Jamison Maeda reports from the USA on the sad story of the young man persecuted for his commitment to free access to the internet.
Like the plot of a Hollywood thriller, an ordinary guy in Brooklyn, New York suddenly finds his life turned upside down when he is mercilessly pursued by evil, government agents. But this wasn’t a movie. And it ended tragically.
Aaron Swartz
Aaron Swartz was a brilliant, American internet activist and the co-creator of Reddit, an information sharing website. He was a part of the open access movement and believed that information should be free and accessible to everyone. In addition to creating the group Demand Progress which launched the campaign against SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act,) he planned to download 5 million academic articles from JSTOR, an online archive. He had legal access to these articles through his university affiliation and wanted to make them public so that all of society could benefit from them. Technically downloading this many articles was against the rules, but JSTOR declined making a case against Aaron.
However, an ambitious and overzealous District Attorney’s office, headed by Carmen Ortiz, wanted a high-profile computer crime conviction and decided to make an example out of him. In 2011, American Federal prosecutors charged Aaron with multiple counts of wire fraud and violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a maximum penalty 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines.
Instead of facing nearly four decades of potential prison time and financial ruin, Aaron hung himself in January, 2013. He was 26 years old.
The public reaction, particularly from the internet community was swift and loud. One day after Aaron’s death, a petition to remove United States District Attorney Carmen Ortiz from office was sent to the White House. Carmen Ortiz has been accused of using this case as publicity for her campaign for Governor of Massachusetts. She is no longer a candidate. A letter to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility has also been submitted, accusing prosecutor Stephen Heymann of prosecutorial misconduct.
In addition to demanding the removal of the people responsible, the online community has demanded that internet laws be changed. The United States Congress has demanded an explanation of the prosecution of Aaron Swartz by the Department of Justice. In a proposal called “Aaron’s Law,” American lawmakers propose amending the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to not include terms of service violations. And a second proposal, the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) would mandate earlier public release of taxpayer-funded research. FASTR has been nicknamed ”The Other Aaron’s Law”.
I recommend everyone take a moment to search online for information on Aaron Swartz, his contributions to technology, the protection of our internet, and his work with the open access movement. After all, our ability to freely access this information is what Aaron lived and died for.