That falls short of telling the government that they should not seek jail time. It is simply informing them that MIT itself was not asking for jail time, not that MIT felt jail time was going too far. At what point did MIT protest the prosecutor's actions in any way whatsoever? MIT was complicit, handing over to the government whatever they asked for without being forced to do so (compare with JSTOR).
MIT was complicit, handing over to the government whatever they asked for without being forced to do so
I'm not sure we are going to have productive discussion if you say this.
Either you read the report and think "handing over to the government whatever they asked for without being forced to do so" is an accurate assessment, when MIT explicitly denies turning over anything outside of what was required by subpoenas except for the first few days around the arrest, when they didn't realize that the guy breaking into their network was an internet hero and allowed to do that.
Or you didn't read the report.
For others watching the conversation, I'll point out other things from that very page:
• The prosecutor said that, pre-indictment, he had wanted to approach the case on a
human level, not punitively. To this extent he made an extremely reasonable
proposal, and was “dumb-founded” by Swartz’s response.
• The prosecutor said that the straw that broke the camel’s back was that when he
indicted the case, and allowed Swartz to come to the courthouse as opposed to
being arrested, Swartz used the time to post a “wild Internet campaign” in an
effort to drum up support. This was a “foolish” move that moved the case “from a
human one-on-one level to an institutional level.” The lead prosecutor said that on
the institutional level cases are harder to manage both internally and externally.
[...] The lead prosecutor’s comment about a “wild Internet campaign”
orchestrated by Swartz to drum up support made MIT concerned that any public
statements that MIT might make on Swartz’s behalf could backfire.
I think you might not have read the report. MIT did not demand subpoenas even after they discovered Aaron's identity; they were eventually served a subpoena but that does not appear to have been required for their cooperation. Aaron was arrested on January 6th; from the report:
"On January 24, 2011, the Secret Service Agent asked IS&T for a copy of the packet data
capture and the video surveillance file. IS&T duplicated the hard drive it had used to
capture the packet stream (see section I.B), and the special agent picked up the copy at
MIT on January 26."
"There were few communications between the prosecution and MIT after the indictment, except
for occasional emails from the government seeking bits and pieces of information
relevant to the government’s case."
(This second bit was done supposedly under the belief that the information was covered by two previous subpoenas. Nobody seems to have been bothered enough to check.)
"For example, when the
government’s investigation had begun, in January 2011, OGC made the decision that the
lead prosecutor, the Secret Service Agent, and the Cambridge Police detective could
directly telephone and email previously interviewed IS&T employees without first going
through an MIT attorney for follow-up questions, provided no new topics were covered"
"However, MIT did not, reciprocally, voluntarily provide to the
defense the same documents that it provided to the government. Similarly, MIT did not
produce to the defense, even though requested by subpoena, documents that the defense
sought from MIT but that MIT had already provided to the government."
"Initially, OGC approved the production of information to law
enforcement, without a subpoena, as part of a continuing investigation of an ongoing
intrusion into MIT’s network as well as of a possible crime being committed on the MIT
campus. IS&T continued to provide information to the investigators, pursuant to this
initial approval, until OGC was eventually served with a subpoena on January 27, 2011."
In other words, we can summarize MIT's conduct as follows: they gave the government whatever the government wanted, and eventually the government served a subpoena that changed almost nothing (at one point, MIT did ask for another subpoena to be served; this is a minor detail, as they were clearly far more cooperative with the prosecution than they were ever required to be).