MIT leadership had a duty to act reasonably, and they didn't. MIT's position should have been that, at most, this amounted to trespassing and matter for the Cambridge PD. Aaron Swartz was no threat to MIT's network. They might not have prevented subsequent events, but they failed, horribly, by not speaking up for a reasonable outcome.
MIT's IS&T office had a knee jerk security-oriented reaction, and was over impressed with interacting with Steven Heymann, who is a fixture at the sort of conferences where Swartz's "crime" is inflated out of proportion.
It's not OK that Heymann, Ortiz, and MIT's personnel who overcooked this case contributed to the death of Aaron Swartz. And it's not OK they got away with it so far.
Yes. I agree. What were MIT's and Heymann's true motivations for blowing it up to a security issue? Did they act out of fear or out of ego? Regardless, they exacerbated the issue (just as media sensationalizes stories). It's upsetting that such intelligent people would fail to think through the situation. Or even worse...they did think it through and planned to blow this up as big as possible to prove a point or make an example out of Swartz?
Why are you taking it as sarcasm? MIT didn't know it was him until they installed a camera and guest logins are the norm and apparently/reportedly have high privileges.
MIT's IS&T office had a knee jerk security-oriented reaction, and was over impressed with interacting with Steven Heymann, who is a fixture at the sort of conferences where Swartz's "crime" is inflated out of proportion.
It's not OK that Heymann, Ortiz, and MIT's personnel who overcooked this case contributed to the death of Aaron Swartz. And it's not OK they got away with it so far.