Swartz not Forgotten

This is an update about Aaron Swartz, the Internet activist who committed suicide after being pursued by the government. Here is a little reminder of who he is and what he accomplished:

“Aaron Swartz committed suicide after facing federal charges for releasing information to the public that he felt should be freely available. As a teenager, Swartz helped create RSS, which allowed users to subscribe to online information. At the young age of 26, he had already formed a company that merged with Reddit, the popular news and information site, co-founded Demand Progress, a group that promotes online campaigns in social issues, and in 2008 took on PACER. Swartz faced trouble when he took on PACER, or Public Access to Court Electronic Records. The database was charging money for documents, but Swartz felt that these documents should be free because they were being produced at the public’s expense. He ended up downloading 20 million documents from PACER and releasing them to the public. The government quickly shut the free library down.”

Since then, the group he helped start, Demand Progress, has put together a session in which they will cover ongoing efforts to change the draconian US computer laws under which Swartz was being prosecuted. Aaron’s close friends and family will speak briefly and the session will be held on Friday, March 8^th from 6:30-8 p.m at the Austin Convention Center. You can RSVP through Twitter using the hastag #SXSW I thought this update was important because it shows that using Internet sources can be effective in taking a stand in what you believe in. Even after Aaron passed away, his fight is still going on and he has not been forgotten.