Anonymous v. DOJ re: Aaron Swartz's death.

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the publishes are the only ones being paid for the continued use off the papers, every cent goes to the publishes, who pay the writers a very small amount when they first get the paper and publishing rights. the writers did a lot of research and put a lot of effort and time into their respective papers, while the publishes do $#!t all and use them as their personal cash cow. along with the "freedom of information" view taken by anonymous, it was morally correct and justified for Swartz's to perform such a hack. (under this viewpoint.)

Swartz's killed himself because he knew he was screwed, you can't expect the big bad governmental agency's to go easy on you when big money is involved.

The ghost of Ronnie Reagan.

All papers were Public Domain, due to public funding, and open Science.

Claiming that publishing was giving it to the USSR, he passed laws making knowledge a secret, to be kept by his friends, with National Security Laws to back it up.

It was restricting all knowledge to Corporations, who would do the economic development.

This is about when America lost it's Scientific Lead.

He also jacked up the Patent Fees, Not A Tax, a User Fee, A fee that made it hard for a small Inventor, to maintain ownership of their creation.

There has also been a decline in American Invention.

Corporations are International People, and Governments own Countries, and all of the production there of.

More laws made it harder to enforce a Patent through the Courts, Harder being more expensive, for a solo inventor without a Corporate Legal Team.

Ronnie was not very bright, but he stole the product of the best brains, for his Corporate Sponsors.

Stopping the free flow of information, making it hard for new knowledge to replace old, or for creators to own their creations, marks the decline of America.

While it did kill existing fields, the only boom since then was in personal computers, IBM Compatable parts, an open standard, and Open Source Code.

Development has moved away from the Academic World, of National Security Laws, to groups of geeks and nerds working underground. Development moves so fast that it is obsolete before a Patent could be applied for, Private knowledge is being kept as Trade Secret, ask Bill Gates why he did not Patent the Windows Source Code.

Corporations are still trying to gain control of this new medium, with the aid of their Government insider trading, and Cold War National Security Laws.

The Government wants everyone to be herd, so form an organization, and submit a Petition, with the names, ages, social security numbers, of all those who protest the wisdom of their owners.

Anonymous is what we used to call, Public Opinion.

Government is a Corporate Whore.

What is your authority for that, frankly, outrageous proposition?

Can you point to any statute, regulation or decision of a court in which such a right is enunciated, anywhere?

I thought not.

No, I say that Swartz's death is his own fault because he took his own life - only this, and nothing more.

Thats lacking compassion insight and empathy to say the least

He was backed into a corner.

How exactly would that guy have got on in prison? He would have been fodder.

One wonders what the compulsion is to have compassion for a person who is the author of his own misfortune?

He knowingly hacked a computer system, which he knew to be unauthorized. He knew, or ought properly to have known that this action was criminal. He converted intellectual property to his own use, knowing that this was criminal.

Did the prosecution misconduct itself? Quite possibly. But this would be a proper matter for the Courts, and for the Bar. He was not without remedies in the face of prosecutorial misconduct.

I have compassion for a person whose mental state presents suicide as the only viable option. But I do not sympathize with the plight of a person who has knowing and deliberately put himself in harm's way. That is the path or martyrs, and he has arrived at the lamentable end of such a path.

No, that's being realistic. Swartz was his own murderer, and not a martyr to a cause.


Not an excuse. Lots of people get backed into corners without choosing to kill themselves.


We will never know.

I suggest that people stop trying to make heroes out of cowards.

his corner was worse than most - he was being "made an example of" which is the modern day which hunt

He was facing 35 years! Yet never harmed a hair on another persons head.

I have no idea how the coward label fits this man. I disagree totally.

But now he has become one.

Ultimately his actions were his own, yes. But to argue that the case against him had no involvement is untrue.

He had access, legitimate access to everything from JSTOR. The limitation was on the number of articles he could access at a given time. However, he could pick out anything he wanted. What he did was violate the restriction as to the number of articles he could take at one time. So the Feds interpreted a law from 1984 that says that violating the terms and conditions of a website could be considered to be a felony... so say you go to a website like this one and post something against the rules, bang... the Feds can set you up for life under that law!

Those who decide to make examples of others to make a moral point (that everything should be privatised justified officially in the name of the Tragedy of the Commons which was something made up by a genocidal maniac) must take responsibility for that, they have moral agency, there's nothing worse than hearing people treat them like they're sharks in the sea and that it's the fault of those who end up attacked by them. These aren't supposed to be predators, they're supposed to be public servants!

So, what you are saying is that you have no authority for your proposition that he had a right to engage in the conduct that he did.

His access to the material was a matter of contract and he exceeded the rights that were extended to him under that contract. In so doing, the government alleges (as it has every right to do) that he violated the criminal law. The question of whether the government is correct was properly a matter for the courts--not for you.

He had an account at JSTOR giving him the right to take out anything he wanted. This is not in dispute. The issue is that he took out too many materials at once in violation of the Terms of Service. That 1984 law says that violating such a Terms of Service could be prosecuted as a felony. Thus, if I was to break the rules of WrongPlanet right here and now I could be prosecuted under that very same law. They'd have to have me extradited of course as I don't live in the US but knowing our prime minister I'm sure he'd try to make it as fast as possible.

So they use this law to persecute this person for his opposition to the Tragedy of the Commons dogma as they announced that the money laundering and drug trafficking done by HSBC was to be officially tolerated under the unofficial Important Persons and Organisations Act.

That's harsh, considering McKinnon fought and won...

Stephen Harper is something else.

So, since I have a library card, I therefore have the right to empty an entire section of all of its books and dispose of them as I will?