TheInternetsOwnBoy_TheStoryofAaronSwartz-HD-en_US.srt

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Unjust laws exist;

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shall we be content to obey them,

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or shall we endeavor to amend them,
and obey them until we have succeeded,

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or shall we transgress them at once?

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Henry David Thoreau

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The co-founder of the social news and entertainment website "reddit" has been found dead

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He surely was a prodigy althought he never kind of thought of himself like that

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He was totally unexcited about studing businesses and making money

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There's a profound sense of loss tonight in Highland Park Aaron Swartz's hometown

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as loved ones say goodbye to one of the Internet's brightest lights

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...Open Access and computer activits are mourning his loss

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...an astonishing intellect. You talk to people who knew him

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...he was killed by the government and MIT betrayed all of its basic principles

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...they wanted to make an example out of it, ok?

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Governments have an insatiable desire to control

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...he was potentially facing 35 years in prison and 1 million dollars fine

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Raising questions of prosecutorial zeal and I would say even miscondut.

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Have you looked into that particular matter and reached any conclusions?

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Growing up, you know, I slowly had this process of realising

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that all the things around me, that people had told me

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were just the natural way things were, the way things always would be.

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They weren't natural at all. They were things that could be changed

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and they were thing that more importantly were wrong and should change.

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And once I realised that, there was really kind of no going back

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The Internet's Own Boy

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Welcome to story reading time

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The name of the book is 'Paddington at the fair'

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Well, he was born in Highland Park and grew up here

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Aaron came from a family of three brothers all extraordinarly bright

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The box is flipping over!

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So, we were all, you know, not the best behaved children

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you know, three boys running around all the time, causing trouble

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Mom: No, no, no... Aaron!?
Aaron: What?

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But, I've come to the realization: Aaron learned how to learn at a very young age

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Toc, toc!?

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Who's here?

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Aaron!

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Aaron who?

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Aaron funny man

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He knew what he wanted, he always wanted to do it.

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He always accomplished what he wanted.

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His curiosity was endless

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Here's the little picture of a [?] [?]

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One day he said to Susan:

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"Let's do three family entertainment[?] downtown in the park"

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Three family entertainment[?] downtown in the park

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He was three at the time

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She said: "What are you talking about?"

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He said: "Look it says here on on the refrigerator"

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"Three family entertainment[?] downtown in the park"

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She was flurred and astonished that he could read

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It's called: "My family seder"

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The seder night is different from all other nights

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I remember once we were are the University of Chicago library

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I pulled a book off the shelf that was like from 1900

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and showed to him, I said: "You know this is [?] an extraordinary place"

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We all were curious children but Aaron really liked learning and really liked teaching

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Today we're going to read the ABC backwards z, y, x, w, ...

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I remember he came home from his first algebra class

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he was like: "Noah, let me teach you algebra!"

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and I'm like: "What is algebra?"

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and he was always like that

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Now I press button, click button

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there, now he's got that[?], now it's a pink

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When he was at 2 or 3 three years old an Bob introduced him to computers

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then he just took off like crazy on them

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[?]

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We all had computers, but Aaron really talked to them, really talked to the Internet

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Looking at the computer?

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No, how [?]

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He started programming from a really young age.

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I remember the first program that I wrote with him was in basic

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and  was a Star Wars trivia game

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He sat down with me in the basement were the computer was

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for hours programming this game

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The problem that I kept having with him is that
there was nothing that I wanted done

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and to him there was always something to do

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always something that programming could solve

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The way that Aaron always thought is that programming is magic

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you can accomplish this things that normal humans can't

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Aaron made an ATM using like a Macintosh and like a cardboard box

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One year for Halloween I didn't know what I wanted to be

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and he thought would be really really cool if I dressed up

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like his new favourite computer which at the time was the original iMac

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and he hated dressing up for Hallowen

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but he loved convincing other people to dress like other things he wanted to see

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[?]
Guys, come on, look at the camera

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He made this website called "The Info"

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where people could just fill in information

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Like, I'm sure someone out there knows all about gold, gold leafing[?].

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Why aren't they writing about that on this website?

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And then other people can come at a later point and read that information

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and edit the information if they thought that it was bad

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Not too dissimilar from Wikipedia, all right?

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This is before Wikipedia begun

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and this is developed by a 12 year old

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in his room, by himself

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running on this tiny server using ancient technology

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One of the teacher's response like:

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"This is a terrible idea, you can't just let anyone

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author the dictionary, like author the encyclopedia"

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"For a whole reason we have scholars to write these book for us"

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"How did you ever had such a terrible idea"

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Me and my other brother would be like: "Yeah, you know"

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"Wikipedia is cool but we had that in our house, like 5 years ago"

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Aaron's website "The Info.org" wins a school competition

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hosted by the Cambridge based web design firm ArsDigita

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We all went to Cambridge when he won the ArsDigita Prize

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and, you know, we had no clue of what Aaron was doing

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it was obvious that the pirze was really important

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Aaron soon became involved with on-line programming communities

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than in the process of shaping a new tool for the Web

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He concept is like[?]: "Ben, there's a really awesome thing that I'm working on"

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"you need to hear about it"

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I'm like: "Yeah, what is it?"

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He says: "Is this thing called RSS"

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And he explains me what RSS is

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and I like: "Why is that useful? Aaron, is a site using it? Why would I want to use it?"

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There was this mailing list for people who were working on RSS

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and XML more generally and there was a person on it named Aaron Swartz

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who was combatitive but very smart and who had lots of good ideas

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and he did never come to the face to face meetings and they said:

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"You know, when are you gonna come to one of those face to face meetings?"

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He said: "You know, I don't think my mom would let me, you know I just turned 14"

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So the first reaction was, well you know,

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this person this colleague we've been working with all year

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was 13 years old when we were working with him and is only 14 now

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and their second reaction was: "Christ, we really want to meet him!"

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"You know that's extraordinary"

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Was part of the community that drafted RSS

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What he was doing was to help building the plumbing for modern hypertext

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and the piece he was working on, RSS

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was a tool that you can use to get summaries

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of things that are going on on other web pages

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Commonly you would use this for a blog

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You might have 10 or 20 people's blog you wanna read

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you use the RSS feeds, these summaries of what's going on on those other pages

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to create a unified list of all the stuff that's going on

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Aaron was really young but he understood the technology

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and he saw that was imperfect and looked for ways to help make it better

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So his mom bundles[?] him on a plane in Chicago, we pick him up in San Francisco

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we introduced him to interesting people to argue with

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and we marvelled at his horrific eating habits

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he only eat white food, only like, you know, steamed rice

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and not white rice, beacause that was not sufficiently white,

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and white bread, and so on

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and you kind of marvel at the quality of the debate

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emerging from what appeared to be a small boy's mouth

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and you think, this is a kid, is really going to go somewhere if he doesn't die of scroovy[?]

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Aaron you're up

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I think the difference is that now you can't make companies like that per-se

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you can't have companies that just like

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"let's sell dog food over the Internet, dog food over the cellphones"

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but there still lot of innovation going on,

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I think, if you don't see the innovation maybe your head is in the sand

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He takes on this alpha-male personality where he's sort of like

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"I'm smarter than you, and because I'm smarter than you

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I'm better than you, and I can tell you what to do"

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It's an extension of him being like a kind of torpe[?]

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So you aggregate all these computers together and now they're solving big problems

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like searching for aliens or trying to cure cancer

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First I met him on IRC, on Internet Relay Chat, he didn't just write code

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he also got people excited about solving problems, he was a connector

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the free culture movement, which had lot of his energy

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I think Aaron was trying to make the world work.
He was trying to fix it

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He had a very kind of strong personality,

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that definetly ruffled[?] feathers at times

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and wasn't necessarily the case that he was always confortable in the world

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and the world wasn't confortable with him

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Aaron got into high school, and was really just sick of school

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he didn't like it, he didn't like any of the classes he had been taught

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he didn't like the teachers

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Aaron really knew how to get information

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He was like, I don't need to go to these teachers to know how to do geometry

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I can just read the geometry book

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and I don't need to go to the teacher to learn their version of American history

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I have like three historical compilations here like I can just read them

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and I'm not interested in that, I'm interested in the Web

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I was very frustrated with school

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I thought, you know, the teachers didn't know what they were talking about

[position]

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they were very domineering and controlling, homework was kind of a sham[?]

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I was just like, you know, all the way are penstick[?] together

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and force them to do busy work

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and, you know, I started reading books about the history of education

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and how this educational system was developed

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and, you know, alternative ways to do it[?] people could actually learn things

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instead of just regurgitating facts that the teachers told them

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and that kind of led me down this path of questioning things

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and once I questioned the school I was in, I questioned the society that built the school

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I questioned the businesses that the schools were training people for

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I questioned the government that, you know, setup this whole structure

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One of the themes he was more passionate about was copyright,

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especially in those early days

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Copyright has always been something overburden on publishing industry and on readers

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but it wasn't an excessive burden

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it was a reasonable institution to have in place
to make sure that people got paid

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What Aaron generation experienced was the collision

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between this antique copyright system

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and this amazing new thing we were trying to build, the Internet and the Web

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These things collided and what we got was chaos

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He then met Harward law professot Lawrence Lessig

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who was then challenging copyright law in the supreme court

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A young Aaron Swartz flew to Washington to listen to the supreme court hearings

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I'm Aaron Swartz and I'm here to listen to the Eldred ...to see the Eldred argument

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Why did you fly out here from Chicago and come all this way to see the Eldred argument?

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That's a more difficult question

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I don't know, I'm very excited to see the supreme court

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especially in such a prestigious case as this one

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Lessig was also moving forward with a new way to define copyright on the Internet

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it was called Creative Commons

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So the simple idea of Creative Commons is to give people, creators

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a simple way to mark their creativity

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with the freedoms they intended to carry

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So copyright is about "all rights reserved"

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then this is a kind of "some rights reserved" bottle[?]

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It's I want a simple way to say to you "here's what you can do with my work"

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even if there are other things which you need to get my permission before you could do

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And Aaron's role was the computer part

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like how do you architect the licenses

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so that would be simple and understandable and expressed in way that machines could process it

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And people are like, why do you have this fifteen year old kid

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writing the specifications of creative commons?

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like, don't you think that's a huge mistake?

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and larry is like: "the biggest mistake that we would have is not listening to this kid"

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embarrassing[?] is not even tall enough to get over the podium

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and it wasn't one of those movable podiums

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so this embarrassing thing that once he put his screen up nobody could see his face

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When we come to our website here

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and we've got few licences

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it gives you this list of options explaining what it means

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and we thought three set of questions

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Do you want to require attribution?

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Do you want to allow commercial uses of your work?

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Do you want to allow modifications of your work?

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I was floored

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just completely fiberglassed that these adults regarded him as an adult

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Aaron stood up there in front an whole audience full of people

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and just started talking about the platform that he created for Creative Commons

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And they where all listening to him, just

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I was sitting AT the back thinking:
"he's just a kid, why're listening to him?"

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but they did

242
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well I don't think I comprehended it fully

243
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Though critics have said that it does little to ensure artists get payed for their work

244
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the success of Creative Commons has been enourmous

245
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Currently on the website flickr alone over 200 million people use some form of Creative Commons license

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He contributed through his technical abilities

247
00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:56,600
and yet it was not simply a technical matter to him

248
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Aaron Often wrote candidly in his personal blog

249
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I think deeply about things and I want others to do likewise.

250
00:16:06,500 --> 00:16:10,800
I work for ideas and learn from people. I don’t like excluding people.

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I’m a perfectionist, but I won’t let that get in the way of publication.

252
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Except for education and entertainment, I’m not going to waste my time on things that won’t have impact.

253
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I try to be friends with everyone, but I hate it when you don’t take me seriously.

254
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I don’t hold grudges (it’s not productive) but I learn from my experience.

255
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I want to make the world a better place.

256
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In 2004 Swartz leaves Highland Park and enrolls in Stanford University

257
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He had also diverticolite[?] which was very troubling

258
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and we were concerned about him taking his medications.

