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Calls to Action on the Fifth Anniversary of the Death of Aaron Swartz (eff.org)

On the fifth anniversary of the death of Aaron Swartz, EFF activist Elliot Harmon posted a remembrance: When you look around the digital rights community, it's easy to find Aaron's fingerprints all over it. He and his organization Demand Progress worked closely with EFF to stop SOPA. Long before that, he played key roles in the development of RSS, RDF, and Creative Commons. He railed hard against the idea of government-funded scientific research being unavailable to the public, and his passion continues to motivate the open access community. Aaron inspired Lawrence Lessig to fight corruption in politics, eventually fueling Lessig's White House run... It's tempting to become pessimistic in the face of countless threats to free speech and privacy. But the story of the SOPA protests demonstrates that we can win in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
He shares a link to a video of Aaron's most inspiring talk, "How We Stopped SOPA," writing that "Aaron warned that SOPA wouldn't be the last time Hollywood attempted to use copyright law as an excuse to censor the Internet... 'The enemies of the freedom to connect have not disappeared... We won this fight because everyone made themselves the hero of their own story. Everyone took it as their job to save this crucial freedom. They threw themselves into it. They did whatever they could think of to do.'"

On the anniversary of Aaron's death, his brother Ben Swartz, an engineer at Twitch, wrote about his own efforts to effect change in ways that would've made Aaron proud, while Aaron's mother urged calls to Congress to continue pushing for reform to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

And there were countless other remembrances on Twitter, including one fro Cory Doctorow, who tweeted a link to Lawrence Lessig's analysis of the prosecution. And Lessig himself marked the anniversary with several posts on Twitter. "None should rest," reads one, "for still, there is no peace."

15 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Once you control information... by MindPrison · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...you control the people.

    Information wants to be free = people want to be free, this is what we fight for. Those who are in control, wants to have MORE control. You're always guilty unless proven innocent in the eyes of those who have everything to hide fro you. A thief thinks everyone steals.

    Once information is free - those in power realize they must abide by those who hired them to do the job of government in the first place - we the people did, we are their entire purpose, not the other way around. Freedom of information means that no one is safe if they do wrong, because it becomes hard to hide from the general population, and that's the way it should me.

    Freedom = to be free, free from tyranny and control.

    --
    What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
  2. Re:2018 and swartz by sabri · · Score: 4, Insightful

    year of the lunix desktop?

    Year of suicide prevention. Aaron Schwartz unfortunately committed suicide. People who commit suicide mostly do so in order to end their own suffering. The reality however is that this does not lower the total amount of suffering in the world. Instead, their family and friends will inherent their suffering, thus any suicide will only increase the total amount of suffering in the world. Ergo: the act of suicide is probably the most egoistic act in the world: to end ones own perceived suffering resulting in an increased amount of suffering in others.

    Suicide awareness is more important. The national suicide prevention hotline can be found at 1-800-273-8255.

    --
    I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
  3. Remember this lack of due process by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When you think rape tribunals on college campuses are a good idea. Or accusing people of sex assault without trial ruins their careers.

    Schwartz would have understood that. Knew what extreme ideology looked like.

    1. Re:Remember this lack of due process by pots · · Score: 3, Informative

      The parent should have said, "accusing people of sex assault ruins their careers without trial." The point behind Aaron's story is that he was ruined financially before he ever got to court, and the most lenient of the plea bargains that you mention required him to plead guilty to thirteen felonies and spend six months in jail. This is a terribly harsh penalty for a minor offense, which he refused to accept.

      His refusal additionally makes sense in light of the fact that this was purposeful civil disobedience - all about making a point in the first place. Really, accepting any plea bargain would undermine that point, though his lawyer does say that they offered to accept a less severe bargain.

      Again, the fact that all of this happened before trial is what the parent was talking about. "Due process" is perhaps a little nebulous, so you could say that he received some measure of that, but he never got his day in court and was never convicted.

    2. Re:Remember this lack of due process by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >The point behind Aaron's story is that he was ruined financially before he ever got to court, and the most lenient of the plea bargains that you mention required him to plead guilty to thirteen felonies and spend six months in jail.

      The original indictment only specified 4 charges (1 count each for wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, recklessly damaging a protected computer) and the US Attorney's office initially offered a 3 month stint in jail with a period of supervised release afterwards. And for someone who was financially ruined, its curious how Swartz was able to afford 3 different law firms to represent him between time of his first grand jury indictment and his death.

      >His refusal additionally makes sense in light of the fact that this was purposeful civil disobedience - all about making a point in the first place.

      Engaging in "purposeful civil disobedience" by way of committing criminal acts does not shield you from the legal consequences of those acts.

      >Really, accepting any plea bargain would undermine that point, though his lawyer does say that they offered to accept a less severe bargain.

      Actually, the reason Swartz rejected the plea deals is that federal prosecutor would not agree to one where there was no jail time. It had nothing to do with his lofty principles.

