan that this organization, Aaron doesn't found it,

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Speaker 1: but he's like one of the first people on it.

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Speaker 1: The plan that the Public Dot Resource dood org has

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Speaker 1: is we want to get journalists, lawyers, researchers, people who

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Speaker 1: are using PACER and getting access to documents to send

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Speaker 1: them to us, which is perfectly legal. Right, You get

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Speaker 1: a document from PACER, belongs to all of us, send

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Speaker 1: it to us, and we will digitize it and put

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Speaker 1: it online. Right, and over time, we can collect as

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Speaker 1: much of this stuff as possible in a place that's

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Speaker 1: free to use and well coded and searchable so that

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Speaker 1: people can get better like, right, very good idea and

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Speaker 1: again absolutely one hundred percent, no no legal problems with

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Speaker 1: this plan, right.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean it might piss people off.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it might piss people off, right, because the government's

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Speaker 1: got a big on this, But that doesn't mean you're

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Speaker 1: doing doing anything wrong by having people do this right.

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Speaker 1: Around this time, though, the government has launched a project

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Speaker 1: to allow the idea was like, we want to increase

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Speaker 1: access to PACER files for free, and so a handful

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Speaker 1: of libraries basically had access to PACER without using money.

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Speaker 1: So you could go to those libraries, access documents, print

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Speaker 1: them out if you want it, right, or save them

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Speaker 1: on a hard drive or whatever. Right, Aaron writes some

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Speaker 1: code for this organization to allow him to automate this process.

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Speaker 1: So in very short order he has downloaded twenty percent

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Speaker 1: of the database of all American legal filings, right, a

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Speaker 1: lot of stuff. Again, not at all illegal. This is

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Speaker 1: everybody's property. There's nothing that makes this at all. But

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Speaker 1: the FBI gets on his ass, right because Pacer notices

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Speaker 1: one guy is doing an awful lot of downloading what's

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Speaker 1: going on? And the Fed starts serve. They send a

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Speaker 1: federal agent to his house to stalk him to see

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Speaker 1: if it's like his family's house. And he's eventually confronted

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Speaker 1: by the FBI about the downloads, right, and they let

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Speaker 1: him know like, yeah, we have been following you. There's

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Speaker 1: a file on you. And again, Aaron has not done

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Speaker 1: anything wrong, He has not done anything that there is

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Speaker 1: any way this could be illegal, right, yea, what are

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Speaker 1: you thinking about? How possibly could you be committing a

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Speaker 1: crime by wanting to have more access to the law? Right?

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Speaker 1: What is what is the potential? But the Feds be

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Speaker 1: the Feds and they come after him, and you're like.

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Speaker 3: The money, you know, it doesn't matter about law.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think they're also just like they don't

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Speaker 1: know what's going on, and that's just you know, if

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Speaker 1: you're the FBI, you handle every problem by sending a

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Speaker 1: federal agent out after somebody, Right, Aaron doesn't get any

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Speaker 1: trouble for this because he has again, he's done nothing wrong,

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Speaker 1: but this makes him very paranoid, right, and it makes

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Speaker 1: him very angry because this is his first interaction with

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Speaker 1: how fucking scary the feds are right that, like, they

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Speaker 1: were surveilling my home, they have a file on me

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Speaker 1: because I wanted to increase access that people have to

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Speaker 1: the law. I wanted to give people more access to

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Speaker 1: the law. And the law came out like, yeah, this

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Speaker 1: fucks him up somewhat, right, not hard to understand. Why

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Speaker 1: now we.

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Speaker 3: Give you took a bunch of pictures of national parks

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Speaker 3: and we're like, here's a bunch of free pictures of

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Speaker 3: national parks. And then the federal government was like, how

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Speaker 3: dare you take? Why are you copies of the thing

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Speaker 3: that we all own?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, So Aaron's on the government's radar now. And unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: the fact that he has not done anything wrong is

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Speaker 1: not a defense to the Feds continuing to look at you. Right,

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Speaker 1: And once you're on their radar, you tend to stay there.

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Speaker 1: And I'm going to quote from Rolling Stone again. A

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Speaker 1: year later, in September twenty ten, Schwartz connected a refurbished

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Speaker 1: Acer laptop to MIT's terminal in Building sixteen, a modernist

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Speaker 1: glass and concrete structure on the campus. Registered as a

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Speaker 1: guest on the system he had used most of his life,

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Speaker 1: he signed on to Jstore, an online library of academic

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Speaker 1: journals that universities pay yearly subscription fees of up to

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Speaker 1: tens of thousands to access. Using his script he had built.

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Speaker 1: Not unlike the pacer Crawler, Schwartz began to download an

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Speaker 1: extraordinary volume of articles. Over the course of the next

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Speaker 1: three months, he found ways to circumvent attempts to block

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Speaker 1: his connection, eventually hardwiring his laptop directly to the school

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Speaker 1: servers from a restricted utility closet. By January of twenty eleven,

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Speaker 1: he had downloaded nearly five million documents from Jaystore's database.

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Speaker 1: Hell yeah, now this is cool, and a reasonable person

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Speaker 1: might say, what's the big deal, right, Aaron is allowed

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Speaker 1: to access this stuff. He is a Harvard fellow at

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Speaker 1: this point, and MIT gives them access to their stuff,

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Speaker 1: So he is allowed to go to MIT, use their

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Speaker 1: Jaystore access, download as many files as he wants. That

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Speaker 1: is not a crime. It is a violation of policy

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Speaker 1: that I think the school probably could have chosen to,

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Speaker 1: like maybe press charge if they'd wanted to for going.

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Speaker 1: But even then, it's kind of doesn't break in. It

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Speaker 1: isn't like bust a lock. He just opens a closet

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Speaker 1: he's not supposed to be in and leaves a laptop

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Speaker 1: there hardwired in. It's we could a sketchy. I'm not

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Speaker 1: surprised that the school took an interest in this, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but it's not. This is not kind of thing that

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Speaker 1: they because they didn't. They didn't think we need to

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Speaker 1: make sure that someone has free access. Doesn't download five

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Speaker 1: million files right, right, and it is depending on what

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Speaker 1: he had intended to do with those files, it could

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Speaker 1: be illegal. A lot of those files are public resources,

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Speaker 1: a copyright free. There's stuff that is old enough that

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Speaker 1: there's no copyright, and a lot of those files are

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Speaker 1: things he could have given out to whoever wanted. Not

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Speaker 1: all of them, though a lot of them are not.

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Speaker 1: If he had chosen to digitize all of that and

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Speaker 1: put it up for free, that would have been illegal.

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Speaker 1: Not saying it's wrong, I don't believe it is wrong,

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Speaker 1: but that would have been a crime.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: But he doesn't do that. He doesn't ever get to

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Speaker 1: that point, and we don't know that that's what he

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Speaker 1: intended to do. This is a very important point. What

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Speaker 1: happens is that MIT notices what's going on that this

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Speaker 1: laptop has been put here, someone's in here, somebody's downloading

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Speaker 1: all these files. They put a hidden camera in the closet.

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Speaker 1: The camera captures Wore going in and changing out the

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Speaker 1: hard drive once it fills up to put a new

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Speaker 1: one in, and they contact law enforcement and he gets busted.

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Speaker 1: Right there's a grand jury thing that's formed, and they,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Feds present evidence as to kind of

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Speaker 1: like what is is you know, he's been doing and

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Speaker 1: he's going to end up getting indicted. And again we

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Speaker 1: don't know why Aaron one of those files. For one thing.

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Speaker 1: You know, if the Feds had really cared about if

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Speaker 1: the concern was actual criminality, they would have waited to

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Speaker 1: see if he was going to break the law. They

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Speaker 1: did not. They come after him before that can ever happen.

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Speaker 1: They are just trying to catch this kid because he's

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Speaker 1: on their radar, right Yeah, and they don't give a

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Speaker 1: shit if he's doing anything. And again, I don't morally

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Speaker 1: think it would have been wrong if he stole those,

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Speaker 1: but that is illegal, right, that is a crime. Right.

