[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 ; csail-related For the record, a witness denies this, saying that Minsky turned her down: https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/339725 [email 5] Csail-related 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 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 ,• 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 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 affiliation.