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Aaron Schwartz.
F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote - "How we stopped SOPA" - YouTube
One of the chief opponents of SOPA was killed. Did the government kill him? Was it suicide?
F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote - "How we stopped SOPA" - YouTube
One of the chief opponents of SOPA was killed. Did the government kill him? Was it suicide?
he hung himself, you idiot.
and it's swartz
F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote - "How we stopped SOPA" - YouTube
One of the chief opponents of SOPA was killed. Did the government kill him? Was it suicide?
he hung himself, you idiot.
and it's swartz
Or course The Great Gasbag empathizes with the kid who felt so victimized by legal prosecution because he actually imagined he stole all that stuff for justice!
Family of Aaron Swartz: Government officials partly to blame for his death
Family of Aaron Swartz: Government officials partly to blame for his death - U.S. News
Who killed Aaron Schwartz?
Who killed Aaron Schwartz?
Shape shifting aliens conspiring the New World Order
Swartz, 26, was found dead of an apparent suicide in his New York apartment Friday. Andrew Good, a Boston attorney who represented Swartz in the case last year, said he told federal prosecutors in Massachusetts that Swartz was a suicide risk. "Their response was, put him in jail, he'll be safe there," Good said. A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz declined comment. "We would like to respect the family's privacy," said Christina DiIorio-Sterling. "We don't think it's appropriate to discuss the case at this time."
Swartz was facing a potentially lengthy prison sentence after being indicted in Boston in 2011 for allegedly gaining access to academic articles from a computer archive at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The charges carried a maximum penalty of decades in prison. Swartz's most recent attorney, Elliot Peters, said prosecutors told him two days before Swartz's death that Swartz would have to spend six months in prison and plead guilty to 13 charges if he wanted to avoid going to trial.
Peters said he and prosecutors had talked repeatedly about making some sort of plea deal, but had failed to come to any agreement. Then last Wednesday, Peters brought up the possibility of a deal again. He said he told prosecutors "that we should find a way to resolve the case that didn't destroy Aaron's life." Peters said prosecutors made it clear their position had not changed: they wanted Swartz to plead to 13 counts and the government would seek six months of prison time or some "slightly lesser" amount of time. Elliot said they rejected the deal and he believed they would win the case at trial, which was scheduled to begin in April.
Prosecutors dismissed the charges against Swartz on Monday. Ortiz and the lead prosecutor in the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann, filed a brief written notice in court, saying the case was being dismissed because of Swartz's death. Such filings are routine when a defendant dies before trial. Swartz's family says his suicide was "the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach."
Source
Swartz, who was facing computer hacking charges, hanged himself in his Brooklyn apartment on Friday. He was 26. "Aarons death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach," the family said in a statement issued late on Saturday. "Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorneys office and at MIT contributed to his death." In 2011, according to prosecutors, Swartz broke into a computer network at MIT and downloaded 4.8 million documents from JSTOR, a subscription service of academic articles. He was not a student at MIT at the time, but he was a fellow at nearby Harvard University.
The Justice Department charged Swartz with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer. He faced up to 35 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars. It is equally harmful to the victim whether you sell what you have stolen or give it away, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said in a statement when Swartz was charged. His trial was scheduled to begin in April.
In their statement, Swartz's family said prosecutors pursued "an exceptionally harsh array of charges." "Meanwhile, unlike JSTOR, MIT refused to stand up for Aaron and its own communitys most cherished principles," the family said. JSTOR eventually asked prosecutors to drop the charges, but MIT did not take a clear stand. In a statement on Sunday, MIT President L. Rafael Reif called Swartz a "gifted young man" and offered his "profound condolences" to Swartz's family. "It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy," Reif said. He said the university will prepare a report reviewing its handling of the case. The U.S. Attorney's office in Boston did not respond to a request to comment on Sunday.
Swartz was an accomplished programmer and activist who argued that more online information should be free to the public. When he was just 14, Swartz helped create RSS, a software that lets people subscribe to online content. He later founded a company that merged with the wildly popular social media site Reddit. In 2010, Swartz founded Demand Progress, an advocacy group promoting social justice. Along with other groups, Demand Progress organized a successful campaign last year to defeat online piracy legislation backed by the entertainment industry. "Aarons commitment to social justice was profound, and defined his life," his family said. Swartz had publicly discussed his struggles with depression since he was a teenager.