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Speaker 3: But if they if they waited until he broke the law,

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Speaker 3: then it would be the cat would be out of

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Speaker 3: the bag and the files at all, yeahploaded. And so

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Speaker 3: they wanted to stop him before he broke the law,

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Speaker 3: which should be it would be morally it's morally ang

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Speaker 3: the Feds to stop someone before they break the law

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Speaker 3: out of a set And.

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Speaker 1: Again, we don't know that he and I'll explain why

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Speaker 1: we don't know that he would have done that. I

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Speaker 1: think they didn't want to wait in case he wasn't

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Speaker 1: going to break the law, right I do. That's kind

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Speaker 1: of where I am. You know, I don't know, we're.

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Speaker 3: Talking totally, because they could have just had them been

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Speaker 3: like I want a database of this in case the

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Speaker 3: laws change around it, or yes, yeah.

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Speaker 1: And we'll talk about there's a couple other things he

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Speaker 1: could have been doing. What's important is that when he

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Speaker 1: gets in trouble for this, he has not actually broken

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Speaker 1: a law. Right, the Feds are going to argue he is.

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Speaker 1: He has not actually yet done anything that is definitely

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Speaker 1: criminal activity. And now there are some theories as to

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Speaker 1: why he might have wanted these files. By this point,

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Speaker 1: Aaron has again had another shift in his interests. He's

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Speaker 1: less interested. Actually at this point, a lot of his

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Speaker 1: rangers will say, he's not really that big into copyright stuff.

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Speaker 1: At this point. He's moved on. He writes some stuff

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Speaker 1: about this too, where he's like, that was you know,

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Speaker 1: an earlier point to me, That's not my focus right now.

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Speaker 1: He has gotten obsessed with having an impact in politics,

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Speaker 1: using his knowledge of code and technology to further progressive politics. Right.

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Speaker 1: That is what Aaron is into right now. One of

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Speaker 1: the things he is doing is actually, it's a lot

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Speaker 1: of it's kind of open source journalism. Right. He has

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Speaker 1: just recently finished a massive project where he basically built

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Speaker 1: a database of all of these publications of legal scholars,

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Speaker 1: and he used the algorithms he was crafting to comb

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Speaker 1: through them to find connections between legal scholars who have

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Speaker 1: been hired as consultants by various corporations and are receiving

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Speaker 1: money from those corporations, and then produce legal filings that

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Speaker 1: become part of legal theory that benefits those corporations. This

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Speaker 1: is the kind of thing you can only do when

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Speaker 1: you have a massive data set and you're able to

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Speaker 1: build connections between the data, right, And as a result

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Speaker 1: of this, he is able to prove that legal theory

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Speaker 1: is being crafted for pay by capitalists who are using

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Speaker 1: legal scholars in a way that is very fucked up

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Speaker 1: to push changes in the laws. Right, they are hiring

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Speaker 1: as people. These people then independently published stuff that is

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Speaker 1: helping these companies. Right, the kind of thing you have

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Speaker 1: to have a huge data set to show, Right, that

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Speaker 1: is something Aaron does. He proves this beyond a shadow

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Speaker 1: of a fucking doubt. Not that that surprises anybody who

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Speaker 1: listens to the show, but like, and that is a

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Speaker 1: potential use of the files he was using that is

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Speaker 1: in no way illegal.

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Speaker 3: That makes so much sense. That's this is kind of

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Speaker 3: mind blowing because I again, I only had the cliff

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Speaker 3: Notes version of Aaron's life, and like, so I had

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Speaker 3: the like and that you know, Dallo them to share

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Speaker 3: him or whatever, and I liked him then, But this

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Speaker 3: is like, yeah, yeah, it is a good point, and like, yeah.

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Speaker 1: That would have been heroic and illegal, which again you

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Speaker 1: and I I don't give a shit morally that it's illegal.

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Speaker 1: I think that would have been a perfectly ethical thing

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Speaker 1: to do. But there's a very good chance based on

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Speaker 1: what he was doing, he had absolutely no intent to

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Speaker 1: carry out. He was doing something else that's rad but

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Speaker 1: that was in no way illegal.

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Speaker 3: And he's also he's real smart, and he knows the

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Speaker 3: Feds are on him, which does make it seem less

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Speaker 3: likely that he was specifically planning on breaking the law,

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Speaker 3: especially breaking a law that like because it took a

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Speaker 3: long time, right, he was like going and replacing the

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Speaker 3: hard drive and shit, right, and so he knew that

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Speaker 3: the Feds were on him. So if he was like, oh,

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Speaker 3: I got to do this and get them up and

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Speaker 3: it doesn't matter if I go down because I did it,

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Speaker 3: he would have done it a lot. He would have

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Speaker 3: done that a lot faster maybe, I think Jack here.

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Speaker 1: One of the things Quinn Norton will say also is

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Speaker 1: that like, if he had been planning to do this

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Speaker 1: big illegal thing, I knew a bunch of hackers, there

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Speaker 1: were other ways to crack that data and get it

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Speaker 1: that would not have involved him personally doing it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this was a thing he knew the people get to

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Speaker 1: get involved with, right, there were there would have been

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Speaker 1: a way if that had been his plan. I do

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Speaker 1: think based on what I have read based on what

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Speaker 1: he was doing at this point, I think it's likelier

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Speaker 1: he had some sort of plan to analyze the data

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Speaker 1: and use it for a project, as opposed to he

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Speaker 1: wanted to post it up. Right again, I would have

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Speaker 1: had no issue if he had of I just that's

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Speaker 1: what seems most likely to me based on what he

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Speaker 1: was doing. Right.

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Speaker 2: Oh, that's fascinating.

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Speaker 1: And as again as the New Yorker notes, this was

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Speaker 1: part of a pattern in his career, and I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: quote from that again. Five or six years ago, at

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Speaker 1: an Education in Democracy meetup, he asked if anyone was

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Speaker 1: going to be in Washington, d C. And could pick

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Speaker 1: up some files. He was compiling a report about the

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Speaker 1: relation between candidate's wealth and their electoral success. And while

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Speaker 1: successful candidate's financial disclosure records were available on the internet,

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Speaker 1: unsuccessful candidate's records, while public, were not online. If you

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Speaker 1: wanted to see them, you were supposed to make paper

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Speaker 1: copies in a library. But he won a digital file

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Speaker 1: so he could analyze the data. Alec Resnik was planning

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Speaker 1: to be in DC and volunteered for the task. Resnick

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Speaker 1: spent a couple of days in a library attempting to

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Speaker 1: steal the files in digital form, got caught light about

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Speaker 1: it and was held there for most of the night

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Speaker 1: by police. He wasn't put out by the experience. The

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Speaker 1: police had been very nice about it, he said. Schwartz

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Speaker 1: found the story endearing in hilarious, and he and Resnick

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Speaker 1: became close friends and so to the extent. Again, if

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Speaker 1: that's what Aaron was doing, he probably thought, if I

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Speaker 1: get caught, that's the worst case scenario, right, you know,

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Speaker 1: they are a little sketched out. They take me to custody,

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Speaker 1: and then they find out I didn't have I wasn't

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Speaker 1: planning to do anything illegal with it, right. I have

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Speaker 1: a right to this data and I have a right

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Speaker 1: to do what I was doing with it. It was

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Speaker 1: just kind of sketchy the way I went about it

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Speaker 1: because I didn't want to ask, right, and that is

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Speaker 1: you know, you can say the safer thing to do

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Speaker 1: would have been to have approach to my tea and say, hey,

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Speaker 1: I want to use your jstore to download fucking ten

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Speaker 1: million files to do this big large data analysis. He

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Speaker 1: had the right to do that. It probably would have worked.

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Speaker 1: But you know Aaron, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 3: He's a break things person, and he's a he has

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Speaker 3: a bit of that to him, right, Yeah, And he's

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Speaker 3: also kind of he is enough of a child of

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Speaker 3: privilege where he's not used to even probably with the

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Speaker 3: Feds after him. Maybe I'm I don't know him, and I'm.

