MIT Probes Swartz Case

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is launching an internal investigation into its role in Aaron Swartz’s persecution. Swartz, who was found dead Friday, was facing 35 years in prison for stealing 4.8 million scholarly-journal articles and documents from JSTOR, which were stored on the MIT computer network. JSTOR chose to drop its charges against Swartz. Meanwhile, Anonymous claimed credit for hacking into MIT’s website Sunday night and posting messages commemorating Swartz’s life and calling for overhauling intellecutal-property laws—the same ones Swartz allegedly ran afoul of. A group of Swartz’s supporters started a petition Monday to remove U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, who had supervised the prosecution of Swartz’s case.