The government's perceived right to control information and protect private data networks has become entangled in a tragedy. Aaron Swartz — 26-year-old programming genius and, in a sense, a budding philosopher of the information age — took his own life on Friday.
Swartz co-invented the RSS feed when he was only 14 and went on to help create Reddit. But he was also was accused of illegally downloading research documents from academic service JSTOR, using networks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — an incident that led to a slew of legal troubles.
Had he been found guilty, Swartz would have faced up to 35 years in prison. Family and friends of Swartz say it is the manner of the investigation by the Department of Justice that contributed to his suicide.
MIT announced that the university will investigate its own possible role in Schawartz's death. "It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy," said MIT President Raphael Reif.
Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Harvard Law School, knew Swartz well.
Lawrence Lessig with Aaron Swartz at the launch party for Creative Commons at O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference in 2001. (Rich Gibson/Wikimedia Commons)
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Comments [4]
I am sorry for your loss and offer my sincere condolences to all of Aaron's family and friends.
In light of Aaron's belief that all information should be public, I respectfully request (once the grief has subsided, of course) that his birth certificate, or at least his time of birth, be released to the public so that his life, work, and depression may be studied astrologically. Thank you.
With deepest sympathy and kind regards,
Lesia Valentine
Memphis Astrology
How is the citizenry expected to trust the "justice" system when we witness extreme prosecution of this nature, but there's nobody going to jail for the mortgage bailout debacle?
Most prosecutors have professional ethics concerning abuse of the plea bargaining process. Some do not. They'll lay on a zillion years of charges, and eventually settle for a much smaller conviction. Which still looks good on the resume, say if one intends to build a political career. I'd like to see this whole topic of plea bargaining abuse receive much more attention. This particular situation does to me have that foul stench of plea bargain abuse. Maybe The Takeaway could look into this particular prosecutor and see if there has been a history of such abuse.
Here's one takeaway from Lawrence Lessing on today's segment:
"Every single one of us, could be prosecuted by the Federal Government for something. The Government has so many criminal statutes covering every single aspect of our behavior that gives the Government enormous power to bring prosecutions against people..."
Shame that Swartz took his life.
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