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Speaker 1: I think sure, neither neither do I. That seems plausible

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Speaker 1: based on what we do know about him, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So to do whatever work he had planned next, there's

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Speaker 1: a very good chance he was looking at this as like,

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Speaker 1: I need these massive data sets for some reason, and

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Speaker 1: I want to do an analysis on it, right, And

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Speaker 1: that is again within his rights. I think it's unlikely

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Speaker 1: he thought what he was doing was illegal, or that

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Speaker 1: if it was, it was the kind of thing might

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Speaker 1: get like yelled at about a little slap on the wrist.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: He also doesn't think MIT is going to have an

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Speaker 1: issue with this, because MIT is where a lot of

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Speaker 1: hacker culture comes from. Right. The school has a history

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Speaker 1: of like people are allowed to kind of push some

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Speaker 1: boundaries because that's what makes MIT famous. Right, It's totally

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Speaker 1: people who push boundaries. Right, So it's not all going

387
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Speaker 1: to work out that way, And to talk about how

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Speaker 1: before we talk about how it worked out, let's talk

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Speaker 1: about some products that you can purchase using currency.

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Speaker 2: Which is like points.

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Speaker 1: It is like points.

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Speaker 2: It is like point.

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Speaker 3: The higher your point value, the more important you are.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly how I feel gold.

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Speaker 3: Points are worth more than paper.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and we're back, so you know, uh uh yeah.

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Speaker 1: Aaron probably did not think this was going to be

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Speaker 1: an issue, certainly didn't think that if it was, the

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Speaker 1: school was going to have a serious problem with what

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Speaker 1: he'd done. But the response to what was at the

401
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Speaker 1: most a minor indiscretion by Aaron in terms of not

402
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Speaker 1: asking going into that closet was met with the legal

403
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Speaker 1: equivalent of a nuclear and I'm going to quote from

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Speaker 1: the New Yorker again here he was arrested after leaving

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Speaker 1: the closet. The police took away his shoes and put

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Speaker 1: him in a cell. Soon after his arrest, he returned

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Speaker 1: the data he had taken, and Jaystore considered the matter settled. Mit, however,

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Speaker 1: cooperated with the prosecution despite many efforts internal and external

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Speaker 1: to dissuade it. The prosecutor, Stephen Heineyman, told Schwartz's lawyer,

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Speaker 1: Elliott Peters, that if Schwartz pleaded guilty to all counts,

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Speaker 1: he would spend six months in jail. If he lost

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Speaker 1: at trial, it would be much worse. He said. The

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Speaker 1: value of what was taken from Jaystore was two million dollars,

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Speaker 1: and under the sentence and guidelines, that would equate to

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Speaker 1: a sentence in the neighborhood of seven years. Peters says,

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Speaker 1: and I said what he took from Jaystore wasn't worth anything.

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Speaker 1: It was a bunch of like the nineteen forty two

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Speaker 1: edition of Journal of Botany idea that Aaron should be

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Speaker 1: sentenced the same way as someone who tries to beat

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Speaker 1: someone out of two million dollars in a security fraud scam,

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Speaker 1: someone who steals money from people, and you know that

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Speaker 1: is a reasonable thing to be angry about and erin

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Speaker 1: by the way gets he will claim. I have seen

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Speaker 1: no reason to doubt this, that he is like physically

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Speaker 1: abused by the police during his arrest during one of

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Speaker 1: his arrests. That seems very likely. Know in the cops

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Speaker 1: the situation Aaron now found himself in was deliberately bewildering

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Speaker 1: and vague. You have to remember that, as Tim McVeigh said,

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Speaker 1: the only language the federal government understands is force right,

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Speaker 1: and when they charge you with a crime like this.

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Speaker 1: Their tactic is shock in awe. The vast majority of

432
00:20:39,280 --> 00:20:43,800
Speaker 1: federal prosecution succeed, So any intelligent defendant knows this. And

433
00:20:43,840 --> 00:20:46,600
Speaker 1: when the federal prosecutors and whatnot say, hey, if you

434
00:20:46,640 --> 00:20:49,679
Speaker 1: plead guilty, you get six months. If not, we're going

435
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:52,080
Speaker 1: to push for the maximum sentence, and it's this many

436
00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:56,639
Speaker 1: fucking gonzo ass years. A lot of people. Most people

437
00:20:56,840 --> 00:20:59,080
Speaker 1: take the plea, even innocent people, right, That's part of

438
00:20:59,119 --> 00:21:00,880
Speaker 1: why their conviction is so a lot of innocent people

439
00:21:00,880 --> 00:21:03,600
Speaker 1: plead guilty because it's like, well, they're offering me three months,

440
00:21:03,600 --> 00:21:06,640
Speaker 1: six months, and that's better than the possibility of twenty years,

441
00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:07,120
Speaker 1: even if.

442
00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:10,320
Speaker 3: I yeah, no, I mean right, especially with something like this, Yeah,

443
00:21:10,560 --> 00:21:12,840
Speaker 3: because you're in you're not putting anyone else at risk.

444
00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:16,000
Speaker 3: If you plead out exactly like you're not like, you're

445
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:17,760
Speaker 3: not fucking over anyone else's cases.

446
00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:21,480
Speaker 1: It ends with me. I can handle that much time, right.

447
00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:24,200
Speaker 1: Aaron does not want to do this. For one thing,

448
00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:28,160
Speaker 1: he's innocent. Hard to hard not to see why. He's

449
00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:31,320
Speaker 1: also not a compromise guy. He hasn't had too much

450
00:21:31,320 --> 00:21:34,600
Speaker 1: in his life, right, He doesn't feel like that his

451
00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:37,720
Speaker 1: life has not providd not he lies thus far. One

452
00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:39,439
Speaker 1: of the things his life thus far has not prepared

453
00:21:39,520 --> 00:21:41,720
Speaker 1: him for is the kind of no win scenario that

454
00:21:41,720 --> 00:21:44,440
Speaker 1: the federal government could trap you in. Right, Yeah, he's

455
00:21:44,480 --> 00:21:47,520
Speaker 1: just he's not. That's just not a thing. Anything that

456
00:21:47,560 --> 00:21:50,080
Speaker 1: he's dealt with has has given him sort of training in.

457
00:21:50,680 --> 00:21:51,080
Speaker 2: Yeah.

458
00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:53,640
Speaker 1: Another issue is that the best plea deal he could

459
00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:56,040
Speaker 1: possibly get, and there's some debate as to whether or

460
00:21:56,040 --> 00:21:57,439
Speaker 1: not he was even likely to get much of a

461
00:21:57,440 --> 00:21:59,440
Speaker 1: plea deal. That kind of goes back and forth with

462
00:21:59,520 --> 00:22:01,560
Speaker 1: the best possible plea deal he could have gotten would

463
00:22:01,560 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 1: have still left him with a felony record. And right,

464
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:05,480
Speaker 1: at this point, Aaron is like, I want to work

465
00:22:05,480 --> 00:22:08,119
Speaker 1: in politics. I want to change the political system as

466
00:22:08,119 --> 00:22:11,080
Speaker 1: an activist. I want to maybe work at the White House. Right,

467
00:22:11,320 --> 00:22:14,280
Speaker 1: I have that potential, I have those connections. I could

468
00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:16,440
Speaker 1: be in the White House helping to shape tech policy

469
00:22:16,440 --> 00:22:18,200
Speaker 1: in a way that helps people. Can't work at the

470
00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:20,040
Speaker 1: White House with a fucking felony. Right. That may be

471
00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:23,160
Speaker 1: changing soon, right, but at this point in time, that's

472
00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:25,200
Speaker 1: how he sees. This is what he says to Quinn Norton. Right,

473
00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:27,320
Speaker 1: I can't work at the White House with I can't.

474
00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:29,440
Speaker 1: I can't take this plea deal because it'll lock me

475
00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:31,520
Speaker 1: out of this thing that I want. And again it's

476
00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:34,120
Speaker 1: part of like Aaron is not a compromiser. He can't

477
00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:38,920
Speaker 1: compromise this current dream of his. Yeah, right, even though

478
00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:42,520
Speaker 1: maybe that's the thing that guarantees he suffers the least, right,

479
00:22:42,560 --> 00:22:46,320
Speaker 1: and that would end this horrible legal process, you know. Now,

480
00:22:46,359 --> 00:22:49,520
Speaker 1: it's worth noting that today I see this on Twitter

481
00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 1: every time stuff about Aaron Schwartz comes up, Right, every

482
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:54,960
Speaker 1: time the anniversary of his death comes around, all that

483
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:59,399
Speaker 1: stuff that j Store hounded him in prosecution to his death.