      >He never got his day in court.

      Uh, he could have avoided court altogether by accepting responsibility for his criminal actions and taking the plea deal. It was only after it became apparent to him that the public pressure on the USAO that he and his lawyers were counting on was not going to deter the prosecution, and that he didn't have a chance in hell of winning in court. It was because his own hubris that he thought the law didn't apply to him because his actions were guided by civil disobedience.He was wrong and he couldn't live with that.

    3. Re:Remember this lack of due process by smi.james.th · · Score: 2

      6 months in prison only looks lenient if you think that 35 years is just. I suspect the touted 35 years is just a symptom of a trend towards potential sentences that are far too harsh to bully Americans into accepting these plea deals and not actually getting a fair trial.

      --
      One thing I know, and that is that I am ignorant...
  4. How WE stopped SOPA??! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Please, you had Google, and other big money do the job. You're like those Taylor Camp hippies living "off the land" in Hawaii. Turns out they were collecting food stamps. You people stopped nothing! Popular movements without huge finance go nowhere. And besides, what have we gained? Sites are still being shut down and owners arrested everywhere. Bittorrent isn't working so well anymore. And Google is a filtering Nazi! Can't even find small clips. No, if you spent your time developing ad hoc real P2P networks, THEN you would be a hero. As it is you died being nothing more than a "merry prankster", a sad "merry prankster"

    And Lessig? No thank you! His tirades against free speech* are positively fascist. Don't want... nope... definitely don't want.

    *(euphemised as "campaign reform, not understanding the irony that if he were to win, the issue would be moot)

  5. It's all propaganda now by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Everyone else may have agendas and fail in their full diligence, but Fox fails INTENTIONALLY since its inception

    If you claim Fox News is propaganda, without saying CNN is propaganda, MSNBC is propaganda, the NYT is propaganda, then how can we respect your hyper-partisan views?

    Here's a hint: It's all propaganda now. Most journalism now is driving you to think a certain way, providing facts that fit a narrative and omitting ones that do not.

    Until you realize that you yourself are just another tool of propaganda by denouncing a single source and implying the others are reliable.

    P.S. Fox News was not any more designed as propaganda than any of the other news sources, it evolved like the rest of them to where we are now. To claim there is any difference between what Fox is doing and what CNN is doing is what I take exception at. You cannot label them differently.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re: It's all propaganda now by Reverend+Green · · Score: 2

      Breitbart is openly very very political. But the quality of their writing is much higher than Fox News. The latter, like CNN and other bigmedia outlets on both sides of the left/right false divide, seems written for an audience of petulant toddlers.

  6. Re: 2018 and swartz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Pls shut the fuck up you and shove your puritanical preaching up your asshole. My grandfather committed suicide after a long cancer bout because he just couldn't take it anymore even though the doctors wanted to keep him alive, to pad tgeir wallets another year or two. His wife and children were sad, but happy for him and relieved. He went through hell.

    No one independent of my direct aid, and I mean no one, is entitled to my presence or that I live my life for them. It's my life, not yours.

  7. What matters is now, not then by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It doesn't matter to me what the origins may have been; it matters what things are.

    I find it pretty stupid to judge the starting point of organizations that were founded decades ago against the more recent Fox News, which was formed when outlets were already turning partisan and was just a bit ahead of the curve.

    I'm not dealing in whataboutism; I deal in simple hard truths. And that is that Fox News is no more partisan now than any major news outlet (except possibly the Wall St Journal).

    I also find it telling that you hide behind the AC mask to critique others... obviously that makes your opinion on the subject worth quite a bit less than mine.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  8. Re: 2018 and swartz by c6gunner · · Score: 4, Informative

    Your life is not your own but a gift from God whether you choose to believe that or not.

    How would that make it not mine? When someone gives me a gift for Christmas, or my birthday, that gift is mine. If I want to pitch it into the fireplace, I'm free to do so. Nobody who gives a gift would insist that they still own it.

    If your "god" thinks he still owns the things he gifts, he's a friggin sociopath.

  9. Re: 2018 and swartz by sabri · · Score: 2

    My grandfather committed suicide after a long cancer

    Which is sad, and should have been unnecessary. Civilized countries offer alternative solutions in the form of euthanasia.

    No one independent of my direct aid, and I mean no one, is entitled to my presence or that I live my life for them. It's my life, not yours.

    And that's not what I'm saying. All I am saying is that instead of one person having a bad time, after a suicide a lot of people have to live with losing someone they love.

    --
    I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
  10. Re: 2018 and swartz by Demena · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There are no gods. And if they were they would owe explanations as to why they are such terrible beings.

  11. Re: 2018 and swartz by aussie_a · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Euthanasia is nothing more than state sponsored suicide. To try to cloak it in anytbing else is to say suicide is ok.