259
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He got hospitalized and he would take this cocktail pills everyday

260
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and one of these pills was a steroid which dauted his growth and

261
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made him feel different from any of the other students

262
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Aaron, I think, shows up at Stanford ready to scholarship

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and find himself effectively in a baby sitting program for overachieving high school-ers

264
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who in four years meant to become captain of industry and one percent-ers

265
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and I think it just made him banana

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In 2005 after only one year of college

267
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Swartz was offered a spot at a new startup incubation firm

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called Y Combinator led by Paul Graham

269
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He's like, "hey, I have this idea for a web site"

270
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and Paul Graham likes him enough and

271
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so yeah, sure, so Aaron drops out of school to this apartment

272
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So this used to be Aaron apartment when he lived here

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my big memories of my father telling me how difficult it was to get a lease

274
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cause Aaron had no credit and dropped out of college

275
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Aaron lived in what[?] called the living room

276
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and some of the posters here are left over from when Aaron lived here

277
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and the library, there were[?] more books then, but a lot of them are Aaron's

278
00:18:11,500 --> 00:18:17,400
Aaron YCombinator site is called "infogami" a tool to build websites

279
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but infogami struggles to find users

280
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and Swartz eventually merges his company

281
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with another Y Combinator project in need of help

282
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it was a project led by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian called "reddit"

283
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Now we were starting from almost nothing, no users, no money, no code

284
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and growing day by day into hugely popular website

285
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and it shows no sign of letting up

286
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first we had a thousand users, than 10.000, then 20.000 and on and on, it's just incredible

287
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reddit becomes huge and it's a real sort of geeky corner of the Internet

288
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There's a lot of humor, there's a lot of art

289
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and there's just people who flocked to the site

290
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and made that site the main site they go to every morning to get their news.

291
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"reddit" kind of just borders on chaos at some level, so on the one hand its a place for people to discuss

292
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...news of the day, technology, politics and issues and yet there is a lot of kind of not safe for work

293
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...material, offensive material. Some subreddits were "trolls", "find a welcome home"

294
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and so in that sense reddit has been home to controversies as well

295
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It's kind of sits on the edge of chaos.

296
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reddit catches the attention of the corporate magazine giant "Condé Nast"

297
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...who makes an offer to buy the company.
reddit catches the attention of the corporate magazine giant "Condé Nast"

298
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...who makes an offer to buy the company.

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Some large amount of money,

300
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large enough that my dad was getting bugged with questions about like

301
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:51,300
"How do I... store this money?"

302
00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:53,800
Interviewer: Like a lot of money
Noah: Like a lot of money

303
00:19:53,900 --> 00:20:00,200
Like... probably more than a million dollars. But I don't actually know.

304
00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:01,800
And he's how old then?

305
00:20:02,100 --> 00:20:03,200
Nineteen or twenty?

306
00:20:05,100 --> 00:20:13,500
So he was in this apartment, they are like sat around on [?] couch hacking on "reddit" and...

307
00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:18,300
when they sold reddit they threw giant party and then all flew out to California

308
00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:20,300
the next day they left the keys with me.

309
00:20:23,700 --> 00:20:28,800
It was funny you know, he just sold a startup so we all kind of presumed he was the richest person around...

310
00:20:28,900 --> 00:20:34,100
but he.. ah.. he said "Oh, no. I'll take this tiny little shoe box sized room, that's all I need"

311
00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:36,203
...like he was barely larger than a closet.

312
00:20:36,203 --> 00:20:42,500
The idea of him spending his money on fancy objects just seems so implausible.
...like he was barely larger than a closet.

313
00:20:42,700 --> 00:20:44,807
He explains it like, I like living in apartments,

314
00:20:44,843 --> 00:20:47,900
so I'm not gonna spend lot of money on a new place to live, I'm not gonna buy a mansion

315
00:20:48,138 --> 00:20:49,825
... and I like wearning jeans and t-shirt,

316
00:20:49,840 --> 00:20:54,500
so I am not gonna spend any more money on clothes. So like, it's really no big deal."

317
00:20:54,600 --> 00:21:00,500
What is a big deal to Swartz is how traffic flows on the Internet and what commands our attention?

318
00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:04,800
In the old system of broadcasting you're fundamentally limited by the amount of space in the airwaves.

319
00:21:04,900 --> 00:21:09,500
You know, you could always send out 10 channels over the airwaves for televisions right away

320
00:21:09,600 --> 00:21:13,200
even with cables you have 500 channels. On the Internet everybody can have a channel.

321
00:21:13,300 --> 00:21:17,800
Everyone can get a blog or a myspace page. Everyone has a way of expressing themselves.

322
00:21:17,900 --> 00:21:19,800
And so what you see now is not a question of

323
00:21:19,900 --> 00:21:24,800
"who gets access to the airwaves?". It's the question of "who gets control over the ways you find people?"

324
00:21:24,900 --> 00:21:29,500
You know you started seeing power centralizing in sites like Google, these sort of gate keepers that tell you

325
00:21:29,500 --> 00:21:34,500
where on the Internet where you want to go. The people who provides you, your sources of news information.

326
00:21:34,600 --> 00:21:39,500
So it's not you know, only certain people have a license to speak now everyone has a license to speak

327
00:21:39,500 --> 00:21:41,300
It's a question of "who gets heard?"

328
00:21:44,400 --> 00:21:49,700
After he started working, in San Fransico at Condé Nast, he comes into the office

329
00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:55,500
and they want to give him a computer with all this crap installed on it and say that he can't

330
00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:59,400
install any new things on this computer, which to a developer is outrageous, right?

331
00:21:59,500 --> 00:22:01,800
From the first day he was complaining about all this sutff.

332
00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:10,800
Gray wall, gray desks, gray noise. The first day I showed up here, I simply couldn't take it.

333
00:22:10,900 --> 00:22:14,800
By lunch time I had literally locked myself in a bathroom stall and started crying.

334
00:22:14,900 --> 00:22:19,600
I can't imagine staying sane with someone buzzing in my ear all day, let alone getting

335
00:22:19,700 --> 00:22:24,400
any actual work done. Nobody else seems to get work done either. Everybody's

336
00:22:24,500 --> 00:22:27,800
is always coming into our room to hang out and chat or invite us to play the new

337
00:22:27,900 --> 00:22:30,500
video game system that wired is testing.

338
00:22:32,700 --> 00:22:39,600
He really had different aspirations, that were politically oriented and Silicon valley

339
00:22:39,700 --> 00:22:46,600
just doesn't really quite have that culture that orients technical activity for the purposes

340
00:22:46,700 --> 00:22:50,200
of political goals. Aaron hated working for a corporation. They all hated

341
00:22:50,300 --> 00:22:53,100
working for Condé Nast but Aaron is like the only one who is not going to take it.

342
00:22:53,300 --> 00:22:57,800
And then basically he got himself fired by not showing up to work ever.

343
00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:03,300
It was said to be a messy breakup.

344
00:23:03,500 --> 00:23:07,600
Both Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman declined to be interviewed for this film

345
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:11,600
He rejected the business world

346
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:16,100
One of the really important things to remember about

347
00:23:16,300 --> 00:23:19,800
that choice when Aaron decided to kind of leave the startup colture

348
00:23:19,900 --> 00:23:26,100
is that he was also leaving behind the things that made him famous

349
00:23:26,300 --> 00:23:31,400
and well love and, you know, he was at risk of letting down fans

350
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:33,900
He got to where he was supposed to be going

351
00:23:34,100 --> 00:23:39,500
and had the self-awareness and honorariness to realise

352
00:23:39,700 --> 00:23:43,600
that he had climbed that mountain of shit to pluck a single rose

353
00:23:43,700 --> 00:23:45,500
and discover that it lost its sense of smell

354
00:23:45,700 --> 00:23:50,100
and rather than sit there and insist that it wasn't as bad as it seemed

355
00:23:50,500 --> 00:23:57,200
and he did get the rose in any event, he climbed down again, which is pretty cool!

356
00:23:57,500 --> 00:24:01,600
The way that Aaron always thought is that programming is magic, right

357
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:06,400
You can accomplish this things that normal humans can't by being able to program

358
00:24:06,700 --> 00:24:13,800
so, if you had magical power, would you use them for good, or to make you mounts of cash?

359
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:18,500
Swartz was inspired by one of the visionaries he had met as a child

360
00:24:18,700 --> 00:24:22,000
the man who had invented the World Wide Web: Tim Berners-Lee

361
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:29,000
In the 1990s Berners-Lee was arguably sitting on one of the most lucrative inventions of the 20th century

362
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:32,600
but instead of profiting from the invention of the World Wide Web

363
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:35,300
he gave it away for free.

364
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:39,400
It is the only reason the World Wide Web exists today

365
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:44,600
Aaron is certainly deeply influenced by Tim.

366
00:24:44,700 --> 00:24:51,400
Tim is certainly a very prominent early Internet genious who doesn't in any sense cash out.

367
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:55,800
Is not at all interested in how he's going figure out how to make a billion dollars

368
00:24:55,900 --> 00:24:57,600
People would have seen "oh, there are money to be made there"

369
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:01,000
so there would have been lots of little webs, instead of one big one

370
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:04,400
And one little web and also which doesn't work

371
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:06,800
because you can't follow links from one to the other.

372
00:25:09,900 --> 00:25:13,500
Now you had to have the critial mass that this thing[?] was in the entire planet

373
00:25:13,700 --> 00:25:17,600
so is not gonna work unless the whole planet can get onboard.

374
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:28,500
I am, you know, feel very strongly that it's not enough to just live in the world as it is

375
00:25:28,700 --> 00:25:33,400
to just, kind of, take what you're given and, you know, follow the things that adults told you to do

376
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:37,300
and, you know, your parents told you to do and that society tells you to do

377
00:25:37,500 --> 00:25:41,100
I think you should always be questioning, you know, I take this very scientific attitude

378
00:25:41,300 --> 00:25:42,800
that everything you've learned is just provisional

379
00:25:42,900 --> 00:25:46,700
that, you know, is always open to recantation or refutation or questioning

380
00:25:46,900 --> 00:25:49,400
And I think the same applies to society

381
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:52,200
Once I realised that there where real serious problems,

382
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:54,900
fundamental problems that I could do something to address

383
00:25:55,100 --> 00:25:58,400
I didn't see a way to forget that, I didn't see a why not to

384
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:06,400
We just started spending a lot of time, just kind of as friends,

385
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,300
We would just talk for hours in the night

386
00:26:14,300 --> 00:26:17,200
I definetly should have understood that he was flirting with me

387
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:19,300
I think just to some degree I was like

388
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:24,300
"This is a terrible idea and impossible and therefore I will pretend it is not happening"

389
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:29,200
As my marriage was breaking down and I was really stuck without anywhere to go

390
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:32,500
we became roommates and brough my daughter over

391
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:39,200
We moved in [?] house, it was really peaceful, like, my life had not been peaceful for a while

392
00:26:39,300 --> 00:26:40,800
and really need [?] is

393
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:53,600
We were extremely close, from the beginning of our romantic relationship

394
00:26:53,700 --> 00:26:57,000
we just, we were constantly in contact

395
00:26:57,500 --> 00:27:02,000
but we were both really difficult people to deal with

396
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,100
In a very Ally McBeal discussion

397
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:10,700
he confessed we had a theme song and I made him play it for me.

398
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:14,900
It was "Extraordinary Machine" by Fiona Apple

399
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:21,900
I think it was just that sense of, kind of, being a little bit embattled

400
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:28,400
that the song has umm... and it also had like this hopefulness too.

401
00:27:36,700 --> 00:27:42,450
In many ways, Aaron was tremendously optimistic about life.

402
00:27:42,450 --> 00:27:42,800
Even when he didn't feel it.
In many ways, Aaron was tremendously optimistic about life.

403
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:44,560
Even when he didn't feel it.

404
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:46,800
He could be tremendously optimistic about life.

405
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:57,700
Aaron: What are you doing?
Quinn: Flickr has video now

406
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:04,800
Swartz threw his energy into a string[?] of new projects involving access to public information

407
00:28:04,900 --> 00:28:08,600
including an accountability website called "Watchdog.net"

408
00:28:08,650 --> 00:28:10,800
and the project called the "Open Library"

409
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:13,400
So the open library project is a website

410
00:28:13,450 --> 00:28:17,300
You can visit openlibrary.org and the idea is to be huge wiki

411
00:28:17,350 --> 00:28:19,920
a kind of website with one page per book.

412
00:28:20,062 --> 00:28:23,600
So for every book ever published you wanna have a webpage about it

413
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:25,831
which combines all the information from publishers,

414
00:28:25,866 --> 00:28:29,084
from book sellers, from libraries, from readers

415
00:28:29,310 --> 00:28:31,155
under one site and then gives you links

416
00:28:31,191 --> 00:28:34,600
so that you can buy it, you can borrow it or you can browse it.

