[email 1]

From : [ redacted ]

Sent : Tuesday, September 10, 2019 2 : 20 PM

To : csail-related@csail.mit.edu

Subject : [ csail-related ] Protest against MIT involvement with Epstein

While we're talking about what the ethics of our profession should be (and

the ethics of discussing the ethics of our profession on csail-related@),

there's an upcoming protest on *Friday outside the Student Center (W20)

from 4 PM - 6 about MIT's handling of the Epstein scandal.

In particular, given the most recent revelations in the Globe:

https : //www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/09/09/top-mit-officials-knew-epstein-ties-media-lab-mails-show/OFEzFtD0mgic2zzXOSPe9J/story.html

, it appears that MIT administrative officials aided the anonymization of

Epstein's donations. I have also attached a text version for people who are

pay-walled.

According to the e-mails, in July 2014, after Epstein made a $50,000 gift

> to MIT, Richard MacMillan, then a senior director for large individual

> domestic gifts for the university, alerted the Media Lab to the problems

> associated with the donation.

"Recall we are not taking gifts from him," MacMillan wrote to Peter Cohen,

> who was then the Media Lab's director of development and strategy.

Cohen responded that he had spoken to Ito and that Epstein had an account

> that allowed him to make small gifts anonymously.

> In a July 28, 2014, e-mail exchange, Cohen relayed that Ito had told him

> that the recording secretary who helped the university track gifts

> "maintains this account and knows the drill.'

Then, another person, who is not identified in the e-mails obtained by the

> Globe, explains to several people on the e-mail chain that the recording

> secretary "should be reminded of Epstein's anonymous status. There must be

> some kind of note they can add to his record to assure that ail these gifts

> continue to get recorded as such."

MacMillan then responded: "No it's all set. She is taking care of it."

>

The Facebook event is here: bgps://www.facebook.com/events/687098025098336/

For those who don't want to access Facebook, I have copied the event

description below.

Hope you can join me on Friday.

[redacted]

======

CW : child abuse, sex-trafficking.

Top MIT officials covered up Epstein's donations to the Institute. MIT

Professors and officials visited him in prison, flew on his "Lolita

Express," invited him to campus, and gave him awards. MIT CANNOT be trusted

to investigate itself through an "independent" law firm that they

themselves hire and that reports to the MIT Corporation. WE, students,

staff, faculty, and Boston-area community members MUST hold MIT accountable

for this and more!! What happens next is on us!

Background :

Jeffery Epstein was a multimillionaire serial child abuser and sex

trafficker who eluded serious justice for many years (his 18-month sentence

from 2008, of which he served 13 months, was a slap on the wrist by

surrounding himself with powerful men and powerful institutions. He

maintained these networks of powerful men by writing them big checks

through his "philanthropic" activities, including philanthropic activities

to MIT. He cultivated very close relationships with several MIT figures,

including Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte, former Media Lab director

Joi Ito, deceased A1 "pioneer" Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting

one of Epstein's victims [2]), and Professor Seth Lloyd, who visited

Epstein during his prison term and accepted grants afterwards, per his own

public apology. MIT had internally "disqualified" Epstein as a donor. That

meant MIT officially would not take Epstein's money. But Joi Ito wanted

Epstein's money anyway, and so Media Lab officials and other top MIT

officials, such as MIT's VP of Resource Development Julie Lucas as well as

Richard MacMillan (a senior director under Lucas), worked together to cover

up Epstein's donations by anonymizing them. This is what the latest article

on the MIT-Epstein scandal reveals.

https : //www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/09/09/top-mit-officials-knew-epstein-ties-media-lab-mails-show/OFEzFtD0mgic2zzXOSPe9J/story.html

Accepting money linked to Jeffrey Epstein wasn't just disgusting and

immoral. It violated MIT s own donor policies. All senior administrators

who knew about these donations MUST RESIGN IMMEDIATELY

But individual resignations aren't enough. The Epstein scandal demonstrates

a rot at the heart of the Media Lab [3] and MIT as a whole. It gets at more

profound issues regarding how MIT finances its activities and who it

partners with to perform research. We demand an end to dark money. We

demand an end to the pernicious influence that millionaire pedophiles,

genocidal crown princes, billionaire climate change deniers, and giant

corporations profiting from wars, deportations, and concentration camps at

the border hold over MIT and academia generally. MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD!

[1] https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article219494920.html

[2] https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jeffreyspstein-sex-trafficking-island-court-records-unsealed

[3] https://slate.com/technology/2019/09/mit-media-lab-jeffre=pstein-joi-ito-moral-rot.html

[email 2]

From : [ redacted ]

Tue 2019-09-10 2:44 PM

To : csail-related

I suppose I'll take a turn giving the caveat-

It makes me really happy to see people standing against injustice, but remember to be careful that you don't inadvertently

attack your allies at MIT, namely the many ~good~ people in the Media Lab and in the administration (many of whom can

help bring about the changes that should happen) who were ignorant of the goings-on and not complicit in any way.

[email 3]

On Wed, Sep 11, 2019 at 1:03 AM Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.orgwrote:

[[[To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider]]]

[[[whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,]]]

[[[foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example.]]]

The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin

Minsky :

deceased A1 'pioneer " Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting

one of Epstein's victims [2]

The injustice is in the word "assaulting". The term "sexual assault'

is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation:

taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as

Y, which is much worse than X.

The accusation quoted is a clear example of inflation. The reference

reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein's harem.

(See https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jeffrey-epstein-sex-trafficking-island-cwrt-records-unsealed .)

Let's presume that was true (l see no reason to disbelieve it).