484
00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:01,720
Speaker 1: I don't think that's accurate. I'm not saying they don't

485
00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:04,399
Speaker 1: deserve some blame. I don't even like Jstore, right, Like,

486
00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:08,080
Speaker 1: there's a lot that's bad about that. But they are

487
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:11,359
Speaker 1: as soon as he gives the files back, they're like,

488
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:15,200
Speaker 1: we consider this done. We have no desire to prosecute him, right, Yeah,

489
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:18,760
Speaker 1: they do not push to prosecute him. Right, This is

490
00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:23,320
Speaker 1: a decision. MIT is a part of this. MIT is

491
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:26,080
Speaker 1: part of his why he can he suffers from this,

492
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:31,040
Speaker 1: And largely it's federal prosecutors, right, even local prosecutors who

493
00:23:31,119 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 1: have the option of charging him with some stuff, are

494
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:35,960
Speaker 1: uninterested in pursuing the matter, in part because I think

495
00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:37,639
Speaker 1: they're like, well, this is mit, right, this is like

496
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:39,600
Speaker 1: what we do here tech, Like this kid hasn't done

497
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:41,680
Speaker 1: anything really that bad. If we wanted to, we could

498
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:43,920
Speaker 1: fuck him over, but like that doesn't help us as

499
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:47,359
Speaker 1: fucking you know Cambridge, Massachusetts, Right, Yeah, Like we don't

500
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:49,919
Speaker 1: benefit from hurting this guy who's a tech genius. That

501
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:52,280
Speaker 1: doesn't you know. I'm not saying they're altruists here, but

502
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:55,840
Speaker 1: it is the FEDS who decide this needs to move, right,

503
00:23:56,600 --> 00:23:58,320
Speaker 1: They and that, as far as I can tell, that

504
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 1: is the primary blame in terms of why this keeps

505
00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:02,360
Speaker 1: being a fucking thing.

506
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:05,640
Speaker 3: I know why that motivation? Is it because he's a progressive?

507
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 3: Is it like we're going to talk about that, Oh okay, cool.

508
00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:11,560
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm not going to say none of I'm not

509
00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: going to say there aren't multiple things that factor into it,

510
00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:16,200
Speaker 1: But I think the actual reason is so much sadder

511
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:20,920
Speaker 1: and more banal, As is often the case with terror

512
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 1: evil right, we talk about you know, this is a case.

513
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:28,879
Speaker 1: We talk about Joseph Mangela, right, who his reputation in

514
00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:32,040
Speaker 1: pop cultures. He was just this insane, mad scientist carrying

515
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:34,800
Speaker 1: out these nightmare experiments because of his sick mind.

516
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:35,160
Speaker 3: Right.

517
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:40,640
Speaker 1: The reality is there were a lot of errant scientific beliefs.

518
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,160
Speaker 1: Scientists and doctors who are highly placed in the medical

519
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:46,120
Speaker 1: establishment at the time needed access to human test subjects

520
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 1: that they couldn't get through willing test subjects. He had

521
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 1: access to human beings, and he wanted to help his career.

522
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:54,560
Speaker 1: He wanted to set himself up for a scientific career, right,

523
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 1: so he did that, right, That's why Mangela did what

524
00:24:56,600 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 1: he did. He wasn't just like some sadist who was

525
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:01,359
Speaker 1: getting off on it. Right, There's really not the evidence

526
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:03,719
Speaker 1: for that he was he was doing. He didn't. He

527
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 1: was just the kind of person who didn't care what

528
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:07,439
Speaker 1: he had to do to further his career and to

529
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 1: build a career for That's what's behind this, okay, Right,

530
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 1: as far as.

531
00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:14,480
Speaker 3: Someone wants to land a big fish case, that is yep,

532
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:15,760
Speaker 3: yep cool.

533
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:18,879
Speaker 1: A lot of what's happening here. The federal government is

534
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:20,960
Speaker 1: at this point in the middle of its second great

535
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 1: crackdown on so called hackers. Right. Some of this is

536
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 1: because Anonymous, the digital activist collective online has spooked the

537
00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:31,720
Speaker 1: olds at this point. Right, Yeah, there there's a lot

538
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 1: of you know, it's a sexy thing that like, you

539
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:36,440
Speaker 1: can scare people on Fox News about, right, these these

540
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:40,359
Speaker 1: hacker gangs and shit, and a prosecutor can make a

541
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 1: name for themselves by going after cybercrime.

542
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 3: Right.

543
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: Stephen Hayman is the prosecutor here, and he takes the

544
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 1: case to a grand jury who indicts Aaron on four

545
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: felony accounts, including wire fraud and computer fraud. Nine more

546
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:58,119
Speaker 1: felony accounts are added later. Aaron could have faced thirty

547
00:25:58,240 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 1: years in prison, you know, or more.

548
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I.

549
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:04,480
Speaker 1: Think up to fifty is possible, but like very good chance,

550
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:07,359
Speaker 1: like at least like ten years and probably you know,

551
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: the serious potential for more had he been convicted.

552
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:11,680
Speaker 2: Yeah.

553
00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:14,359
Speaker 1: Much of the prosecution's arguments had to do with the

554
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 1: fact that Aaron had shielded his face with a bike

555
00:26:16,520 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 1: helmet when he walked past a security camera. Right. Carmen Ortiz,

556
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:24,000
Speaker 1: the US Attorney for Massachusetts and Obama appointee, compared to

557
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 1: what Aaron had done to robbery, saying, stealing is stealing,

558
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 1: whether he hu's a computer command or a crowbar. Now

559
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:35,159
Speaker 1: it's not. That's fucking nonsense. Because if you use a

560
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:37,440
Speaker 1: crowbar to break into a store and steal shit, right,

561
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: have whatever opinions about the ethics of that, but you

562
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 1: have damaged something. You've damaged the store front. Yeah, taken assets.

563
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:46,639
Speaker 1: People have to replace those assets. There is there is

564
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:50,080
Speaker 1: a harm to that business. Right, I'm not making a

565
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 1: moral judgment about this, but there's a harm. If you

566
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 1: download files from Jay's store and you have them on

567
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: your hard drive and you have legal access to those

568
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: files for free. You haven't heard j store. They're not

569
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:03,359
Speaker 1: out anything, right, and like they still have the He

570
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 1: didn't delete them, he didn't hack in and delete them from.

571
00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 3: Their servers, you know, Like stealing is when you take

572
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:10,439
Speaker 3: something from someone and then they no longer have it.

573
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 3: That is that, Yes, that is how I define stealing

574
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 3: is when you take something and then the other person

575
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 3: no longer has Illegal copying can be a crime, and

576
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:23,119
Speaker 3: it can and you can material. You can monetarily damage

577
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:25,879
Speaker 3: someone if you if you hiate someone else's shit and

578
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 3: then you start selling it, you might make money instead

579
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 3: of the other person or.

580
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 1: Y right there, or if you know, if they have

581
00:27:31,760 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 1: people have access to it for free and you don't

582
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:35,679
Speaker 1: get paid. You can argue there's a harm there. Now

583
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 1: I don't think that's how it actually works.

584
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 3: I think, but you're not taking the files from someone.

585
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:43,119
Speaker 1: Exactly, he is not. It is not like using a crowbar,

586
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 1: because you use a crowbar to break things, and he

587
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 1: has not broken anything. Right, he did not hack his

588
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: way into the system, right, he had access to it.

589
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 1: You know, the fact that this logic is nonsense and

590
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 1: the fact that Aaron, again there's no proof he had

591
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:58,520
Speaker 1: intended to contravene the law in any way. You know,

592
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: that's what I would say, what you would say, But

593
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:03,480
Speaker 1: you know what matters is what the Feds are trying

594
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:06,760
Speaker 1: to say. And this, unfortunately, is where Quinn Norton comes

595
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:09,399
Speaker 1: into the story again. Okay, now again. Quinn is a

596
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 1: journalist who's beat at this point. Heavily focuses on the

597
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: hacker community and that corner of digital culture. She and

598
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: Aaron had an on again, off again relationship for years,

599
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:20,679
Speaker 1: and she was a major part of his emotional support

600
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 1: system after he got arrested and charged. Her close relationship

601
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:27,199
Speaker 1: with him and her history writing about hackers makes her

602
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 1: a target for the Feds and one of the things

603
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:31,879
Speaker 1: I don't really understand about her is she's working with

604
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:34,159
Speaker 1: these people who are very much in danger, right, and

605
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 1: who are very much breaking the law. Right. Some of

606
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 1: the people she reports on are not people who stay

607
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 1: within the lines the way Aaron had his whole life.

