we lost him. Yet his fight, our fight, lives on.
Aaron Swartz was an avid champion of internet freedom and open access with a brilliant mind. At the time of his death he was under indictment for his activism and was facing up to 50 years in prison for his so-called crimes. "Swartz was persecuted for the very rights and freedoms for which he stood, and that ultimately broke him."
Imagine.... it's heartbreaking... if he only knew what was to come just a few short months later.
Swartz’s fight for rights online has only been brought more intensely into focus in the year since his death, largely due to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. To see him talk about government spying in this documentary at a time before the Snowden leaks is especially chilling now. But thanks to Knappenberger’s documentary – and other actions being taken to remember the internet activist – the conversation he started can continue.
A forthcoming documentary is entitled
The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz.
This clip was released today over at WIRED.
This clip is only 5:26" long, watch it, and consider.... this month, this year, ask yourself: what would Aaron do?
From the clip, Aaron on the NSA:
"It is shocking to think that the accountability is so lax that they don't even have sort of basic statistics about how big the spying program is. If the answer is, 'Oh, we're spying on so many people we can't possibly even count them,' then that's an awful lot of people."
In his honor and memory, activists continue the effort to promote and protect our rights with
several direct action and events in coming weeks.
Join others for a worldwide day of activism coming up on Feb. 11: "The Day We Fight Back" against mass surveillance.
The SOPA and PIPA protests were successful because we all took part, as a community. As Aaron once put it, everybody "made themselves the hero of their own story." We can set a date, but we need all of you, the users of the Internet, to make it a movement.
Another world is possible.