417
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:37,173
I love libraries, you know, I'm the kind of person who goes

418
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:39,600
to a new city and immediately seeks out the library.

419
00:28:39,700 --> 00:28:42,622
That's the dream of the Open library, building this website

420
00:28:42,648 --> 00:28:45,991
where both you can meet from book to book, from person to author

421
00:28:46,020 --> 00:28:50,142
from subject to idea. You go through this vastity[?] of knowledge

422
00:28:50,195 --> 00:28:52,600
that has been embedded and lost in big physical library

423
00:28:52,700 --> 00:28:55,644
that's hard to find, that's not very well accessible online

424
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:58,586
it's really imporatant because books are our cultural legacy

425
00:28:58,986 --> 00:29:01,226
you know, books are the place where people write things down

426
00:29:02,300 --> 00:29:04,088
and to have that all swallowed up by one corporation

427
00:29:04,693 --> 00:29:06,222
it's kind of scary.

428
00:29:06,871 --> 00:29:10,737
How can you bring public access to the public domain?

429
00:29:10,780 --> 00:29:14,773
To me sound obvious, that you have to have public access to public domain

430
00:29:14,826 --> 00:29:19,410
But in fact is not true. So the public domain should be free to all.

431
00:29:19,670 --> 00:29:21,120
but it is often locked up

432
00:29:21,395 --> 00:29:25,500
there's often guard gates, it is just like having national park

433
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:29,093
but with a moat around it and gun turrets pointed to out

434
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:32,933
in case somebody might want actually come and enjoy the public domain

435
00:29:33,022 --> 00:29:36,328
One of the things Aaron was particularly interested in was

436
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:39,306
bringing public access to the public domain

437
00:29:39,368 --> 00:29:42,500
This is one of the things that got him into so much trouble.

438
00:29:46,106 --> 00:29:52,240
I had been trying to get access to federal court records in the United States.

439
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:58,906
what I discovered was a puzzling system called "PACER"

440
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:02,888
which stands for "Public Access to Court Electronic Records"

441
00:30:03,048 --> 00:30:07,500
I started googling and that's when I read across Carl Malamud

442
00:30:08,835 --> 00:30:14,897
Access to legal materials in the United States is a 10 billion dollar per year business.

443
00:30:15,004 --> 00:30:20,097
PACER is just this incredible abomination of government service

444
00:30:20,100 --> 00:30:25,333
It's 10 cents a page, it's this most brain dead code you have ever seen

445
00:30:25,377 --> 00:30:29,500
you can't search it, you can't bookmark anything, you got to have a credit card

446
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:33,848
and these are public records, it's you know US district courts are very important

447
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:38,400
it's where all our seminal litigations starts, civil right cases,

448
00:30:38,435 --> 00:30:42,500
patent cases, all sort of stuff, in journalism students,

449
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:48,500
citizens and lawyers all need access to PACER and it fights in every step in the way.

450
00:30:48,551 --> 00:30:51,857
People without means can't see the law

451
00:30:51,893 --> 00:30:55,040
as readily as people that have that gold American express card.

452
00:30:55,093 --> 00:30:57,800
 It's a poll[?] tax on access to justice.

453
00:30:57,800 --> 00:31:04,800
You know the Law is the Operating system of our democracy and you have to pay to see it?

454
00:31:04,900 --> 00:31:07,164
Ah. You know that's not a much of democracy.

455
00:31:07,190 --> 00:31:11,964
They make about a 120 million dollars a year on the PACER system

456
00:31:11,982 --> 00:31:16,700
and it doesn't cost anything near that according to their own records

457
00:31:16,730 --> 00:31:18,364
in fact, it's illegal

458
00:31:18,906 --> 00:31:23,964
the "e-Government Act" of 2002 states that the court may charge

459
00:31:24,008 --> 00:31:30,700
only to the extent necessary in order to reimburse the cost of running PACER.

460
00:31:34,620 --> 00:31:37,386
As the founder of public.resource.org

461
00:31:37,466 --> 00:31:40,408
Malamud wanted to protest the PACER charges

462
00:31:40,530 --> 00:31:43,786
He started a programme called "The PACER recycling Project"

463
00:31:44,026 --> 00:31:47,440
where people could upload PACER documents they had already paid for

464
00:31:47,635 --> 00:31:49,920
to a free database so others can use them.

465
00:31:50,053 --> 00:31:53,120
The PACER people were getting a lot of flak from congress

466
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:56,693
and others about public access and so they put together a system 

467
00:31:56,711 --> 00:32:01,700
in 17 libraries accross the country that was free PACER access.

468
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:05,875
You know, that's 1 library every 22,000 square miles I believe.

469
00:32:05,902 --> 00:32:07,700
So wasn't like really convinient...

470
00:32:08,035 --> 00:32:11,591
I encouraged volunteers to join the so called ThumbDrive corp.

471
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:16,782
and download document from public access libraries and upload them to the PACER recycling site.

472
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:19,271
People take a ThumbDrive as one of these libraries

473
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:22,026
and they download a bunch of documents and send them to me

474
00:32:23,022 --> 00:32:24,853
I mean, it was just a joke

475
00:32:24,888 --> 00:32:28,551
In fact when you click on ThumbDrive corps there was a "Widard of Oz"

476
00:32:28,604 --> 00:32:31,700
you know the Munchkin singing video clip came up.

477
00:32:35,288 --> 00:32:38,640
But of-course I get the phone call from Steve Schultze and Aaron

478
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:42,700
saying [?] we would like to join the Thumbdrive corp.

479
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:47,466
Around that time, I ran into Aaron at the conference

480
00:32:47,490 --> 00:32:51,546
This is something that really has to be a collaboration between a lot of different people

481
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:53,786
So I approached him and said

482
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:58,110
"Hey, I am thinking about an intervention on the PACER of problem."

483
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,080
Schultze had already developed a program

484
00:33:02,124 --> 00:33:05,911
that could automatically download PACER documents from the trial libraries

485
00:33:06,500 --> 00:33:08,462
Swartz wanted to take a look

486
00:33:08,657 --> 00:33:13,653
So I showed him the code and I didn't know what would come next

487
00:33:13,733 --> 00:33:18,942
but as it turns out, over the course of the next few hours of that conference

488
00:33:18,977 --> 00:33:22,071
he was sitting in the corner improving my code,

489
00:33:22,097 --> 00:33:26,515
recruiting a friend of his that lived near one of these libraries,

490
00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:31,653
to go into the library and to begin to test his improved code

491
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:38,293
at which point the folks at the courts realized something's not going quite according to plan.

492
00:33:38,337 --> 00:33:42,311
 And data started to come in... and come in... and come in... 

493
00:33:42,355 --> 00:33:47,500
and soon there was 760 GigaBytes of PACER docs, about 20 million pages.

494
00:33:48,740 --> 00:33:51,955
Using informations retrieved from the trial libraries,

495
00:33:51,982 --> 00:33:57,130
Swartz was conducting massive automated parallel downloading of the PACER system.

496
00:33:57,288 --> 00:34:01,500
He was able to acquire nearly 2.7 million federal court documents

497
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:04,275
almost 20 million pages of text.

498
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:07,484
Now, I'll guarantee you that 20 million pages had perhaps

499
00:34:07,530 --> 00:34:11,804
exceeded the expectations of the people running the pilot access project

500
00:34:11,884 --> 00:34:14,500
but surprising a beaurocrat isn't illegal.

501
00:34:14,862 --> 00:34:19,500
Aaron and Carl decided to go talk to the New York Times about what happened.

502
00:34:20,070 --> 00:34:22,737
They also caught the attention of the FBI

503
00:34:22,950 --> 00:34:26,311
who began to stake[?] at Swartz's parent's house at Illinois.

504
00:34:26,570 --> 00:34:31,004
I get a tweet from his mother saying: "Call me"

505
00:34:31,102 --> 00:34:33,520
I thought "What the hell is going on here?"

506
00:34:33,570 --> 00:34:36,560
and so I found [?] of Aaron and you know

507
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:39,564
Aaron's mother was like "Oh my god, FBI! FBI! FBI!"

508
00:34:40,151 --> 00:34:46,133
An FBI agent drives down our home's driveway trying to see if Aaron is like in this room.

509
00:34:47,500 --> 00:34:50,266
and I remember being home that day and wondering why 

510
00:34:50,293 --> 00:34:53,244
this car was driving down our driveway and just driving back out, 

511
00:34:53,724 --> 00:34:55,500
That's weird!

512
00:34:56,500 --> 00:34:59,537
Like 5 years later, I read this FBI file and I'm like

513
00:34:59,591 --> 00:35:00,830
Oh my goodness!

514
00:35:01,503 --> 00:35:03,153
that was the FBI agent

515
00:35:04,208 --> 00:35:05,192
in my driveway

516
00:35:05,418 --> 00:35:08,075
He was terrified, he was totally terrified

517
00:35:09,717 --> 00:35:13,623
he was way more terrified after the FBI actually

518
00:35:13,896 --> 00:35:16,640
called him up on the phone, tried to suck an amenda[?]

519
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:18,597
coming down to a coffee shop without a lawyer

520
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:21,792
He said he went home and laid down on the bed

521
00:35:21,792 --> 00:35:23,790
and, you know, was shaking

522
00:35:25,620 --> 00:35:27,750
The downloading also uncovered massive

523
00:35:27,792 --> 00:35:30,141
privacy violations in the court documents

524
00:35:30,390 --> 00:35:34,094
ultimately, the courts were forced to change their policies as a result

525
00:35:35,152 --> 00:35:38,875
and the FBI closed thier investigation without bringing charges

526
00:35:39,628 --> 00:35:43,068
To this day I find it remarkable, that anybody,

527
00:35:43,260 --> 00:35:47,007
even at the most remote [?]hog field office of the FBI,

528
00:35:47,317 --> 00:35:49,661
thought that a fitting use for taxpayer dollars

529
00:35:49,802 --> 00:35:53,049
was investigating people for criminal theft

530
00:35:53,124 --> 00:35:55,581
on the grounds that they had made the law public

531
00:35:55,741 --> 00:35:57,952
How can you call yourself a lawman

532
00:35:58,291 --> 00:36:01,703
and think there can possibly be anything wrong in this whole world

533
00:36:01,882 --> 00:36:03,487
with making the law public

534
00:36:03,736 --> 00:36:06,263
Aaron was willing to put himself at risk

535
00:36:06,447 --> 00:36:08,800
for the causes that he believed in

536
00:36:09,576 --> 00:36:11,336
Bothered by wealth disparity

537
00:36:11,557 --> 00:36:13,440
Swartz moves beyond technology

538
00:36:13,468 --> 00:36:15,985
in into a broader range of political causes

539
00:36:16,225 --> 00:36:18,738
I went into congress, and I invited him to

540
00:36:18,823 --> 00:36:21,425
come and hangout an intern for us for a while

541
00:36:21,712 --> 00:36:25,035
so that he could learn, you know, the political process

542
00:36:25,303 --> 00:36:27,816
he was sort of learning about a new community

543
00:36:27,825 --> 00:36:28,865
and a new set of skills

544
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:31,120
and kind of learning to hack politics

545
00:36:31,505 --> 00:36:34,315
It's seems ridiculous that miners should have to hammer away

546
00:36:34,315 --> 00:36:36,423
until they whole bodies are dripping with sweat

547
00:36:36,701 --> 00:36:38,884
faced with the knowledge that if they dared to stop

548
00:36:38,903 --> 00:36:40,880
they won't be able to put food on the table that night

549
00:36:41,369 --> 00:36:43,915
while I get to make larger and larger amounts of money each day

550
00:36:43,929 --> 00:36:45,463
just by sitting and watching TV

551
00:36:46,592 --> 00:36:48,621
but apparently the world is ridiculous

552
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:51,242
So, I co-founded a group called

553
00:36:51,261 --> 00:36:53,077
the "Progressive Change Campaign Committee"

554
00:36:53,129 --> 00:36:56,145
and what we're trying to do is organise people over the Internet

555
00:36:56,145 --> 00:36:58,130
who care about progressive politics

556
00:36:58,136 --> 00:37:00,100
and moving the country in a more progressive direction

557
00:37:00,296 --> 00:37:01,624
to kind of come together

558
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:03,368
join our e-mail list, join our campaign,

559
00:37:03,370 --> 00:37:06,128
help get progressive candidates selected all across the country

560
00:37:06,272 --> 00:37:09,264
The group is responsible for igniting the grassroots efforts

561
00:37:09,270 --> 00:37:12,616
behind the campaign to elect Elizabeth Warren

562
00:37:13,032 --> 00:37:15,160
He might have thought was a dumb system, but

563
00:37:15,352 --> 00:37:17,512
he came in and he said I need to learn this system

564
00:37:17,688 --> 00:37:20,992
'cause it can be manipulated, like any, you know, like any social system

565
00:37:21,488 --> 00:37:23,848
But his passion for knowledge and libraries

566
00:37:23,904 --> 00:37:25,272
didn't take a back seat

567
00:37:25,744 --> 00:37:27,270
Aaron began to take a closer look

568
00:37:27,296 --> 00:37:30,488
at institutions that publish academic journal articles

569
00:37:31,248 --> 00:37:33,944
A virtue of being a student at a major US univerity

570
00:37:33,952 --> 00:37:37,920
I assume that you have access to a wide variety of scholarly journals

571
00:37:38,384 --> 00:37:41,160
pretty much every major university in the United States

572
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:42,808
pays these sort of licencing fees

573
00:37:42,832 --> 00:37:46,072
to organizations like JSTOR and [?]