Read more: Internet activist's family blames feds for suicide - The Hill's Hillicon Valley
Sure Aaron made the choice to take his own life.....but I hope the prosecutor(s) Feel Like SHIT.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) says his Oversight panel will look into whether federal prosecutors acted inappropriately. Meanwhile, two other members of the House Judiciary Committee said prosecutors acted too aggressively. The charges were ridiculous and trumped-up, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) told The Hill. It's absurd that he was made a scapegoat. I would hope that this doesn't happen to anyone else. Polis called Swartz a co-creator of Reddit who was accused of stealing articles from a computer archive at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a "martyr" for why Congress should limit the discretion of prosecutors.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said the government's handling of the case was pretty outrageous. Based on what I know, I think the Department of Justice was way out of line on the case, she told The Hill. All three lawmakers serve on the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Justice Department. The lawmakers worked with Swartz and his group Demand Progress last year to defeat online piracy legislation backed by the entertainment industry. In 2011, federal prosecutors accused Swartz of breaking into a computer network at MIT and downloading 4.8 million documents from JSTOR, a subscription service for academic articles. He faced up to 35 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. His trial was scheduled to begin in April.
In a statement on Saturday, Swartz's family blamed overzealous prosecutors for driving him to take his own life. Aarons death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach, the family said. Swartz struggled with depression for years, and had discussed as much publicly. The Justice Department has not commented on the case since Swartz's suicide, citing concern for his family's privacy. But in a statement last year, the DOJ defended bringing charges against Swartz. Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars. It is equally harmful to the victim whether you sell what you have stolen or give it away, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said in a statement when Swartz was charged.
Issa expressed sympathy with some of Swartzs goals. While cybercrime and hacking has to be taken seriously, he said, Congress should take up Swartz's cause of making more information freely available to the public. We're looking at the real question of open government, Issa said. Has the government or even MIT been holding back materials that the public has a right to know? Issa said he wanted to make sure that what is paid for is as widely available as possible to the American people. Many materials on JSTOR are funded by public universities or government research grants. Subscriptions to JSTOR cost thousands of dollars. He also said whether or not there was excessive prosecution is something well look at.
Since Swartz's death, some advocates have called for Congress to re-examine the decades-old Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, arguing that it's written too vaguely and allows for draconian punishments. Polis said he is willing to consider changes to the law, and urged Attorney General Eric Holder to set guidelines curtailing the ability of prosecutors to seek overly harsh punishments. Prosecutors shouldn't have the kind of discretion to seek absurd penalties for minor crimes, Polis said. Lofgren said she isn't sure whether the Judiciary Committee will update the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act this year, but she said it is certainly something I am looking at.
Read more: Lawmakers slam DOJ prosecution of Swartz as 'ridiculous, absurd' - The Hill's Hillicon Valley
U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said Aaron Swartz's family has suffered a "horrible tragedy" and that she is personally "terribly upset about what happened here." But she says she believes the case was conducted "reasonably" and "appropriately." "I feel that it was fairly handled," she said. Ortiz made her remarks during an unrelated news conference in Boston. She paused at one point and appeared to choke up. Swartz, 26, was found dead in his New York apartment last week.
Ortiz has been blasted by Swartz's supporters, who believe her office was overly aggressive in charging Swartz with 13 felonies for tapping into the computer network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to download nearly 5 million articles from an online clearinghouse for academic journals. Swartz's lawyer, Elliot Peters, said prosecutors were insisting that any plea deal would involve Swartz pleading guilty to all 13 felony charges against him and serving four to six months in prison.
Responding to a reporter's question, Ortiz said her prosecutors did not demand that Swartz plead guilty. She said they but had discussions with his lawyers about a deal in which prosecutors would have recommended a sentence of about six months. She said Swartz's lawyer would have been able to argue for a lesser sentence.
Ortiz was also asked if she knew that the prosecutors working on the case were told by Swartz's former lawyer more than a year ago that Swartz was suicidal. Ortiz said "some issues about his mental health came up" about 18 months ago, but they were addressed during his arraignment. Swartz's former lawyer, Andrew Good, said earlier this week that when he told prosecutors Swartz was suicidal, they offered to keep him in jail.
Source
Sure Aaron made the choice to take his own life.....but I hope the prosecutor(s) Feel Like SHIT.
The more I read about it, the more I believe it was a suicide. I do believe that his family should sue the hell out of the government though. They were threatening to hang 35 years around his neck when the so-called victim was saying it's not that big a deal, drop the charges.
