Aaron Swartz was offered less than a year in prison

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 14th at 02:00 PM  | 

Aaron Swartz committed a modern crime: he unlawfully used the MIT computer network, automated the download of many, many copyrighted works from JSTOR, and then infringed on the copyrights of those works by engaging in mass redistribution.

Swartz then, to the great sadness of those who knew him, killed himself rather than face possibly decades in federal prison. That act has infused the entire situation with great emotion, driving left-libertarians out to campaign against copyright. It’s also encouraged some on the right to make the best argument there was against the Swartz prosecution: that it was a case of an overzealous government official seeking to destroy a person, as an example or a feather in a cap.

It turns out that wasn’t the case at all, though. It turns out Aaron Swartz was the only one looking to make an example out of Aaron Swartz.

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Tech at Night: Anonymous still in trouble, Lessig and Stallman defend Swartz, Pickering deceives, USF

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 2nd at 02:30 AM  | 

Frogmarch watch continues. Even as Anonymous has desperately tried to enlist unions into its anti-Paypal Jihad, Paypal funnels information to law enforcement to help catch the terrorists. I don’s use that word lightly, either. But when the gang is attempting to intimidate law enforcement, possibly as an answer to another high-profile arrest, I believe Anonymous and its subsidiaries like Lulzsec and Antisec have leapt far | Read More »

Telecommie* Aaron Swartz’s federal indictment (and unpersoning by Larry Lessig).

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  July 20th at 11:00 AM  | 

The formal indictment of PCCC/Reddit** co-founder (and Demand Progress Executive Director) Aaron Swartz is available [link fixed], and you will find it compelling reading, if only because it shows the level of stubborn disregard for other people’s property and needs that can be exhibited by a telecommie geek who is simultaneously convinced of the rightness of his cause, and not especially overburdened with a sense | Read More »

No, Mr. Diamond, the Fed Doesn’t Need Your Expertise

By: Francis Cianfrocca (Diary)  |  June 6th at 08:09 AM  | 

Peter A. Diamond, a professor of economics at MIT, has just published a hissy fit in the NY Times titled “When a Nobel Prize isn’t enough.” I won’t link the piece because of the Times’s paywall, so I’ll just tell you what he says. Diamond wants to be a governor of the Federal Reserve. Barack Obama wants the same thing, having nominated Diamond three times | Read More »