574
00:37:46,496 --> 00:37:49,056
to get access to scholarly journals that

575
00:37:49,096 --> 00:37:50,640
the rest of the world can't read

576
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:53,064
These scholarly journals and articles

577
00:37:53,248 --> 00:37:57,240
are essentlialy the entire wealth of human knowledge on-line

578
00:37:57,288 --> 00:38:00,048
and many had been payed for with taxpayer money

579
00:38:00,296 --> 00:38:02,040
or with government grants

580
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:04,952
but to read them you often have to pay again

581
00:38:05,130 --> 00:38:08,480
handing over steep fees to publishers like Reed Elsevier

582
00:38:08,830 --> 00:38:11,048
These licensing fees are so substantial that

583
00:38:11,152 --> 00:38:12,990
people who are studing in India,

584
00:38:12,995 --> 00:38:14,792
instead of studing in the United States,

585
00:38:15,104 --> 00:38:16,704
don't have this kind of access

586
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:19,096
they're left out from all of these journals

587
00:38:19,472 --> 00:38:22,704
they're left out from our entire scientific legacy

588
00:38:22,992 --> 00:38:26,248
I mean, a lot of those journal articles go back to the enlightenment

589
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:29,600
everytime someone has written down a scientific paper

590
00:38:29,610 --> 00:38:32,200
it has been scanned, digitized and put in these collections

591
00:38:32,848 --> 00:38:35,568
that is a legacy that has been brought to us

592
00:38:35,768 --> 00:38:38,432
by the history of people doing interesting work

593
00:38:38,464 --> 00:38:39,672
the history of scientists

594
00:38:39,768 --> 00:38:43,136
it's legacy that should belong to us as commons, as a people

595
00:38:43,392 --> 00:38:45,904
but instead it's been locked down and put on-line

596
00:38:45,910 --> 00:38:48,448
by handful of for-profit corporations

597
00:38:48,616 --> 00:38:51,336
then trying to get the maximum profit as they can out of it

598
00:38:53,376 --> 00:38:57,288
So, a researcher by the University or the people

599
00:38:57,688 --> 00:39:01,016
publishes a paper and in the very very last step of that process

600
00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:03,480
after all the work is done, after all the original research is done,

601
00:39:03,490 --> 00:39:05,856
the thinking, the lab work, the analysis

602
00:39:05,864 --> 00:39:08,232
after everything is done, at that last stage

603
00:39:08,488 --> 00:39:11,744
then the researcher has to handover his or her copyright

604
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:13,740
to this multi billion dollar company

605
00:39:14,384 --> 00:39:15,280
and it's sick!

606
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:17,864
It's an entire economy built on volunteer labour

607
00:39:18,216 --> 00:39:21,008
and then the publishers sit at the very top and scrape off the cream

608
00:39:21,744 --> 00:39:23,704
Talk about a scam

609
00:39:23,976 --> 00:39:28,936
one publisher in Britain made a profit of 3 billion dollars last year

610
00:39:28,976 --> 00:39:30,184
I mean, what a racket!

611
00:39:30,472 --> 00:39:33,944
JSTOR is just a very very small player in that story

612
00:39:33,976 --> 00:39:38,544
but for some reason JSTOR is the player that Aaron decided to confront

613
00:39:41,616 --> 00:39:43,720
He gone to some conference around Open Access  and Open Publishing

614
00:39:44,384 --> 00:39:46,352
and, I don't know who the person from JSTOR was,

615
00:39:46,376 --> 00:39:49,520
but I think they, at some point Aaron asked the question, like:

616
00:39:50,096 --> 00:39:53,048
"How much would it cost to open up JSTOR in perpetuity?"

617
00:39:54,368 --> 00:39:58,064
and they gave some... I think is 200 billion dollars

618
00:39:58,070 --> 00:40:00,060
something that Aaron thought was truly ridiculous

619
00:40:00,968 --> 00:40:02,888
Working at a fellowship at Harward

620
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:07,392
he knew users on MIT's famously open and fast network next door

621
00:40:07,552 --> 00:40:10,328
had authorized access to the riches of JSTOR

622
00:40:10,392 --> 00:40:12,320
Swartz saw an opportunity

623
00:40:12,424 --> 00:40:14,320
You have the key to those gates

624
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,328
and, with a little bit of shell script magic

625
00:40:17,888 --> 00:40:19,864
you can get those journal articles

626
00:40:21,024 --> 00:40:23,576
On September 24th 2010

627
00:40:23,752 --> 00:40:27,112
Swartz registered a newly purchased Acer laptop

628
00:40:27,136 --> 00:40:30,544
on the MIT network, under the name Gary Host

629
00:40:31,088 --> 00:40:34,248
the client name was registered as "ghost_laptop"

630
00:40:35,544 --> 00:40:38,656
He doesn't hack JSTOR in the traditional sense of hacking

631
00:40:38,720 --> 00:40:40,456
the JSTOR database was organised so

632
00:40:40,464 --> 00:40:42,088
was completely trivial to figure out

633
00:40:42,090 --> 00:40:44,440
how you could download all the articles in JSTOR

634
00:40:44,464 --> 00:40:45,560
because are basically numbers

635
00:40:45,590 --> 00:40:48,360
it was basically "/"  "/"  "/"  number article...

636
00:40:48,408 --> 00:40:52,630
...444024, and ...25 ...26

637
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:55,392
He wrote a python script called “keepgrabbing.py”

638
00:40:55,416 --> 00:40:58,072
which, was keep grabbing one article after another

639
00:40:58,725 --> 00:41:01,825
The next day ghost laptop begins grabbing articles

640
00:41:02,020 --> 00:41:05,400
but soon the computers IP address is blocked

641
00:41:05,720 --> 00:41:08,400
for Swartz is barely a bump in the road

642
00:41:08,420 --> 00:41:11,425
he quickly reassigns his computer IP address

643
00:41:11,425 --> 00:41:13,420
and keeps downloading

644
00:41:13,420 --> 00:41:17,625
Well JSTOR and MIT take a number of step to try interfer with this

645
00:41:17,630 --> 00:41:19,525
when they noticed that this was happening

646
00:41:19,530 --> 00:41:22,925
and when the more modest steps don't work in a certain stage they,

647
00:41:22,930 --> 00:41:26,925
JSTOR, just cuts off MIT from having access to the JSTOR database

648
00:41:26,930 --> 00:41:33,475
so this is a kind of cat mouse game around trying to get access to the JSTOR database

649
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:35,825
Aaron ultimately obviously is the cat

650
00:41:35,830 --> 00:41:42,075
because he has more technical capabilities than the JSTOR database people defending them

651
00:41:42,675 --> 00:41:46,765
Eventually there was a lot[?] of supplies in the basement of one of the buildings

652
00:41:46,770 --> 00:41:48,515
they whent, instead of going through WiFi

653
00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:51,015
he went down there and he just plugged his computer directly into the network

654
00:41:51,020 --> 00:41:55,875
and just left it there with an external hard drive dowloading articles to the computer

655
00:41:56,625 --> 00:42:01,900
Unkown to Swartz his laptop and hard drive had been found by authorities

656
00:42:03,150 --> 00:42:08,325
they didn't stop the downloads, instead they installed a surveillance camera

657
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:14,670
They found that computer in this room in the basement of an MIT building

658
00:42:14,675 --> 00:42:18,740
they could have unplugged it, they could have waited for the guy to come back

659
00:42:18,750 --> 00:42:23,640
and say "Dude, what are you doing? You know, cut it out. Who are you?"

660
00:42:23,650 --> 00:42:25,640
and they could have done all this kind of stuff, but they didn't

661
00:42:25,650 --> 00:42:29,905
what they wanted to do was film it to gather evidences to make a case

662
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:32,825
that's the only reason you film something like that

663
00:42:38,100 --> 00:42:41,575
At first the only person caught on the glitchy[?] surveillance camera

664
00:42:41,650 --> 00:42:45,275
was using the closet as a place to store bottles and cans

665
00:42:53,100 --> 00:42:56,025
But days later it caught Swartz

666
00:43:05,550 --> 00:43:11,215
Swartz is replacing a hard drive, he takes it out of his backpack,

667
00:43:11,220 --> 00:43:15,750
leans out of frame for about 5 minutes, and then leaves

668
00:43:37,025 --> 00:43:42,150
And then, like, organise a [?] as he was biking home from MIT

669
00:43:42,325 --> 00:43:46,400
these cops came out from, like, other side of the road, or something like that, instead of going after him

670
00:43:49,375 --> 00:43:55,000
He describes that he was pressed down and assoulted by the police

671
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:57,800
he tells me that they... it's unclear[?] they were police

672
00:43:57,810 --> 00:44:02,100
that were after someone [?] was trying to attack him.

673
00:44:02,150 --> 00:44:04,350
He does tell me they beat him up.

674
00:44:08,150 --> 00:44:09,500
He was just devastaded.

675
00:44:09,525 --> 00:44:14,800
The notion of any kind of criminal prosecution of anyone in our family

676
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:18,175
was so foreign[?] and uncomprensible, I didn't know what to do.

677
00:44:18,250 --> 00:44:21,315
Well they executed search warrants[?] at Aaron's house,

678
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:24,775
his apartment in Canbdridge and his office at Harward.

679
00:44:27,670 --> 00:44:33,625
Two days before the arrest the investigation had gone beyod JSTOR and the local Cambridge police

680
00:44:33,775 --> 00:44:37,150
they had been taken over by the United States secret service.

681
00:44:37,550 --> 00:44:42,400
The secret service begun investigating computer and credit card fraud in 1984

682
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:46,600
but 6 weeks after attack on 9/11 their role expanded.

683
00:44:48,875 --> 00:44:50,925
President Bush used the "Patriot Act"

684
00:44:51,075 --> 00:44:55,350
to establish a network of what they called "Electronic Crimes Task Forces".

685
00:44:56,575 --> 00:45:01,500
The bill before me takes account of the new realities and dangers posed by modern terrorists.

686
00:45:01,600 --> 00:45:06,865
According to the secret service they are primarily engaged in activities with economic impact,

687
00:45:06,870 --> 00:45:11,400
organized criminal groups or use of schemes involving new technology.

688
00:45:11,700 --> 00:45:16,200
The secret service turns Swartz's case over to the Boston US attorney office.

689
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:17,915
There was a guy in the US attorneys office

690
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:22,175
who had the title "Head of the computer crimes division" or "task force"

691
00:45:22,300 --> 00:45:24,515
I don't know what else he had going

692
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:27,390
but you're certainly not much of a computer crime prosecutor

693
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:31,365
without a computer crime to prosecute, so he jumped on it

694
00:45:31,370 --> 00:45:35,145
kept it for himself, didn't assign to anyone else in the office or the unit

695
00:45:35,150 --> 00:45:37,015
and that's Stephen Heymann.