The word "assaulting" presumes that he applied force or violence, in

some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing.

Only that they had sex.

We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that

she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was

being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her

to conceal that from most of his associates.

I've concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it

is absolutely wrong to use the term "sexual assault" in an accusation.

Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a

specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the

criticism.

--

Dr Richard Stallman

President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org/, https://fsf.org)

Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

[email 4]

From : [ redacted ]

Wed 2019-09-11 1:45 AM

To :< rms@gnu.org >; csail-related

For the record, a witness denies this, saying that Minsky turned her down:

https : //pjmedia.com/instapundit/339725

[email 5]

Csail-related <csail-related-bounces@lists.csail.mit.edu> on behalf of

[redacted]

wed 2019-09-11 10:18 AM

ditto. Thank you [redacted]

[email 6]

From : [ redacted ]

Wed 2019-09-11 10:41 AM

The NYT misused ambiguity, but so did the Verge. I give credence to

Giuffre. But as far as I can see in the deposition she only states that

she was *directed* to have sex with Minsky, and that she *did* have sex

with various people. She does not explicitly state that Minsky was one

of the people she had sex with. After asking how she was directed to

have sex with Minsky, the lawyer does ask a followup question "where did

you go to have sex with Minsky" but having been deposed I know it is

easy to answer what you *think* the lawyer is asking instead of what

they *actually* asked, and she may have been responding to the part of

his followup question about location without realizing that the language

had shifted from "directed to have sex" to "actually did"

[redacted]

[email 7]

From : [ redacted ]

On wed, sep 11, 2019 at +0000,

:Let's stop grasping at straws to defend our friends, and instead listen to the women who were harmed.

^ exactly that.

The legal presumption of innocence does not mean you presume the accuser is a liar.

[email 8]

From : Richard Stallman < rms@gnu.org >

Thu 2019-09-12 1:26 AM

[[[To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]]

[[[whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,]]]

[[[foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

> Giuffre was 17 at the time; this makes it __rape__ in the Virgin Islands.

Does it really? I think it is morally absurd to define "rape" in a

way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or

whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.

I think the existence of a dispute about that supports my point that

the term "sexual assault" is slippery, so we ought to use more

concrete terms when accusing anyone.

> The Verge article includes the deposition snippet, which is not

> ambiguous at all: Giuffre directly says she was forced to have sex

> with Minsky.

I don't see any quotation from the depostion in the article, but it

says, "Giuffre says she was directed to have sex with Minsky." Given

the circumstances, that implies she was coerced by Epstein into doing

so.

The article I know of, and have a copy of, is

https : //www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jeffrey-epstein-sex-trafficking-island-cwrt-records-unsealed.

Are you talking of some other Verge article? If so, would you like to

tell me its URL?

> Let's stop grasping at straws to defend our friends, and instead

> listen to the women who were harmed.

We can listen only to what is said to us.

All I know she said about Minsky is that Epstein directed her to have

sex with Minsky. That does not say whether Minsky knew that she was

coerced. It does not report what each said and did during their

sexual encounter. We can imagine various scenarios.

We know that Giuffre was being coerced into sex -- by Epstein. She

was being harmed. But the details do affect whether, and to what

extent, Minsky was responsible for that.

Looking through the article again carefully, I found a link that

reportedly points to the deposition itself. I visited that URL and

got a blank window. It is on Google Drive, which demands running

nonfree software in order to see it. See

https : //gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html.

Would you (not anyone else!) like to email me a copy of the part that

pertains to Minsky? I say 'inot anyone else" to avoid getting 20

copies.

---

Dr Richard Stallman

President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)

Internet Hall-of-Famer (https:/(internethalloffame.org)

[email 9]

From : [ redacted ]

Thu 2019-09-12 6:41 AM

To : csail-related@csail.mit.edu < csail-related@csail.mit.edu > ,•

Dr. Stallman

If we're debating the definitions of "rape" and "sexual assault," perhaps

it's better to accept that this conversation isn't productive.

When this email chain inevitably finds its way into the press, the seeming

insensitivity of some will reflect poorly on the entire CSAIL community.

Regardless of intent, this thread reads as "grasping at straws to defend

our friends' around potential involvement with Epstein, and that isn't a

reputation I would like attached to my CSAIL affiliation.

[redacted]

[email 10]

From : [ redacted ]

Thu 2019-09-12 8:35 AM

On Thu, 12 sep 2019 -0400

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

> > Giuffre was 17 at the time; this makes it __rape__ in the

> > Virgin Islands.

in the

>

> Does it really? I think it is morally absurd to define "rape"' in a

Yes, it does. Different jurisdictions use different terms in their laws

but they all fall under the umbrella of statutory rape: sexual activity

with a minor.

If there was sexual activity and she was under the age of consent then

it was rape. That's the law.

--

\m/(--)\m/

[email 11]

From : [ redacted ]

Thu 2019-09-12 9:10 AM

No one on this thread has accused Giuffre of lying. Rather, the discussion has been of whether Giuffre actually accused

Minsky of sexual assault or not. I will not step into that discussion, but will instead ask the following meta question: "If

someone in csail says in this discussion group that Minsky was accused of sexual assault, a very serious accusation, and

someone else in csail thinks that he was not, should the latter person refrain from saying so in this same discussion group out

of concern that the conversation will leak and be misconstrued by the press?"

The "s" in CSAIL stands for "science". The job of scientists is to evaluate evidence and seek truth. We have a social

responsibility to do that as well. I hope that we scientists will never evade our social responsibility to seek and defend the

truth out of fear that the press will misconstrue our search. That would not be a reputation I would like attached to my CSAIL