MIT to conduct internal probe in wake of Aaron Swartz's suicide
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced today it will conduct an internal investigation of the university's role in the circumstances that led to the suicide Friday of Internet activist Aaron Swartz.
Swartz, 26, was arrested in July 2011 and accused of stealing 4 million documents from MIT and Jstor, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers. Authorities claimed he broke into a restricted-access computer wiring closet at MIT and accessed that network without authorization.
Swartz, a Reddit cofounder who championed open access to documents on the Internet, faced $4 million in fines and more than 50 years in prison if convicted. In a statement released today, MIT President L. Rafael Reif offered his condolences, saying that the school's community was "extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many."
