Please remember Aaron today for his co-founding of Demand Progress and defense of internet freedom on occasion of the impending Feb., 2015, FCC vote on Net Neutrality, and the needed reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act under which he was prosecuted.
This program is based on the soundtrack of the 2014 movie: The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz. His death at age 26 in 2013 made the internet light up with grief and also anger at a judicial system that haunted and hunted him. He was facing 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines for bulk-downloading from a site, JSTOR, that was freely available to Massachusetts Institute of Technology students.
“Aaron’s story touched a nerve with people far beyond the online communities in which he was a celebrity” said director, Brian Knappenberger. “This is the story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz’s help in development of the basic internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are all over the internet. But it was his groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive approach to information access that ensnared him in a two year legal battle with the Federal Government. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)