696
00:45:37,020 --> 00:45:41,650
Prosecutor Stephen Heymann has been largerly out of public view since the arrest of Aaron Swartz

697
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:46,565
but he can be seen here in an episode of the TV show "American Greed"

698
00:45:46,570 --> 00:45:48,640
filmed around the time of Aaron's arrest

699
00:45:48,650 --> 00:45:53,425
he's describing his previous case against the notorious hacker Albert Gonzalez.

700
00:45:53,525 --> 00:45:57,040
a case that gained Heymann enourmous pretentious[?] and accolades.

701
00:45:57,050 --> 00:46:02,025
Gonzalez masterminded the theft of over a hundred million credit card and ATM numbers

702
00:46:02,075 --> 00:46:04,325
the largest such fraud in history.

703
00:46:04,475 --> 00:46:09,675
Here Heymann, decribing Gonzalez, gives his view on the hacker mindset.

704
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:16,125
These guys are driven by a lot of the same things that we're driven by

705
00:46:16,275 --> 00:46:22,240
they have an ego, they like challege and of course they like money

706
00:46:22,250 --> 00:46:24,875
and everything you can get from money.

707
00:46:25,075 --> 00:46:27,665
One of the suspects implicated in the Gonzalez case

708
00:46:27,670 --> 00:46:30,000
was a young hacker named Jonathan James

709
00:46:30,010 --> 00:46:33,115
believing Gonzalez's crimes would be pinned on him

710
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:36,025
James committed suicide during the investigation.

711
00:46:36,725 --> 00:46:41,100
In an early press release describing the government's position in the case of Aaron Swartz

712
00:46:41,250 --> 00:46:46,275
Heymann's boss, US attorney for the disctrict of Massachusetts, Carmen Ortiz said this:

713
00:46:46,375 --> 00:46:50,165
Stealing is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar,

714
00:46:50,170 --> 00:46:52,750
and wether you take documents, data, or dollars

715
00:46:53,100 --> 00:46:56,100
It's not true. It's obviously not true.

716
00:46:56,400 --> 00:46:58,790
I'm not saying it's harmless

717
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:05,475
and I'm not saying that we shouldn't criminalise stealing of information

718
00:47:06,100 --> 00:47:09,575
but you gotta be much more subtle in trying to figure out

719
00:47:09,575 --> 00:47:13,675
exactly which kind of  harms are harmful here

720
00:47:14,950 --> 00:47:16,525
so the thing about a crowbar is

721
00:47:16,548 --> 00:47:18,742
everytime I brake into a place with a crowbar

722
00:47:19,497 --> 00:47:20,708
I do damage, there's no doubt about it

723
00:47:21,988 --> 00:47:23,371
But when Aaron writes a script

724
00:47:23,380 --> 00:47:27,051
that says: "download, download, download" hundreds times per second

725
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:30,342
there's no obvious damage, to anybody

726
00:47:30,948 --> 00:47:33,462
If he does that for the purpose of gathering

727
00:47:33,577 --> 00:47:35,965
archive to do academic research on it

728
00:47:35,970 --> 00:47:38,057
there's never any damage to anybody

729
00:47:38,434 --> 00:47:42,685
He wasn't stealing, he wasn't selling what he got or giving it away

730
00:47:43,074 --> 00:47:45,634
he was making a point as for I can tell

731
00:47:45,782 --> 00:47:47,965
The arrest took its toll[?] on Swartz

732
00:47:48,308 --> 00:47:51,314
He just don't want to talk about it, and he's like very stressed

733
00:47:51,320 --> 00:47:55,245
if you thought like the FBI was like, going to come to your doorstep

734
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:58,982
[?] any time you went down the hall, even to do your laundry

735
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:02,388
and it would brake in to your apartment,  because you left the door unlocked

736
00:48:02,685 --> 00:48:07,177
like, I'd be preety stressed.
And it was clear,

737
00:48:07,291 --> 00:48:11,074
And so Aarorn was always sort of, like in, down on[?] mood.

738
00:48:18,420 --> 00:48:22,102
He wouldn't give up any sensitive information

739
00:48:22,110 --> 00:48:23,874
about his whereabouts during this time,

740
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:27,382
because he was so afraid that the FBI will be waiting for him

741
00:48:30,948 --> 00:48:34,777
It was a time of unprecedent social and political activism

742
00:48:35,737 --> 00:48:39,988
Time magazine would later name as their 2011 person of the year

743
00:48:39,990 --> 00:48:41,337
"the protester"

744
00:48:42,651 --> 00:48:46,068
There was a kind of hotbed of hacker activity going on

745
00:48:48,948 --> 00:48:53,817
WikiLeaks had released a trove of diplomatic cables

746
00:48:53,977 --> 00:48:57,040
Manning had been under arrest at the time

747
00:48:57,074 --> 00:48:59,657
it was unknown whether he was the source of the leak

748
00:48:59,908 --> 00:49:04,697
Anonymous which is a kind of protest ensemble

749
00:49:04,720 --> 00:49:07,474
that has lots of hackers in its ranks

750
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:11,440
were going on various spreeze of sorts[?]

751
00:49:11,611 --> 00:49:14,205
If you compare that to what he did

752
00:49:14,342 --> 00:49:18,091
this stuff should have been left behind for MIT and JSTOR to deal with,

753
00:49:18,228 --> 00:49:22,057
in a kind of private, professional matter.

754
00:49:22,060 --> 00:49:28,262
It should have never got to the attention of the criminal system,

755
00:49:28,720 --> 00:49:30,731
It just didn't belong there.

756
00:49:36,628 --> 00:49:39,874
Before he was indicted, Swartz was offered a plea deal,

757
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:43,451
that involved three months in prison, time in a halfway house,

758
00:49:43,450 --> 00:49:45,257
and a year of home detention,

759
00:49:45,348 --> 00:49:47,508
all without the use of a computer.

760
00:49:47,908 --> 00:49:52,011
It was on the condition that Swartz plead guilty to a felony.

761
00:49:52,217 --> 00:49:56,480
Here we are, we have no discovery, no evidence whatsoever

762
00:49:56,560 --> 00:49:58,251
about what the government case is

763
00:49:58,250 --> 00:50:01,634
and we have to make this immense decision

764
00:50:01,805 --> 00:50:05,794
where the lawyer is pushing you do this

765
00:50:05,965 --> 00:50:09,714
the government is giving you a non-negotiable demand

766
00:50:09,817 --> 00:50:13,028
and you're told that your likelihood of prevailing is small

767
00:50:13,108 --> 00:50:17,485
So wether you're guilty or not you better of taking the deal.

768
00:50:18,468 --> 00:50:21,085
Boston has it's own computer crime division

769
00:50:21,588 --> 00:50:25,222
lots of lawyers, probably more lawyers than they need

770
00:50:25,420 --> 00:50:28,662
So, you know, you can imagine all sort of cases

771
00:50:28,674 --> 00:50:30,160
where it would be really hard to prosecute

772
00:50:30,182 --> 00:50:33,177
cause you've got some criminals in Russia

773
00:50:33,188 --> 00:50:38,260
or you've got some people inside a corporation who are gonna have $500 a hour lawyers

774
00:50:38,270 --> 00:50:41,234
or $700 a hour lawyers sitting down against you

775
00:50:41,290 --> 00:50:43,097
and then you got this case with this kid,

776
00:50:43,874 --> 00:50:47,565
which is pretty easy to prove that he did something

777
00:50:47,570 --> 00:50:52,525
and he has already marked himself as a troublemaker with the FBI

778
00:50:52,530 --> 00:50:56,502
so why not go as tough as you can in hearing[?] against that guy?

779
00:50:56,510 --> 00:50:57,805
It's good for you the prosecutor,

780
00:50:57,828 --> 00:51:02,194
it's good for the republic 'cause you're fighting all those terrorist types

781
00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:03,531
I was so scared,

782
00:51:03,577 --> 00:51:05,400
I was so scared of having my computer ceased

783
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:07,200
I was so scared of going to jail

784
00:51:07,337 --> 00:51:10,068
because of my computer being ceased

785
00:51:10,137 --> 00:51:13,268
I had confidential material from sources

786
00:51:13,302 --> 00:51:15,260
from my previous work on my laptop,

787
00:51:15,634 --> 00:51:18,760
and that is above all of my priority

788
00:51:18,770 --> 00:51:20,411
is to keep my sources safe.

789
00:51:20,502 --> 00:51:24,697
I was so scared of what was gonna happen to Ada

790
00:51:25,508 --> 00:51:27,862
Aaron told me that they offered me a deal

791
00:51:28,331 --> 00:51:32,240
and he finally just said, that he would take it if I told him to

792
00:51:32,891 --> 00:51:35,862
and I came real close to saying him "take it".

793
00:51:37,862 --> 00:51:42,800
He had this... he had developed, like, serious political aspirations

794
00:51:42,868 --> 00:51:46,297
in the intervening time between when, you know, that moment

795
00:51:46,605 --> 00:51:51,360
when he ended that entrepreneurial startup life

796
00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:56,171
and begun this new life that had come to this political activism

797
00:51:57,165 --> 00:52:02,765
and he just didn't believe that he could continue in this life

798
00:52:02,982 --> 00:52:05,702
with a felony, you know, he said to me one day

799
00:52:05,805 --> 00:52:07,910
we were walking by the white house and he said to me

800
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:09,800
"they don't have felon work there"

801
00:52:17,752 --> 00:52:20,696
I mean, you know, he really wanted that to be his life.

802
00:52:22,112 --> 00:52:25,216
He hadn't killed anybody, he hadn't hurt anybody,

803
00:52:25,256 --> 00:52:27,768
he hadn't like stolen money

804
00:52:28,208 --> 00:52:30,830
he hadn't done anything that seemed felony worthy, right?

805
00:52:31,808 --> 00:52:36,800
and, there's this idea that, like,

806
00:52:36,960 --> 00:52:38,960
there's no reason that he should be labeled a felon

807
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:42,800
and taken away his right to vote in many states

808
00:52:43,320 --> 00:52:44,784
for doing what he did, like,

809
00:52:44,808 --> 00:52:46,890
that's just outrageous, like, it makes sense for him to be

810
00:52:46,900 --> 00:52:50,208
you know, maybe fined a bunch of money or

811
00:52:50,560 --> 00:52:53,872
you know, asked not to come back at MIT again

812
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:57,904
but like, to be a felon? to face jail time?

813
00:53:01,120 --> 00:53:03,440
Swartz turned down the plea deal

814
00:53:03,910 --> 00:53:06,824
Heymann were doubled his efforts,

815
00:53:06,968 --> 00:53:12,512
Heymann  continued to press us at all, at all levels.

816
00:53:12,710 --> 00:53:14,512
Even with the physical evidences

817
00:53:14,520 --> 00:53:18,100
ceased from Aaron Acer computer, hard drive and usb drive

818
00:53:18,448 --> 00:53:21,232
the prosecutors needed evidence of his motives.

819
00:53:21,376 --> 00:53:24,696
Why was Aaron Swartz downloading articles from JSTOR?

820
00:53:24,824 --> 00:53:27,160
and just what did he planned to do with them?

821
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:32,096
The government claimed that he was planning to publish these,

822
00:53:32,464 --> 00:53:36,008
we don't really know whether that was his real intention

823
00:53:36,016 --> 00:53:37,832
because Aaron also had a history  of

824
00:53:39,136 --> 00:53:42,768
doing projects where he had analyzed giant datasets of articles

825
00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:45,048
in order to learn interesting things about them

826
00:53:45,248 --> 00:53:48,136
The best evidence for that is that when he was at Stanford

827
00:53:48,650 --> 00:53:53,192
he also downloaded the whole Westlaw legal database.

828
00:53:53,616 --> 00:53:55,824
In a project with Stanford law students

829
00:53:55,864 --> 00:53:58,664
Swartz had downloaded the Westlaw legal database

830
00:53:58,712 --> 00:54:00,904
he uncovered troubling connections between

831
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:04,208
funders of legal research and favorable results.

832
00:54:04,488 --> 00:54:07,696
He did this amazing analysis of for profit companies

833
00:54:07,700 --> 00:54:11,040
giving money to law professors who wrote law review articles

834
00:54:11,064 --> 00:54:15,072
which would then beneficial to, like, Exxon, during an oil spill

835
00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:19,528
So it was a very corrupt system of funding, you know, vanity research.

836
00:54:19,768 --> 00:54:22,680
Swartz had never released the Westlaw documents.