608
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 1: Not making a judgment, that's just the truth. She has

609
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: dog shit op sect. She will admit that. By the way,

610
00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 1: her op sect's not one thing. She takes as a habit,

611
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: notes on basically every conversation she ever has and stores

612
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 1: them on her computer, along with interviews and stuff with sources,

613
00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: which is not a good idea, right, really dangerous. So

614
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 1: when this happens the FEDS start looking into her, and

615
00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: Quinn realizes this is happening, is like, if they get

616
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 1: my laptop, not only am I potentially in some danger

617
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 1: because I don't know, maybe she had been into some

618
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: shit or it doesn't even matter if she had, right

619
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 1: because the Feds are going after Aaron and he hasn't

620
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: broke in law. But also all of her sources are

621
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 1: in danger if they get this laptop. That's a bad

622
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:25,080
Speaker 1: situation to be in, a very scary situation to be in. Yeah,

623
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 1: as a journalist, and I have some sympathy for that.

624
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 1: She's also a single mother. And man, if you know

625
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: anything about the FEDS and they love single moms. Yeah,

626
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 1: nothing against that, but that's a weak point because they

627
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 1: can come after you and say, you know, they don't

628
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:43,160
Speaker 1: even have to say it. They know if you're looking

629
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 1: into them, well that you lose your kid, you could

630
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 1: be away for years, you can miss their whole life, right,

631
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 1: and that if you're single parent, single dad too, you're like,

632
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 1: it is a thing. It's the same way like the

633
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:56,600
Speaker 1: FEDS go after addicts. Right, It's an easy way to

634
00:29:56,640 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 1: get some charges on someone in an easy way to

635
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: try to roll some right, it's just the way they work.

636
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely not making moral judgment here. It's one of

637
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:07,240
Speaker 1: the reasons why the system is so scary, right, because

638
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 1: these are not vulnerabilities that mean you're not a bad

639
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 1: person for being vulnerable to this. It's understandable that you'd

640
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 1: be vulnerable. You have a person to take care of,

641
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 1: you know, right.

642
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 3: But fortunately she put her laptop hard drive into a

643
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 3: microwave and they didn't.

644
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 1: Get Unfortunately, that is not where this goes. So the

645
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 1: Secret Service, and for a variety of complicated reasons, they

646
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 1: have a lot to do with nine to eleven. They

647
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: are the FEDS who wind up investigating this, right.

648
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 3: Okay, that's it's because of computer fraud.

649
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 1: Shit, you know, it's just it's a it's a thing,

650
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 1: right sure, in part because wire fraud and stuff like.

651
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 1: There's that anyway, it's the secret service that is that

652
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 1: is that are the FEDS coming out in this particular case,

653
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:52,040
Speaker 1: they show up at her door. She invites them into talk.

654
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 1: Never ever do this, yea Quinn herself. She has written

655
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: an article in the New Yorker and was like, this

656
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 1: was a horrible mistake that I made. You should never

657
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 1: ever do this terrible mistake. The logic she's acting under,

658
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 1: I'm not defending this because this was a horrible decision.

659
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: The logic that she says she was acting under is

660
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:10,720
Speaker 1: I haven't committed a crime. If I can explain that

661
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 1: to them, maybe they'll go away right now. The kind

662
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 1: of FEDS who do this job, who go door to

663
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 1: door to people, have an understanding of how to be

664
00:31:18,360 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: an interviewer. A major strategy anyone who does that job

665
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 1: will tell you is to leave yourself. This is the

666
00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:27,959
Speaker 1: true for journalists too. What matters most is keeping your

667
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 1: subject talking, right, you do whatever you can to keep

668
00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 1: them talking, because the more you get from them that

669
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: the higher the chance they're going to say something. You

670
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:37,120
Speaker 1: can take advantage of it. They might admit to a crime.

671
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 1: They also, if you're a federal aation, they can lie

672
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 1: to you, right, And it doesn't matter if it's you're

673
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 1: lying about something that's not illegal. Lying to a federal

674
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 1: ation's a fucking crime. If it's if they're interviewing you about,

675
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 1: you know, a case. Right, you can get people on that,

676
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: and then you have a thing to hold over their head.

677
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 1: You have a thing you can get them to roll on.

678
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 3: Right.

679
00:31:55,520 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 1: So she talks to these guys, right, bad thing to do,

680
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:04,080
Speaker 1: bad idea, don't don't do this. The conversasion ends with

681
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 1: them saying, you have been subpoenaed and commanded to go

682
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:09,840
Speaker 1: to a grand jury. She lawyers up. She doesn't have

683
00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 1: a she's very not rich, does not have much money,

684
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: and unfortunately one of the lawyers she get, one of

685
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: them is a firm former prosecutor. They are not good

686
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 1: lawyers to have in this situation. They urge her to

687
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:22,480
Speaker 1: comply with all of the requests the Feds make. Right,

688
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 1: most lawyers will so I know too much? Ye, grand

689
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 1: jury's most lawyers will push you to yes. Yes, this

690
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 1: is not uncommon. The situation she is in is not

691
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 1: an uncommon one. I'm not saying that to defend the

692
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: choices she makes. This is just not a weird situation.

693
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 1: The end result of all this is what is called

694
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 1: a profit letter. Right. This is where the prosecutor says,

695
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:47,240
Speaker 1: we will give you immunity. It's usually like we'll give

696
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:49,240
Speaker 1: you immunity for a day. Basically we'll give you know,

697
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:52,040
Speaker 1: potentially we can extend this. You can have this conversation

698
00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:55,440
Speaker 1: where basically nothing can hurt you, and if we find

699
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 1: out you have information we want, then we won't keep

700
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:02,960
Speaker 1: fucking with you. That's more or less the offer, right.

701
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 1: Quinn says, she talks this through to some extent with Aaron.

702
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 1: It's unclear to me exactly how much he knows about

703
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 1: what she's doing. At this point in time. She decides

704
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: to do this, and again, her logic is, I am

705
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 1: not aware that Aaron has broken the lawn anyway, and

706
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 1: I have not broken the line anyway. What could this

707
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 1: hurt if I answer their questions and they know I

708
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 1: don't know anything, and all this ends.

709
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 3: And this is also one of the only circumstances where

710
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 3: if she had remained silent, she there are many systems

711
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:32,400
Speaker 3: by which she could go to jail without having committed

712
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 3: a crime.

713
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 2: In civil contemptuary. Yes, so like it.

714
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 3: She is risking something if she decides to talk, which.

715
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:43,560
Speaker 1: Is is a fucking scary situation. Yeah, her, no way

716
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 1: around that.

717
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 3: Every other country with Grand Juri's I think I think

718
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 3: all of them abolished it. It comes from old British law,

719
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 3: and everyone else is like, oh, this is a clear

720
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 3: this clearly leads to abuse of power.

721
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 2: Let's get rid of it.

722
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 3: In the US was like, nah, we not get this

723
00:33:57,360 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 3: is that's why we like it.

724
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, so she does this, has this conversation. It's going

725
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 1: to turn out to be another bad decision. And again

726
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 1: she's in the position a lot of people are in

727
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:09,360
Speaker 1: this where you give them because you haven't done anything

728
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: and you don't think your friend has, you give them

729
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:15,719
Speaker 1: a lot of information, and unfortunately she says exactly the

730
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 1: wrong thing, which is she mentions at one point the

731
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: existence of the Gorilla Open Access Manifesto and that Aaron

732
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:26,399
Speaker 1: had been one of the people who worked on it. Ah,

733
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 1: that includes lines saying what people should do is gain

734
00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 1: access to Paywalt stuff that they have legal access to

735
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 1: and put it up online for free.

