By The Huffington Post News Editors
WASHINGTON — Two federal prosecutors involved in the case against the late Aaron Swartz have faced “harassing and, at times, threatening communications” from supporters of the Internet activist, the Justice Department said in a court filing.
Government lawyers argued that the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts should not disclose to the public or to Congress the names of individuals in investigative documents related to Swartz’s prosecution. Whatever “additional public benefit might exist by disclosing those names” is “outweighed by the risk to those individuals of becoming targets of threats, harassment and abuse,” the government said in the court filing on Friday.
Jack W. Pirozzolo, first assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, said in the filing that Harvard Law professor Philip Heymann, the father of Swartz prosecutor Stephen Heymann, had received a postcard showing his “disembodied head” on a guillotine. Stephen Heymann received a similar postcard with a photo of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz with the caption “Heckuva job, Steve” and a photo of the MIT president’s head under a guillotine.