837
00:54:22,808 --> 00:54:25,544
In theory he could have been doing the same thing about the JSTOR database

838
00:54:25,656 --> 00:54:27,540
That would have been completely OK.

839
00:54:27,568 --> 00:54:29,976
if he were on the other hand intending to

840
00:54:29,992 --> 00:54:33,040
create a competitive service to JSTOR,

841
00:54:33,184 --> 00:54:37,064
or gonna set up our own, you know, access to the Harward law review

842
00:54:37,064 --> 00:54:39,060
and charge money for it,

843
00:54:39,104 --> 00:54:42,024
then, you know, ok, now it seems like criminal violation

844
00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:44,810
because you're commercially trying to exploit this material

845
00:54:44,820 --> 00:54:47,272
but that's kind of crazy to imagine that's what he was doing.

846
00:54:48,264 --> 00:54:49,624
So, but than there's a middle case

847
00:54:49,648 --> 00:54:52,720
what if he was just trying to liberate for all of the developing world?

848
00:54:53,736 --> 00:54:55,360
But depending on what he was doing

849
00:54:55,360 --> 00:54:58,648
it creates a very different character to how the law should be thinking about it

850
00:54:59,184 --> 00:55:00,744
the government was prosecuting him

851
00:55:00,750 --> 00:55:03,536
as if this was like a commercial criminal violation

852
00:55:03,560 --> 00:55:05,608
like stealing a whole bunch of credit card records

853
00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:06,840
like it was that kind of crime.

854
00:55:07,010 --> 00:55:10,424
I don't know what he was gonna do with that database

855
00:55:10,430 --> 00:55:12,248
but I heard from a friend of his

856
00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:14,944
that Aaron had told him he was going to analyze the data

857
00:55:14,950 --> 00:55:18,376
for evidence of corporate funding of climate change research

858
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:20,024
that led to biased results.

859
00:55:20,432 --> 00:55:22,752
And I totally believe that.

860
00:55:25,216 --> 00:55:27,848
I was just told that Steve wanted to talk to me.

861
00:55:29,152 --> 00:55:32,896
and I tought maybe this is a way I can get out of this.

862
00:55:33,136 --> 00:55:35,016
just to exit the situation.

863
00:55:35,224 --> 00:55:37,824
I didn't want to leave in fear to having my computer ceased

864
00:55:38,672 --> 00:55:41,032
I didn't want to leave in fear to having to go to jail

865
00:55:41,048 --> 00:55:43,030
on a contempt of court charge if

866
00:55:43,080 --> 00:55:46,296
they tried to compel me to decrypt my computer

867
00:55:46,616 --> 00:55:49,456
when they came to me and said: "Steve wants to talk to you"

868
00:55:50,560 --> 00:55:52,208
that seemed reasonable.

869
00:55:52,864 --> 00:55:54,760
They offered Norton what is known as

870
00:55:54,770 --> 00:55:57,296
a "Queen for a day" letter or a proffer

871
00:55:57,576 --> 00:56:00,728
it allowed prosecutors to ask questions about Aaron's case.

872
00:56:00,744 --> 00:56:03,848
Norton would be given immunity from prosecution herself

873
00:56:03,880 --> 00:56:06,240
for any information she revealed during the meeting.

874
00:56:06,352 --> 00:56:07,432
I didn't like it

875
00:56:07,630 --> 00:56:10,608
I told my lawyers repeadetly that I didn't...

876
00:56:10,920 --> 00:56:12,712
this seemed de[?], I didn't like ithis

877
00:56:12,728 --> 00:56:14,616
I didn't want immunity, I didn't need immunity

878
00:56:14,632 --> 00:56:16,112
I hadn't done anything.

879
00:56:16,248 --> 00:56:18,000
But they were really really stringent

880
00:56:18,032 --> 00:56:21,696
thay did not want me meeting the prosecutor without immunity.

881
00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:24,928
Interviewer: just to make clear, this is a queen for a day deal proffer

882
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:25,920
Right a proffer letter

883
00:56:25,920 --> 00:56:28,224
Interviewer: In which you basically handed information over them

884
00:56:28,240 --> 00:56:30,312
in exchange for protection from prosecution.

885
00:56:30,360 --> 00:56:33,592
So, it wasn't handing information over,

886
00:56:33,624 --> 00:56:36,304
it was, at least this was how I saw, it was just

887
00:56:36,344 --> 00:56:38,232
having a discussion, having an inteview with them

888
00:56:38,256 --> 00:56:41,040
Interviewer: Well, they're asking you questions
Quinn: They're asking me questions

889
00:56:41,072 --> 00:56:42,144
Interviewer: They are asking about what they want
Quinn: Right

890
00:56:42,410 --> 00:56:44,288
Interviewer: and whatever they learned [?] prosecute for that

891
00:56:44,344 --> 00:56:49,352
Right, I really... right, and I repeadetly tried to go in naked

892
00:56:50,120 --> 00:56:53,536
I repeadetly tried to turn down the proffer letter

893
00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:56,520
I was ill, I was being pressured by my lawyers,

894
00:56:56,560 --> 00:56:57,712
I was confused.

895
00:56:57,896 --> 00:57:01,208
I was not doing well by this point

896
00:57:01,216 --> 00:57:02,992
I was depressed, and I was scared,

897
00:57:03,016 --> 00:57:05,648
and I didn't understand the situation I was in.

898
00:57:05,720 --> 00:57:08,888
I had no idea why I was in this situation

899
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:13,312
I hadn't done anything intresting much less wrong.

900
00:57:13,584 --> 00:57:14,800
[?] over minds[?]

901
00:57:15,096 --> 00:57:17,024
Aaron was clearly very destroyed about it

902
00:57:17,230 --> 00:57:18,624
we were very destroyed about it

903
00:57:19,024 --> 00:57:20,952
Aaron attorneys were very destroyed about it

904
00:57:21,176 --> 00:57:23,432
we tried to get Quinn to change attorneys

905
00:57:23,768 --> 00:57:28,112
I was very unused to be in a room with large man, well armed,

906
00:57:28,672 --> 00:57:30,600
that are continuosly telling me I'm lying

907
00:57:30,824 --> 00:57:32,360
and I must have done something

908
00:57:33,736 --> 00:57:36,504
I told them that this thing that they were prosecuting

909
00:57:37,184 --> 00:57:39,936
wasn't a crime,

910
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:43,224
I told them that they were on the wrong side of history

911
00:57:43,232 --> 00:57:44,528
I used that phrase, I said:

912
00:57:44,528 --> 00:57:46,520
"you're on the wrong side of history"

913
00:57:48,648 --> 00:57:49,672
And they were bored,

914
00:57:49,712 --> 00:57:51,670
they didn't look angry, they just looked bored

915
00:57:52,616 --> 00:57:55,220
and I begun... it occured to me that

916
00:57:55,230 --> 00:57:57,304
we weren't having the same conversation

917
00:57:57,344 --> 00:57:59,384
I mean, I told them plenty of things about, you know,

918
00:57:59,390 --> 00:58:02,688
why people would donwload journal articles, and eventually

919
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:04,768
I don't remember what was around it

920
00:58:06,144 --> 00:58:08,400
I mentioned he had done this blog post

921
00:58:08,400 --> 00:58:10,008
"the guerilla open access manifesto"

922
00:58:12,736 --> 00:58:15,608
This is the guerilla open access manifesto

923
00:58:16,080 --> 00:58:19,704
supposedly written in July 2008, in Italy

924
00:58:20,296 --> 00:58:21,560
Information is power.

925
00:58:21,736 --> 00:58:22,816
But like all power,

926
00:58:22,820 --> 00:58:24,872
there are those who want to keep it for themselves.

927
00:58:25,160 --> 00:58:27,264
The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage,

928
00:58:27,328 --> 00:58:29,496
published over centuries in books and journals,

929
00:58:29,784 --> 00:58:32,064
is increasingly being digitized and locked up

930
00:58:32,080 --> 00:58:34,060
by a handful of private corporations.

931
00:58:34,320 --> 00:58:38,096
Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by.

932
00:58:38,280 --> 00:58:40,496
You have been sneaking through holes and climbing over fences,

933
00:58:40,504 --> 00:58:42,614
liberating the information locked up by the publishers

934
00:58:42,620 --> 00:58:43,856
and sharing them with your friends.

935
00:58:44,608 --> 00:58:47,424
But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground.

936
00:58:47,584 --> 00:58:49,216
It's called stealing or piracy,

937
00:58:49,344 --> 00:58:52,142
as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of

938
00:58:52,150 --> 00:58:54,368
plundering a ship and murdering its crew.

939
00:58:54,728 --> 00:58:57,592
But sharing isn't immoral — it's a moral imperative.

940
00:58:57,680 --> 00:58:59,088
Only those blinded by greed

941
00:58:59,112 --> 00:59:01,320
would refuse to let a friend make a copy.

942
00:59:02,168 --> 00:59:04,448
There is no justice in following unjust laws.

943
00:59:04,450 --> 00:59:06,264
It's time to come into the light and,

944
00:59:06,288 --> 00:59:08,328
in the grand tradition of civil disobedience,

945
00:59:08,328 --> 00:59:11,504
declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.

946
00:59:12,344 --> 00:59:16,392
The manifesto itself was allegedly written by four different people

947
00:59:16,728 --> 00:59:18,390
and also edited by Norton

948
00:59:18,696 --> 00:59:21,168
but it was Swartz who had signed his name to it.

949
00:59:21,624 --> 00:59:25,248
When it's over, I go immediately to Aaron

950
00:59:25,250 --> 00:59:27,616
and tell him everything I can remember about it

951
00:59:28,896 --> 00:59:30,384
and he gets very angry

952
00:59:34,696 --> 00:59:37,208
The things that I'he done shouldn't have added up that way

953
00:59:40,416 --> 00:59:42,808
I hadn't done anything wrong

954
00:59:43,272 --> 00:59:45,224
and everything had gone wrong

955
00:59:47,024 --> 00:59:48,216
but I was never...

956
00:59:56,904 --> 00:59:58,664
I'm still angry

957
01:00:00,176 --> 01:00:01,864
I'm still angry...

958
01:00:03,110 --> 01:00:05,728
...try your best with these people to do the right thing

959
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:08,576
and they turn everything against you

960
01:00:08,600 --> 01:00:11,888
and they will hurt you with anything they can

961
01:00:14,840 --> 01:00:18,816
and, in that moment, I regret that I said what I did

962
01:00:19,744 --> 01:00:23,216
but my larger regret is that we've settled for this

963
01:00:23,608 --> 01:00:25,432
that we're OK with this

964
01:00:25,840 --> 01:00:28,968
that we're ok with a justice system which [?] tries to game people

965
01:00:28,970 --> 01:00:31,568
into like traps so that they can ruin their lives

966
01:00:32,784 --> 01:00:35,032
So, yeah, I wish I hadn't said that

967
01:00:35,272 --> 01:00:41,104
but I'm much much angrier that this is where I am

968
01:00:42,552 --> 01:00:46,880
That this is what we as people think is OK

969
01:00:48,296 --> 01:00:52,232
They used every method that I think they could think of

970
01:00:52,256 --> 01:00:55,168
to get her to provide information which would be

971
01:00:55,180 --> 01:00:59,200
unhelpful to Aaron, and helpful to the prosecution of Aaron

972
01:01:00,394 --> 01:01:06,581
But, you know, I don't think she had information that was helpful to the government.

973
01:01:08,032 --> 01:01:12,000
Months go by as Swartz's friends and family await a looming indictment.

974
01:01:12,426 --> 01:01:17,376
In the meantime, Swartz was becoming a goto expert on a series of Internet issues.

975
01:01:17,930 --> 01:01:22,036
Do you think that the Intenet is something that should be considered a human right

976
01:01:22,072 --> 01:01:24,580
something that the government can not take away from you.

977
01:01:25,140 --> 01:01:26,967
Yes. Definitely.

978
01:01:27,127 --> 01:01:30,458
There is this notion that national security is an excuse to shut down the Internet.

979
01:01:30,624 --> 01:01:34,016
that's exactly what we heard in Egypt, Syria and these other countries.

980
01:01:34,290 --> 01:01:37,141
and so its true, sites like WikiLeaks are going to be putting up

981
01:01:37,178 --> 01:01:39,810
some embarassing material about what what the US govt does.

982
01:01:40,032 --> 01:01:42,506
and people are going to be organizing to protest about it

983
01:01:42,516 --> 01:01:43,800
and try and change the government.

