[shareme]

Something is missing..

Why was a Secret Service Agent on campus in the first place?

Something is just not adding up as FBI has jurisdiction not Secret Service..

Plus, what is the other 2% that was downloaded that was not JSTROR stuff?

Or ie ah do some journalism before writing the article?

[showerst]

They did do the journalism with respect to the jurisdiction issue. The Secret Service has jurisdiction in 'computer crimes' and 'access device fraud' via USC 18 S. 3056.

http://www.secretservice.gov/criminal.shtml

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00003056----...

[eli]

That is not unusual. The Secret Service has a very long history of investigating computer crimes.

[ajross]

Indeed. They're almost solely responsible for protecting us from the hacker scourge of role playing and card game vendors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._Un...

[tptacek]

That, and (in the same raid) a bunch of people who had owned up and were reconfiguring telco switches as pranks.

[ajross]

Not sure about the details there, and wikipedia is silent. Certainly SJG employees were active in the phreaking community. But AFAIK none were ever charged with anything. And I know with certainty no charges resulted from this raid in particular.

The whole thing was a terribly botched job, the "facts" in the warrant were a mash of giant whoppers of technobabble. It was a mess.

Did the SS have the best interests of society at heart, and might they have reasonably been fooled into thinking something was up at SJG? Yeah, probably. Did they actually do the right thing? No way.

[eli]

I was thinking more like he carding and identity theft websites they've shut down, but sure

[16s]

Why was a Secret Service Agent on campus in the first place?

Because only their wire taps (or laptops) are allowed in network closets... when other people do this, it is illegal ;)