How to Drive a Political Activist to Suicide

Used to be they just pulled this shit on low-level drug users - the impoverished, dusky-skinned ones, that is. Now they're coming after the kids who dare to cross Big Computer.

DSWright at Firedoglake:

Aaron Swartz was an American success story. A talented kid he worked on developing the RSS feed when he was 14. Swartz latter became – what every sanctimonious politician of both parties proclaim is the ultimate achievement – an entrepreneur, founding Infogami which would later merge with reddit in 2006. In 2007 Swartz left reddit and became a fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Ethics while also founding Demand Progress a progressive activist group focused primarily on online organizing. Perhaps Swartz’s most famous activism was his role in helping to stop the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

In 2011 Swartz was charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a protected computer. The crime? Downloading academic journals from not-for profit JSTOR on a guest account without permission. JSTOR would later provide free access claiming it already had a program in the works when Swartz committed his crime. In other words, Aaron Swartz did to JSTOR what Mark Zuckerberg did to Harvard’s Facebook – gained unauthorized access to data which lead to offering a service the university said it was already working on. And in the state of Massachusetts no less!

Like Harvard with Zuckerberg, JSTOR was able to settle the issue with Swartz outside of a court room. Unlike with Zuckerberg, the US Attorney for Massachusetts pursued criminal charges which meant Swartz faced up to 35 years in prison and a million dollar fine. Maybe if Zuckerberg had been a political activist…

On Friday January 11th Swartz was found dead in his apartment. The cause of death is believed to be suicide, with a family member confirming death by hanging.

This is a straight-up murder by federal law enforcement and prosecutors persecutors. The feds don't have to take your guns. They don't even have to send a drone to blow you to smithereens. All they have to do is prosecute you to death.