984
01:01:44,029 --> 01:01:46,160
You know, that's a good thing.

985
01:01:46,210 --> 01:01:48,225
Thats what all these First Amendment rights of free expression,

986
01:01:48,261 --> 01:01:49,950
freedom of association are all about.

987
01:01:49,950 --> 01:01:52,341
and so the notion that we should try and shut them down

988
01:01:52,370 --> 01:01:55,061
I think, just goes against very basic American principles.

989
01:01:55,120 --> 01:01:58,100
a principle, I think, is one that our founding fathers would have understood.

990
01:01:58,138 --> 01:01:59,716
If the Internet would have been around back then

991
01:01:59,789 --> 01:02:03,345
instead of putting Post Offices in the constituion they would have put ISPs.

992
01:02:05,504 --> 01:02:10,261
Swartz meets activist Taren Steinbrickner-Kauffman and the two begin to date.

993
01:02:10,794 --> 01:02:12,437
...in a massive public outcry.

994
01:02:12,437 --> 01:02:15,616
There is no massive global public outcry. It won't create any change.

995
01:02:15,658 --> 01:02:18,930
You know, 4 people in this city should cause a massive global public outcry.

996
01:02:19,018 --> 01:02:22,140
You know, we need a petition signer.

997
01:02:22,390 --> 01:02:24,196
Without telling her specifics, he warned her

998
01:02:24,225 --> 01:02:27,690
he was involved in something he called simply "the bad thing".

999
01:02:27,800 --> 01:02:29,876
And I had, sort of, crazy theories, like

1000
01:02:29,927 --> 01:02:32,340
that he was having an affair with Elizabeth Warren or

1001
01:02:33,280 --> 01:02:35,776
I speculated both Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren.

1002
01:02:38,000 --> 01:02:41,767
So sometime in probably late July Aaron called me

1003
01:02:42,356 --> 01:02:44,480
and I happen to pick up and he said:

1004
01:02:45,265 --> 01:02:47,476
"The bad thing might be in the news tomorrow"

1005
01:02:47,534 --> 01:02:49,629
"Do you want me to tell you or do you want to read about it in the news".

1006
01:02:49,672 --> 01:02:51,520
and I said: "I want you to tell me."

1007
01:02:53,469 --> 01:02:58,654
and he said: "Well I have been arrested"

1008
01:02:58,690 --> 01:03:00,800
"for downloading too many academic journal articles"

1009
01:03:00,840 --> 01:03:03,440
"and they want to make an example out of me."

1010
01:03:04,240 --> 01:03:08,906
and I was like: "That's it! That's the big fuss! Really?"

1011
01:03:09,288 --> 01:03:11,120
"it doesn't sound like a very big deal."

1012
01:03:11,317 --> 01:03:17,632
On  July 14th, 2011, Federal prosecutors indict Swartz on 4 felony counts.

1013
01:03:17,630 --> 01:03:18,613
He gets indicted

1014
01:03:18,871 --> 01:03:24,110
On the same day 2 people in England who are part of LulzSec get arrested

1015
01:03:24,410 --> 01:03:26,995
and few other real hackers

1016
01:03:27,288 --> 01:03:29,920
and Aaron is just someone who kind of looks like a hacker

1017
01:03:29,920 --> 01:03:35,082
enough that, they can like, put his head on the stakes and put it on the gates.

1018
01:03:35,317 --> 01:03:38,794
Aaron went to surrender and they arrested him.

1019
01:03:39,178 --> 01:03:42,336
they then strip searched him.

1020
01:03:42,417 --> 01:03:45,137
took away his shoelaces, took away his belt

1021
01:03:45,324 --> 01:03:47,520
and left him in solitary confinement.

1022
01:03:50,290 --> 01:03:52,906
The District of Massachusetts, United States Attorney's Office

1023
01:03:52,951 --> 01:03:54,862
released a statement saying:

1024
01:03:54,897 --> 01:03:57,795
"Swartz faces up to 35 yrs in prison

1025
01:03:57,875 --> 01:04:00,568
to be followed by 3 yrs of supervised release

1026
01:04:00,666 --> 01:04:05,350
restitution, forefeiture and a fine of upto $1 million dollars."

1027
01:04:06,248 --> 01:04:09,130
He was released on a $100,00 bail.

1028
01:04:09,380 --> 01:04:12,417
The same day, the primary victim in the case JSTOR

1029
01:04:12,560 --> 01:04:17,217
formally drops all charges against Swartz and declines to pursue the case.

1030
01:04:17,822 --> 01:04:21,635
JSTOR, they weren't our friends. They weren't helpful or friendly to us

1031
01:04:21,671 --> 01:04:24,755
but they also were just kind of like "We are not part of this"

1032
01:04:25,280 --> 01:04:27,555
JSTOR, and their parent company Ithica

1033
01:04:27,662 --> 01:04:30,780
also sidestepped request to talk for the film.

1034
01:04:30,970 --> 01:04:33,324
aut at the time they released a statement saying

1035
01:04:33,351 --> 01:04:36,942
it was the goverment's decision weather to prosecute, not JSTOR's

1036
01:04:38,208 --> 01:04:42,304
And so it was our belief that with that the case would be over.

1037
01:04:42,675 --> 01:04:45,350
that we should be able to get Stephen Heymann to drop the case.

1038
01:04:45,395 --> 01:04:48,170
or settle in some rational way.

1039
01:04:48,789 --> 01:04:50,133
and the government refused.

1040
01:04:51,137 --> 01:04:52,050
Interviewer: Why?

1041
01:04:55,315 --> 01:04:58,017
Well, because I think, they wanted to make an example out of Aaron

1042
01:04:58,150 --> 01:05:03,200
and they said the reason why they wouldnt move on,

1043
01:05:03,235 --> 01:05:05,413
requiring a felony conviction and jail time

1044
01:05:05,484 --> 01:05:12,190
was that they wanted to use this case as a case for deterrence.

1045
01:05:12,192 --> 01:05:13,301
They told us that.

1046
01:05:13,395 --> 01:05:14,168
Interviewer: They told you that?

1047
01:05:14,222 --> 01:05:15,000
Yes.

1048
01:05:15,315 --> 01:05:17,324
Interviewer: This was gonna be an example?
Aaron's Father: Yes.

1049
01:05:17,386 --> 01:05:21,870
Interviewer: He was gonna be an example?
Aaron's Father: Yes. Stephen Heymann said that.

1050
01:05:21,955 --> 01:05:23,413
Deterring who?

1051
01:05:23,466 --> 01:05:26,497
Like is a lot of people running around and loggin onto JSTOR

1052
01:05:26,515 --> 01:05:29,680
and downloading the artcles to make a political statement, I mean, who are they deterring.

1053
01:05:29,720 --> 01:05:35,502
It would be easier to understand the Obama Administration's posture

1054
01:05:35,520 --> 01:05:40,853
of supposedly being for deterrence if this had been Adminsitration that, for instance

1055
01:05:40,880 --> 01:05:45,795
prosecuted arguably the biggest economic crime this country has seen in the last 100 yrs

1056
01:05:45,893 --> 01:05:49,370
the crimes that were committed that led to the financial crisis on Wall St.

1057
01:05:50,124 --> 01:05:58,310
When you start deploying the non-controversial idea of deterrence only selectively,

1058
01:05:58,360 --> 01:06:01,964
you stop making a dispassionate analysis of law breaking

1059
01:06:02,000 --> 01:06:06,417
and you started deciding to deploy law enforcement resources

1060
01:06:06,520 --> 01:06:10,151
specifically on the basis of political ideology

1061
01:06:10,275 --> 01:06:15,570
and thats not just un-democratic it is supposed to be un-American.

1062
01:06:19,850 --> 01:06:23,875
Prosecutor Stephen Heymann later reportedly told MIT's outside counsel

1063
01:06:24,150 --> 01:06:27,422
that the straw that broke the camel's back was a press release

1064
01:06:27,466 --> 01:06:31,240
sent out by an organization Swartz founded called "Demand Progress".

1065
01:06:31,333 --> 01:06:33,120
According to the MIT account

1066
01:06:33,191 --> 01:06:35,777
Heymann reacted to the short statement of support

1067
01:06:35,991 --> 01:06:38,186
calling it a wild Internet campaign

1068
01:06:38,302 --> 01:06:44,160
and a foolish move that moved the case from human one-on-one level to an institutional level.

1069
01:06:44,231 --> 01:06:46,622
That was a poisnous combination.

1070
01:06:46,684 --> 01:06:51,137
A prosecutor who didn't want to lose face, who had a political carrer in the offing may be

1071
01:06:51,244 --> 01:06:53,448
and didn't want to have this to come back and haunt them.

1072
01:06:53,502 --> 01:06:57,617
you spent how many tax dollars arresting someone for taking too many books out of the library

1073
01:06:57,898 --> 01:07:00,970
and got your ass handed to you in court. No way!

1074
01:07:00,970 --> 01:07:04,648
I then moved to try and put pressure on MIT in various ways

1075
01:07:04,684 --> 01:07:06,355
to get them to go to the government

1076
01:07:06,391 --> 01:07:10,071
and request the government to stop the prosecution.

1077
01:07:11,217 --> 01:07:13,360
Interviewer: What was MIT's reaction then?

1078
01:07:14,275 --> 01:07:17,520
There doesn't seem to be any reaction from MIT at that point.

1079
01:07:23,110 --> 01:07:25,724
MIT doesn't defend Aaron,

1080
01:07:25,910 --> 01:07:30,497
which to people inside of MIT community seems outrageous,

1081
01:07:30,542 --> 01:07:35,700
because MIT is a place that encourages hacking in the biggest sense of the word.

1082
01:07:35,900 --> 01:07:39,715
At MIT the idea of going and running around in routes and tunnels

1083
01:07:39,751 --> 01:07:43,457
that you weren't allowed to be in, was not only a rite of passage,

1084
01:07:43,733 --> 01:07:45,870
it was part of the MIT tour,

1085
01:07:45,877 --> 01:07:49,952
,nd lock picking was a winter course at MIT.

1086
01:07:50,990 --> 01:07:56,074
They had the moral authority to stop it in its tracks.

1087
01:07:56,186 --> 01:08:00,780
MIT never stood up and took a position of saying to the Feds:

1088
01:08:00,980 --> 01:08:03,902
"Don't do this. We dont want you to do this

1089
01:08:03,937 --> 01:08:07,280
you are over reacting, this is too strong" , that I'm aware of.

1090
01:08:08,800 --> 01:08:12,506
They acted kind of like any corporation would.

1091
01:08:12,551 --> 01:08:15,680
They helped the government and they didn't help us,

1092
01:08:15,680 --> 01:08:21,418
unless they felt that they had to and they never tried to stop it.

1093
01:08:22,442 --> 01:08:25,216
MIT declined repeated requests to comment.

1094
01:08:25,216 --> 01:08:30,208
but they later released a report saying that they attempted to maintain a position of neutrality

1095
01:08:30,208 --> 01:08:35,520
and believed Heymann and US Attorney's office did not care what MIT thought or said about the case.

1096
01:08:35,861 --> 01:08:41,472
MIT's behaviour seemed really at odds with the MIT ethos.

1097
01:08:42,069 --> 01:08:47,274
You could argue that MIT turned a blind eye and that was okay for them to do

1098
01:08:47,445 --> 01:08:52,757
but taking that stance, taking that neutral stance in itself was taking a pro-prosecutor stance.

1099
01:08:52,757 --> 01:08:58,922
If you look at Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniack, they started by selling a bluebox

1100
01:08:58,922 --> 01:09:01,610
which was a thing designed to defraud the phone company.

1101
01:09:01,710 --> 01:09:04,506
If you look at Bill Gates and Paul Allen,

1102
01:09:04,551 --> 01:09:08,728
they initially started their buisness by using computer time at Harvard

1103
01:09:08,826 --> 01:09:11,093
which was pretty clearly against the rules.

1104
01:09:11,140 --> 01:09:13,431
Difference between Aaron and people that I just mentioned

1105
01:09:13,466 --> 01:09:16,690
is that Aaron wanted to make the world a better place, he didn't want to just make money.

1106
01:09:19,244 --> 01:09:23,300
Swartz continues to be outspoken on variety of Internet Issues.

1107
01:09:23,440 --> 01:09:28,590
You know  the reason Internet works is because of the competitive marketplace of ideas.