736
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:38,280
Speaker 3: And so now you have a conspiracy case exactly because

737
00:34:38,360 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 3: conspiracy cases don't involve anyone conspiracy rules.

738
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:42,720
Speaker 1: It's terrible.

739
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 3: You don't have to break the law, like saying I

740
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:48,120
Speaker 3: am interested in the following crime is not illegal, and

741
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 3: then doing something that's legal that is in furtherance of

742
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 3: that crime is also not illegal unless you put the

743
00:34:52,520 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 3: two together and then it's conspiracy.

744
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:58,320
Speaker 1: Yep. So that is the situation, right, And the FEDS,

745
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 1: who I think are at this point, the Feds aren't dumb, right,

746
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 1: That's one of the things you have to understand about

747
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 1: these people. Not dumb, often lazy, And it's lazy that

748
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: they didn't know about this, right because it's a secret, right,

749
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 1: not hard to find out that Aaron had been one

750
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:12,880
Speaker 1: of the people who worked on this thing. They just

751
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 1: you know, especially at that point, there's a lot less

752
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:17,319
Speaker 1: people who are FEDS who know the internet, you know,

753
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:20,320
Speaker 1: so they're not good at finding this stuff. Right. Once

754
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:24,320
Speaker 1: she mentions that this thing that is public knowledge, right,

755
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:28,160
Speaker 1: they're like, bam, we got a case, right, This is

756
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:30,399
Speaker 1: this is this is evidence that we can argue in court.

757
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,720
Speaker 1: Is intent. He has intent to distribute right, so intent

758
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 1: to commit a crime. Right Again, the reality, as far

759
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 1: as we can tell, Aaron seems to have moved on

760
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 1: from that as a central issue in his life. He's

761
00:35:41,719 --> 00:35:43,839
Speaker 1: kind of flighty about this stuff. You know, we don't

762
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:46,319
Speaker 1: fully will never fully know what he intended to do

763
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:48,799
Speaker 1: with it. But the reality didn't matter. The Fed's had

764
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:51,240
Speaker 1: the argument the AMMO. They needed to make a case,

765
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 1: and that's what they're going to do.

766
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 3: Right.

767
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: Her involvement in all of this is among the most

768
00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 1: controversial parts of it. Many who were close to Aarin

769
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: will say that she snitched on him. Certainly not and

770
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 1: I see why people say that not an unjust interpretation.

771
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:07,920
Speaker 1: For his part, Aaron is furious. He also doesn't stop

772
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 1: being close with her.

773
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 3: Curious that people are calling her a snitch or furious

774
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 3: at her no, furious at her right for what he's done.

775
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:16,760
Speaker 3: He also seems to have forgiven her at some point.

776
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:17,879
Speaker 3: I don't know the guy.

777
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:21,360
Speaker 1: That's what people who know them will say. They continue

778
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:24,160
Speaker 1: to be close. I think for the remainder of his life.

779
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:28,759
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not going to say anymore about that

780
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:33,240
Speaker 1: or make a more kind of judgmental stance there. Obviously

781
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: a number of people close to them both have That's

782
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 1: totally fair. It's just, you know, I'm trying to just

783
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:40,799
Speaker 1: present the facts of what happened in as much as

784
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:45,319
Speaker 1: I can. So that's the situation here, and again they

785
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 1: are going to remain you know, close for the remainder

786
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:50,480
Speaker 1: of Aaron's life, which is not going to be a

787
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:53,880
Speaker 1: long time, but it is going to include one fairly

788
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 1: substantial achievement and we are going to talk about that

789
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 1: when we come back after some ants and we're back,

790
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 1: so Margaret, one more good thing to talk about. On

791
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: October twenty sixth, twenty eleven, Representative Lamar Smith, a Republican

792
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 1: from Texas, introduced the Stop Online Piracy Act into Congress.

793
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 1: This act, written at the behest of Hollywood studios, would

794
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 1: have basically given the government freedom to block access to

795
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: websites that included any copyrighted material. It was draconian in

796
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 1: scope and enforcement, and would have essentially killed the Internet

797
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:38,880
Speaker 1: as we know it. The bill was widely supported by

798
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:40,880
Speaker 1: all of the people with money, and it was initially

799
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:45,080
Speaker 1: expected to pass without comment. Right, Yeah, this was supposed

800
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:51,320
Speaker 1: to happen and not be a big fight, right Aaron Schwartz,

801
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:53,840
Speaker 1: who by this point is fighting in secret. Most of

802
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: the people who know him do not know that he

803
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:58,239
Speaker 1: is being charged, right, do not know that this is ongoing?

804
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:01,160
Speaker 1: Oh shit, he is keep a lot of that secret

805
00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 1: for a while, right.

806
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:04,920
Speaker 3: Which is a makes some sense if you're if you're

807
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:08,360
Speaker 3: facing kind of any kind of conspiracy shit, you know, yeah,

808
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:13,360
Speaker 3: like not yes, not bringing other people into risk, and

809
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:14,720
Speaker 3: you don't want to talk about your case.

810
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 1: And he's trying to do He's trying to affect political change.

811
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:20,400
Speaker 1: He's dealing with serious people in Paulay. He doesn't want

812
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:21,839
Speaker 1: him to know that he's dealing with this.

813
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:22,959
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah.

814
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 1: So shortly after SOPA gets introduced, he has a meeting

815
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 1: with Senator Lahy with his office, not with the Senator himself,

816
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 1: and a guy at Senator lazy Lay's office named Aaron Cooper.

817
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 1: Cooper is today a contributor to the Federalist Society. I

818
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: don't like him. He's served at this point as chief

819
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,240
Speaker 1: counsel for intellectual Property and any trust law to Lahy,

820
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 1: and Cooper listens to Aaron's arguments for why SOPA was

821
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:51,960
Speaker 1: a bad idea. Aaron's free friend Peter Eckersley later claimed

822
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:54,799
Speaker 1: quote Aaron Cooper replied, oh yes, but what you don't

823
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:57,800
Speaker 1: understand is that copyright and copyright enforcement is more important

824
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:00,040
Speaker 1: than the Internet. Sure you've got this Internet thing, but

825
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: actually this thing is more important, and it doesn't matter

826
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:04,759
Speaker 1: if things break or need to be reorganized. The priority

827
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 1: of this country is going to be making sure that

828
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,280
Speaker 1: files cannot be shared, songs cannot be copied, movies cannot

829
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:11,680
Speaker 1: be copied, and will break things. If that's the easiest

830
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: way to do it, we're going to have to do

831
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:18,800
Speaker 1: it right. This makes Aaron angry. Yeah, not hard to

832
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,879
Speaker 1: see why. So he founds an organization with his friend

833
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 1: David Siegel called Demand Progress. Right today, Demand Progress is

834
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:27,840
Speaker 1: still in existence. It is a five oh one C

835
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 1: four that supports internet freedom, civil liberties, all that good stuff.

836
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 1: They oppose, attempts to crack down on whistleblowers and the like,

837
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:38,279
Speaker 1: and their first big fight is stopping sofa. Now a

838
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:40,839
Speaker 1: lot of people are involved in this battle. I don't

839
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:42,759
Speaker 1: want to do a thing that sometimes gets done and

840
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:44,399
Speaker 1: make it out like Aaron is the loan hero who

841
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: holds back the tide. Of corporate bloodsuckers trying to kill

842
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:49,600
Speaker 1: the Internet. But he does play a very massive role

843
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:51,840
Speaker 1: in the fight against SOFA. He is one of the

844
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:55,399
Speaker 1: people who organizes the response to this attempt to pass

845
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:58,040
Speaker 1: this law. And part of why he is so important

846
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: is that he understands before most people how to use

847
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 1: the Internet and harness the power of a crowd to

848
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 1: turn it against the enemy, right, to stop bad things

849
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:07,840
Speaker 1: from happening, and to do this in a way that

850
00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 1: matters more than just making people angry on social media. Right, Yeah,

851
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 1: he he is successful ultimately in this demand progress is

852
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:19,360
Speaker 1: still around, still influential. One of the things that you know,

853
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 1: can claim to be one of Aaron's many gifts to

854
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,640
Speaker 1: the world, and SOPA is stopped, right, Aaron plays a

855
00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: major role in stopping this. Yeah, you know, that is

856
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 1: kind of the last big thing that he accomplished.

