J.D. Tuccille Appears on RT To Discuss the Persecution of Aaron Swartz
I went on RT to discuss the over-the-top prosecution of Reddit co-founder and online activist, Aaron Swartz, for downloading (a lot of) academic papers from JSTOR. He was entitled to do so, but his enthusiasm for making information available drove him well beyond the usual usage of the system. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, with her eyes on the Massachusetts governor's office, and her sidekick in excess, Stephen Heymann, saw an opportunity to pad their resumes with cyber-crime convictions, and brought felony charges that carried hard prison time. After an extensive and unsuccessful battle to convince the prosecutors to take a behind-bars penalty off the table, Swartz took his own life. I'm not the only one who thinks the prosecution was disgusting and that the law and prosecutorial abuses need to be reined-in.
Incidentally, just before Swartz's suicide, JSTOR announced that it's making millions of articles available, for free.