WikiLeaks says Aaron Swartz may have been a 'source'
Group says the late tech activist talked with editor Julian Assange and may have been a WikiLeaks source. But it doesn't offer any details or corroborating evidence.
by Edward Moyer
January 19, 2013 10:43 PM PST
... In the tweets, the organization said it was revealing the information "due to the investigation into the Secret Service involvement" with Swartz ...
The Secret Service has a legal mandate to investigate computer crime, a task it shares with the FBI and other federal agencies, which the agency describes including "unauthorized access to protected computers" -- which Swartz is alleged to have been guilty of. It also investigates forgery, identity fraud, visa fraud, money laundering, food stamp fraud, wire fraud, and a host of other federal offenses.
It would not be unusual, in other words, for the Secret Service to be involved in a criminal probe of Swartz's alleged bulk downloading from the JSTOR database. Some other examples: The Secret Service, which is now part of the Department of Homeland Security, has investigated an artist who installed photo-taking software in Apple stores, a credit card theft ring, spyware installed on college campuses, and a possible theft of GOP candidate Mitt Romney's income tax returns.
The ambiguous WikiLeaks tweets have prompted speculation about what the group was trying to suggest. The Verge's Tim Carmody wrote that "the aim of these tweets could be to imply that the US Attorney's Office and Secret Service targeted Swartz in order to get at WikiLeaks, and that Swartz died still defending his contacts' anonymity. Taking that implied claim at face value would be irresponsible without more evidence." And blog emptywheel wrote that if true, the tweets "strongly indicate" that "the US government used the grand jury investigation into Aaron's JSTOR downloads as a premise to investigate WikiLeaks" ...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57564881-83/wikileaks-says-aaron-swartz-may-have-been-a-source/