857
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 3: I remember, yeah, I remember when sopos. I mean it

858
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 3: felt like for a while, it was like every couple

859
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 3: of years they were like, here's this new thing that

860
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:43,680
Speaker 3: will completely because they wanted so desperately to trash the

861
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 3: open Internet.

862
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:45,840
Speaker 2: Yeah.

863
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, And eventually it did get trash, but not that way.

864
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 2: I know, I did it in the insiduous y.

865
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:51,920
Speaker 3: Yeah.

866
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:56,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but that's a story for another day for

867
00:40:56,400 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 1: rail bastards. Yeah. Kind of the capstone of Aaron's career

868
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 1: in public life. And unfortunately, you know, his success in

869
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:07,960
Speaker 1: every other field of endeavor did not protect him ultimately

870
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 1: from the long arm of the law. The prosecution against

871
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 1: him rolled forward, inevitable as the tide and cruel as

872
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: a hurricane wind. This gets Haman a lot of press attention.

873
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:19,879
Speaker 1: It's sexy because going after hackers as sexy. The whole

874
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:22,239
Speaker 1: reason why he's on board to go after Erin is

875
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 1: because he's politically ambitious and he wants you to campaign

876
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:29,439
Speaker 1: on bringing down these scary young hacker kids who scare

877
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:31,279
Speaker 1: old people. I'm going to quote from a write up

878
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 1: and see that here. Alex Stamos, who the defense had

879
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:36,800
Speaker 1: planned to call as an expert witness on computer intrusion,

880
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 1: said I know a criminal hack when I see it,

881
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:41,600
Speaker 1: and Aaron's downloading of journal articles from an unlocked closet

882
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 1: is not an offense worth thirty five years in jail.

883
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 1: Law professor Tim Wu added the Ortez's legal authority to

884
00:41:47,200 --> 00:41:49,799
Speaker 1: take down Schwartz was shaky after a federal appeals court

885
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:53,240
Speaker 1: ruling last year. There is then a very good chance

886
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:55,440
Speaker 1: that had the case gone to court, Aaron would have

887
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 1: been found innocent. And when he does make public what

888
00:41:57,680 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: he's doing, a lot of people rally around him. They

889
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 1: start trying to support him, help him go through this.

890
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:05,920
Speaker 1: Aaron kind of hates this because again he hates asking

891
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:08,880
Speaker 1: people for help. He hates hates being dependent, he hates

892
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: people keep talking about him. Right, this is miserable for him.

893
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:14,480
Speaker 1: It fucks with a lot of stuff that's just he's

894
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 1: you know, he's always kind of struggled with and it

895
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,280
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's pretty close to a guarantee

896
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:21,400
Speaker 1: that he would have been found innocent, or if he

897
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:24,439
Speaker 1: had been convicted, it would have been overturned before too

898
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:27,759
Speaker 1: terribly long. Right, Not that that's not a lot to

899
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: deal with, but this is he just can't handle this, right.

900
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 1: Not only is the dealing with this incredibly stressful, his

901
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:37,239
Speaker 1: money is all gone, it's been eaten up by the

902
00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 1: legal fees, right, which is more stress, more dependency. And

903
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:44,399
Speaker 1: he has recurrent health issues, right and kind of after

904
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 1: he wakes up feeling bad one morning, can't get out

905
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:50,919
Speaker 1: of bed. You know, his girlfriend at the time, can't

906
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 1: get him to get up, you know, she leaves for

907
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:55,480
Speaker 1: the day to do her stuff, and while she's gone,

908
00:42:55,760 --> 00:43:00,439
Speaker 1: he hangs himself. On January eleventh, twenty thirteen. It's it's

909
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 1: you know again. As is always the case with suicide,

910
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 1: the only thing going on here is not the prosecution,

911
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:10,440
Speaker 1: is his ongoing depression, which is influenced and brought on

912
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 1: by his His physical mains is a part of this.

913
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:15,000
Speaker 1: It's part of his mindset. It affects him. The stuff,

914
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:16,360
Speaker 1: some of the stuff going on in his head and

915
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: how it relates to all this affects this. But fundamentally,

916
00:43:20,239 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone who knows him denies that the

917
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:25,480
Speaker 1: prosecution against him was ultimately why he takes his own life.

918
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 1: Yeah right, that's that's why this happens, you know. And

919
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 1: that's that's you know, just like I don't think stealing

920
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 1: shit from Jaystore to put up online would have been

921
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 1: a moral in my book. That's murder in my book. Yeah,

922
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 1: it's at least the equivalent of drunk driving, right, the

923
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:43,280
Speaker 1: legal equivalent.

924
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, man, Yeah, manslaughter maybe, yeah, and it it's

925
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 3: the we don't care, it's reckless and dangerment.

926
00:43:51,719 --> 00:43:52,560
Speaker 2: But actually killing him.

927
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like it's it's drunkenly killing someone with your car.

928
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:58,000
Speaker 1: If you were trying to build a career as like

929
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 1: the best drunk driver in the country, right, that was

930
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:04,920
Speaker 1: your life goal. Yeah, like that's kind of what's going on. Like, Yeah,

931
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 1: I don't know, weird to compare it to that, but

932
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:11,200
Speaker 1: we need some levity, I guess now. As a side note,

933
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:13,680
Speaker 1: here a couple of side notes. On January ninth, two

934
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 1: days before he took his own life, Jay Store made

935
00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 1: its archives of more than twelve hundred journals free to

936
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:20,160
Speaker 1: the public, in part due to the backlash when people

937
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:24,640
Speaker 1: found out why Aaron was in trouble. Recently last earlier

938
00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 1: this year, the Biden administration made some changes to massively

939
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 1: increase access to a lot of scientific papers and whatnot

940
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:34,040
Speaker 1: that were publicly funded. A lot of that has to

941
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:37,520
Speaker 1: do with activism that has occurred by Aaron's friends and

942
00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:39,920
Speaker 1: the result of his death. You know, there have been

943
00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:42,600
Speaker 1: a number of there's also a website that exists right

944
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 1: now if you want to get access to studies, academic papers,

945
00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 1: chapters from textbooks, in a lot of cases, any kind

946
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:52,720
Speaker 1: of not just science, but like a lot of history,

947
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:56,320
Speaker 1: and stuff publications, a lot of politics that are paywalled

948
00:44:56,680 --> 00:44:59,319
Speaker 1: that you don't normally have access to find either what's

949
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:02,960
Speaker 1: called the Deal Why, which is the number that lists

950
00:45:03,719 --> 00:45:06,480
Speaker 1: those kind of publications, or just the link to the

951
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: paywall publication and type sy hub into Google and go

952
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:13,360
Speaker 1: to a website called sy hub, and it more often

953
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 1: than not will return you a free version of that

954
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 1: paper that it has access to. It's not clear to

955
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:20,359
Speaker 1: me if they're breaking the law or not, but you're

956
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:23,920
Speaker 1: able to do that. It's it's fine. I use it

957
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:27,000
Speaker 1: all the fucking time, and it's dope very much is

958
00:45:27,280 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 1: part of his legacy. I'm sure the people whoever they

959
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: are who make cy hub would agree with that.

960
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:32,399
Speaker 2: Yeah.

961
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 1: A couple of things to note here. One of them

962
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:38,359
Speaker 1: is that the role that Mit played in this, As

963
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:40,719
Speaker 1: I noted j Store, there's certainly not an angel here,

964
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:42,680
Speaker 1: but they seem to about as early as they could

965
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:46,840
Speaker 1: have said, we have no desire in this being prosecutable.

966
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, well they probably didn't want the heat either, you.

967
00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:51,480
Speaker 1: Know, they didn't want that. Yeah. Sure, again, I'm not

968
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:53,320
Speaker 1: saying this because the good guys, right.

969
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, but still whatever they didn't do the bad and

970
00:45:55,520 --> 00:45:56,239
Speaker 3: whatever their motive.

971
00:45:56,360 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 1: They did, they did not. MIT did again. I think

972
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 1: most of this is on the probecutors. MIT does some

973
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:04,799
Speaker 1: of the bad here, right. And Robert Schwartz, Aaron's father,

974
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 1: is a consultant to the MIT lab. Right, he asks

975
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:11,080
Speaker 1: MIT to aid in getting the charges dropped or helping

976
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:14,120
Speaker 1: Aaron secure a plea deal. This is people get angry

977
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:17,520
Speaker 1: at MIT, especially after Aaron's suicide, and so MIT makes

978
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:21,000
Speaker 1: a report about this. Robert Schwartz later tells Wired the

979
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:23,279
Speaker 1: report makes clear that MIT was not neutral, but they

980
00:46:23,320 --> 00:46:25,920
Speaker 1: should not was not neutral, but they should not have

981
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 1: been neutral. They should have advocated on Aaron's behalf because

982
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:32,560
Speaker 1: the law under which he was charged was wrong. Laurence Lessig,

983
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:36,799
Speaker 1: who we talked about earlier, would later say this neutrality,

984
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:39,120
Speaker 1: which is what MIT claims, is one of those empty

985
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:41,959
Speaker 1: words that somehow has achieved sacred and conflict text free

986
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:45,239
Speaker 1: acceptance like transparency. But there are obviously plenty of contexts

987
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:47,440
Speaker 1: in which to be neutral is simply to be wrong.

988
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:50,759
Speaker 1: For example, this context, the point the report makes in

989
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:53,520
Speaker 1: criticizing the prosecutors is that they were at minimum negligent

990
00:46:53,560 --> 00:46:57,600
Speaker 1: and not recognizing that under MIT's open access policies. Aaron's

991
00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:01,880
Speaker 1: access was likely not unauthorized. Mit knew something here that

992
00:47:01,920 --> 00:47:04,360
Speaker 1: a minimum could have cut shorter prosecution, and which it

993
00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 1: turns out, could also have saved someone's life. Neutrality does

994
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:09,960
Speaker 1: not justify failing to pick up the phone and telling

995
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:15,200
Speaker 1: the prosecutor hey, in fact, his access was authorized. It

996
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:17,080
Speaker 1: is also worth noting that the law that Aaron was

997
00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:19,920
Speaker 1: prosecuted under, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was and

998
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:23,239
Speaker 1: remains an absolutely draconian piece of legislation that gives the

999
00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 1: federal government the freedom to go fucking ape shit on

1000
00:47:25,640 --> 00:47:28,279
Speaker 1: people if they feel like a computer was probably used

1001
00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 1: to commit a crime. A bill known colloquially as Aaron's

1002
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:34,920
Speaker 1: Law was introduced to amend the CFAA in twenty thirteen.

1003
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:37,440
Speaker 1: It did not pass into law, but the parameters that

1004
00:47:37,480 --> 00:47:39,520
Speaker 1: it was based around continue to be influential in the

1005
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:41,520
Speaker 1: fight to limit the power of the federal government to

1006
00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 1: do this kind of shit. And that is where the

1007
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:44,359
Speaker 1: story ends.

1008
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:50,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's cool. I've I'm really excited to get to

1009
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:54,439
Speaker 3: learn this stuff because I mean, I've actually been He's

1010
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 3: been on my big master list of cool people.

1011
00:47:56,960 --> 00:47:57,680
Speaker 2: The cool stuff to.

1012
00:47:57,680 --> 00:48:00,879
Speaker 3: Eventually get to, you know, and I'm like, I'm really

1013
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:04,479
Speaker 3: excited to get to learn this because I've always wanted

1014
00:48:04,520 --> 00:48:07,080
Speaker 3: to know more. I've always been like I know some

1015
00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:11,080
Speaker 3: people who knew him, and like I've always been influenced

1016
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:17,840
Speaker 3: by that era of internet optimism, you know, like a

1017
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:19,879
Speaker 3: lot of the sci fi I was reading, like, I mean,

1018
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:22,440
Speaker 3: I love Corey Doctro for example, you know, and a

1019
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 3: lot of this like hey, we can do this could

1020
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 3: have been beautiful, you know, and like maybe it can

1021
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 3: be beautiful again, and like holding on to that feels

1022
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 3: really important to me. And and Aaron Schwartz is such

1023
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:42,000
Speaker 3: an important part of all of that, unfortunately in that

1024
00:48:42,040 --> 00:48:43,840
Speaker 3: way where like, you know, kind of as a martyr

1025
00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:47,920
Speaker 3: to it and I didn't know as there's so much

1026
00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:49,479
Speaker 3: that I didn't know about it. And it's like also

1027
00:48:49,760 --> 00:48:52,000
Speaker 3: the chronic illness thing. I think that it's something that

1028
00:48:52,040 --> 00:48:54,040
Speaker 3: people don't talk about enough because people don't know how

1029
00:48:54,040 --> 00:48:55,920
Speaker 3: to talk about it. I don't really know how to

1030
00:48:55,920 --> 00:48:58,440
Speaker 3: talk about it. But like the way that chronic influence

1031
00:49:00,160 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 3: pain and stuff like that influences people's decisions and yeah,

1032
00:49:03,719 --> 00:49:10,799
Speaker 3: you know, and making people particularly susceptible to uh well,

1033
00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:12,719
Speaker 3: I mean, it's the same as when trolls try and

1034
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:14,600
Speaker 3: drive people's suicide really.

1035
00:49:15,560 --> 00:49:18,600
Speaker 1: Like, Yeah, same playbook in a lot of ways. Yeah,

1036
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:21,319
Speaker 1: a much more powerful version of the same playbook at least.

1037
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:24,200
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1038
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:28,440
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I thought Santa Claus was going to be

1039
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:31,799
Speaker 3: completely different. I thought Santa Claus was Finland. I thought

1040
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:34,880
Speaker 3: Santa but it turns out that was Linus the hacker.

1041
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:36,520
Speaker 2: The hacker, Yeah, try.

1042
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:40,879
Speaker 1: To make Yeah, I get where you were going. Where

1043
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:41,279
Speaker 1: you're going.

1044
00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:46,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know Santa Claus younger and did even more

1045
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:48,800
Speaker 3: stuff than just Reindeer.

1046
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:51,160
Speaker 2: So that's right, pretty cool.

1047
00:49:51,239 --> 00:49:52,480
Speaker 1: That's what's about.

1048
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 3: Do you have a pluggable for us?

1049
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:54,839
Speaker 1: Oh?

1050
00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:57,480
Speaker 3: I do. I actually run a bunch of podcasts. You

1051
00:49:57,480 --> 00:49:59,920
Speaker 3: will be listeners. You will be shocked to know that

1052
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:04,040
Speaker 3: one of the guests on this podcast also has a podcast.

1053
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:06,200
Speaker 3: But I have a podcast called Cool People Who Did

1054
00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:08,719
Speaker 3: Cool Stuff comes out every Monday and Wednesday, in which

1055
00:50:08,719 --> 00:50:11,960
Speaker 3: I talk about cool people who Did Cool Stuff, in

1056
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:17,279
Speaker 3: which I often use academic articles. And I also have

1057
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:20,719
Speaker 3: a podcast on well they're all on Cool Zone Media,

1058
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:23,799
Speaker 3: but the Cool Zone Media Book Club comes out every

1059
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:26,919
Speaker 3: Sunday on both the Cool People Did Cool Stuff Feed

1060
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:30,279
Speaker 3: and It Could Happen Here feed and that's where I

1061
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 3: read fiction to you. And if you want to hear

1062
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:36,360
Speaker 3: me read you a story, then that is a place

1063
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:40,719
Speaker 3: you can go, because, like, I'm not comparing myself to

1064
00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:42,520
Speaker 3: Santa Claus or Aaron in this case, but I also

1065
00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:45,280
Speaker 3: write fiction and so you can hear my novellas and stuff.

1066
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:47,320
Speaker 2: Robert also writes fiction.

1067
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 1: I Do, I Do. I'll have my second novel out

1068
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:56,759
Speaker 1: soon theoretically. All right, everybody, that's the podcast, Go to Hell.

1069
00:50:57,040 --> 00:51:00,000
Speaker 2: I Love You.

1070
00:51:00,360 --> 00:51:03,080
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1071
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:06,720
Speaker 1: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia

1072
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:10,080
Speaker 1: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1073
00:51:10,160 --> 00:51:12,600
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.