1108
01:09:28,590 --> 01:09:31,804
and what we need to be focussing on is getting more information about our government

1109
01:09:31,848 --> 01:09:34,540
more accessability, more discussion, more debate.

1110
01:09:34,741 --> 01:09:38,261
aut instead it seems, what Congress is foccussed on is shutting the things down,

1111
01:09:38,515 --> 01:09:40,426
Aaron thought that he could change the world

1112
01:09:40,488 --> 01:09:44,071
just by explaining the world very clearly to people.

1113
01:09:44,346 --> 01:09:48,920
FLAME can literally control your computer and make it spy on you.

1114
01:09:48,960 --> 01:09:52,020
Welcome Aaron, good to have you back on the show here.

1115
01:09:52,060 --> 01:09:54,106
You know, just like spies used to, in olden days,

1116
01:09:54,370 --> 01:09:56,373
put microphones and tap what people are saying,

1117
01:09:56,373 --> 01:09:58,784
now they are using computers to do the same things.

1118
01:09:59,253 --> 01:10:01,621
Swartz's political activity continues,

1119
01:10:01,777 --> 01:10:06,840
his attention turning to a bill moving through Congress designed to curb online piracy.

1120
01:10:06,848 --> 01:10:08,896
It was called SOPA.

1121
01:10:09,200 --> 01:10:12,951
Activists like Peter Eckersley saw it as an enormous over reach,

1122
01:10:13,084 --> 01:10:15,884
threatening the technical integrity of Internet itself.

1123
01:10:15,893 --> 01:10:18,218
In one of the first things I did was to call Aaron,

1124
01:10:18,240 --> 01:10:21,900
and I said can we do a big online campaign against this,

1125
01:10:21,955 --> 01:10:24,040
This isn't a bill about copyright,

1126
01:10:25,109 --> 01:10:25,941
It's not?

1127
01:10:26,355 --> 01:10:29,930
No, he said. It's a bill about the freedom to connect.

1128
01:10:30,533 --> 01:10:31,671
Now I was listening.

1129
01:10:32,177 --> 01:10:35,608
And he thought about it for a while and then said yes,

1130
01:10:35,715 --> 01:10:38,008
and he went and founded Demand Progress.

1131
01:10:38,400 --> 01:10:40,693
Demand Progress in an online activism organization.

1132
01:10:40,720 --> 01:10:44,240
We got around a million and half member now.

1133
01:10:44,355 --> 01:10:47,182
But started in the fall on 2010.

1134
01:10:47,297 --> 01:10:49,306
Aaron was one of the most prominent people

1135
01:10:49,342 --> 01:10:51,937
in a community of people who helped lead organizing

1136
01:10:52,053 --> 01:10:55,330
around social justice issues at the federal level in this country.

1137
01:10:55,760 --> 01:11:01,440
SOPA was the bill that was intended to curtail online piracy of music and movies,

1138
01:11:01,480 --> 01:11:04,897
but what it did was basically take a sledge hammer

1139
01:11:04,924 --> 01:11:07,060
to a problem that needed a scalpel.

1140
01:11:07,226 --> 01:11:11,795
If passed the law would allow a company to cut off finances to entire websites

1141
01:11:11,928 --> 01:11:16,650
without due process or even to force Google to exclude their links

1142
01:11:16,949 --> 01:11:20,448
all they needed was a single claim of copyright infringment.

1143
01:11:20,808 --> 01:11:23,884
It pitted the titans of traditional media against the new

1144
01:11:23,928 --> 01:11:26,720
and now far more sophisticated remix culture.

1145
01:11:27,160 --> 01:11:30,222
It makes everyone who runs a website into a policeman

1146
01:11:30,382 --> 01:11:33,013
and if they don't do their job of making sure that nobody on their site

1147
01:11:33,066 --> 01:11:35,422
uses it for anything that even potentially illegal

1148
01:11:35,653 --> 01:11:38,480
the entire site could get shutdown without even so much as a trial.

1149
01:11:38,622 --> 01:11:43,500
This was over the top. I mean, this was a catostrophy.

1150
01:11:43,706 --> 01:11:49,310
This bill poses a serious threat to speech and civil liberties

1151
01:11:49,368 --> 01:11:51,570
for all who use the Internet.

1152
01:11:51,626 --> 01:11:55,848
Only handful of us who said: "Look we are not for piracy either

1153
01:11:56,293 --> 01:11:58,906
but it makes no sense to destory the architecture of the Internet,

1154
01:11:59,084 --> 01:12:03,466
the domian name system and so much that makes it free and open

1155
01:12:03,591 --> 01:12:06,080
in the name of fighting piracy

1156
01:12:06,142 --> 01:12:07,591
and Aaron got that right away.

1157
01:12:07,680 --> 01:12:09,617
The freedoms guaranteed in our constitution,

1158
01:12:09,653 --> 01:12:13,840
freedoms our country has been built on would be suddenly deleted.

1159
01:12:14,124 --> 01:12:16,728
New technology instead of bringing us greater freedom

1160
01:12:16,942 --> 01:12:20,130
would have snuffed out fundamental rights we had always taken for granted.

1161
01:12:21,422 --> 01:12:26,850
and I realized that day talking to Peter, that I couldn't let that happen.

1162
01:12:28,497 --> 01:12:33,360
When SOPA was introduced in October 2011 it was considered inevitable

1163
01:12:33,422 --> 01:12:37,350
our strategy when it first came out was to hopefully slow the bill down

1164
01:12:37,520 --> 01:12:39,573
maybe weaken it a little bit,

1165
01:12:39,600 --> 01:12:44,355
but even we didn't think that we would be able to stop this bill.

1166
01:12:45,920 --> 01:12:49,431
Having worked in Washington what you learn is that

1167
01:12:49,982 --> 01:12:53,377
typically in Washington the legislative fights

1168
01:12:53,644 --> 01:12:57,760
are fights between different sets of corporate money interests.

1169
01:12:58,000 --> 01:13:00,613
and all duking it out to pass legislations

1170
01:13:00,650 --> 01:13:04,995
and the fights that are the closest are when you have one set of corporate interest

1171
01:13:05,386 --> 01:13:08,130
against another set of corporate interests and they are financially

1172
01:13:08,168 --> 01:13:11,160
equally matched in terms of campaign contributions and lobbying.

1173
01:13:11,168 --> 01:13:12,661
Those are the closest ones.

1174
01:13:13,013 --> 01:13:15,395
The ones that aren't even fights, typically,

1175
01:13:15,528 --> 01:13:18,440
are ones where all the money is on one side

1176
01:13:18,480 --> 01:13:20,346
all the corporations are on one side,

1177
01:13:20,391 --> 01:13:22,850
and its just millions of people are on the other side.

1178
01:13:25,141 --> 01:13:30,560
I haven't seen anything like PIPA and SOPA in all my time in public service,

1179
01:13:31,413 --> 01:13:36,832
there were more than 40 United States senators on that bill as co-sponsers.

1180
01:13:37,557 --> 01:13:43,744
so there were already a long long way to getting 60 votes to clear all the procedural hoops.

1181
01:13:44,682 --> 01:13:48,010
Even I began to doubt myself. It was a rough period.

1182
01:13:48,010 --> 01:13:51,697
Swartz and Demand Progress were able to marshall enormous support

1183
01:13:52,106 --> 01:13:56,168
using traditional outrage combined with commonly used Voice over IP

1184
01:13:56,370 --> 01:13:59,182
to make it very easy for people to call Congress.

1185
01:13:59,850 --> 01:14:03,857
I've never met anybody else who was able to operate at his level,

1186
01:14:03,928 --> 01:14:08,320
both on the technological side and on the campaign strategy side.

1187
01:14:08,453 --> 01:14:12,577
Millions of people contacted Congress and signed anti-SOPA petitions.

1188
01:14:13,048 --> 01:14:14,970
Congress was caught off guard.

1189
01:14:15,660 --> 01:14:20,231
There was just something about watching those clueless member of Congress debate the bill,

1190
01:14:20,680 --> 01:14:22,791
watching them insist they could regulate the Internet

1191
01:14:22,835 --> 01:14:24,951
and a bunch of nerds couldn't possibly stop them.

1192
01:14:25,093 --> 01:14:26,071
I'm not a nerd.

1193
01:14:26,133 --> 01:14:27,640
I am just not enough of a nerd.

1194
01:14:27,688 --> 01:14:30,737
...maybe we ought to ask some nerds what this thing really does.

1195
01:14:30,869 --> 01:14:32,896
Let's have hearing, bring in the nerds.

1196
01:14:35,617 --> 01:14:36,390
Really?

1197
01:14:39,760 --> 01:14:41,031
Nerds?

1198
01:14:42,088 --> 01:14:45,546
You know, I think actually the word you are looking for is "Experts".

1199
01:14:46,698 --> 01:14:53,290
to enlighten you, so your laws won't backfire, break the Internet.

1200
01:14:53,351 --> 01:14:56,702
We used the term Geek, but we are allowed to use that because we are geeks.

1201
01:14:56,800 --> 01:15:01,880
The fact that it got as far as it did without them talking to any technical experts

1202
01:15:01,888 --> 01:15:04,704
reflects the fact that there is a problem in this town.

1203
01:15:04,737 --> 01:15:10,115
I'm looking for somebody to come before this body and testify in a hearing

1204
01:15:10,248 --> 01:15:12,080
and say this is why they are wrong.

1205
01:15:12,320 --> 01:15:15,484
There used to be an office that provided Science and Technology advice

1206
01:15:15,546 --> 01:15:19,480
and members could go to them and say "Help me understand XYZ".

1207
01:15:19,488 --> 01:15:22,069
and Gingrich killed it. He said it was waste of money.

1208
01:15:22,069 --> 01:15:25,717
Ever since then Congress has plunged into the dark ages.

1209
01:15:26,097 --> 01:15:29,850
I don't think anybody thought that SOPA could be beaten, including Aaron.

1210
01:15:30,222 --> 01:15:34,053
He knew it was worth trying but it doesn't seem winnable.

1211
01:15:34,506 --> 01:15:37,130
And I remember, maybe a few months later, I remember him

1212
01:15:37,146 --> 01:15:40,030
just turning to me and being like "I think we might win this"

1213
01:15:40,394 --> 01:15:42,250
and I was like "That would be amazing"

1214
01:15:44,500 --> 01:15:50,222
Calls to Congress contiune when Domain hosting site GoDaddy becomes a supporter of the bill.

1215
01:15:50,248 --> 01:15:54,920
tens of thousands of users transfer their Domain Names in protest.

1216
01:15:55,351 --> 01:15:59,650
Within a week, a humbled GoDaddy reverses their position on SOPA.

1217
01:15:59,650 --> 01:16:04,453
About when the Congress people that supported these

1218
01:16:04,471 --> 01:16:08,320
the record and movie industries realize that there was this backlash

1219
01:16:08,346 --> 01:16:10,364
they kind of scaled the bill back a little bit,

1220
01:16:10,430 --> 01:16:11,644
you could see the curve happening.

1221
01:16:11,688 --> 01:16:15,890
you could see that our arguments were starting to resonate.

1222
01:16:15,946 --> 01:16:18,980
It was like Aaron had been like striking a match and he was being blown out...

1223
01:16:18,986 --> 01:16:20,864
striking another one and being blown out and finally

1224
01:16:21,110 --> 01:16:24,071
he managed to catch enough kindling that the flame actually caught

1225
01:16:24,789 --> 01:16:26,873
and then they turned into this roaring blaze.

1226
01:16:27,029 --> 01:16:32,042
On January 16th, 2012, the White House issued a statement saying

1227
01:16:32,042 --> 01:16:33,706
they didn't support the bill.

1228
01:16:34,048 --> 01:16:35,776
and then this happened.

1229
01:16:36,180 --> 01:16:39,866
I'm a big believer that we should be dealing with issues of piracy

1230
01:16:39,893 --> 01:16:42,040
and we should deal with them in a serious way

1231
01:16:42,560 --> 01:16:44,337
but this bill is not the right bill.

1232
01:16:44,453 --> 01:16:48,930
When Jimmy Wales put his support towards blacking out Wikipedia

1233
01:16:49,057 --> 01:16:52,666
the number 5 most popular website in the world

1234
01:16:52,773 --> 01:16:58,680
this is a website 7% of all of the clicks on anywhere on the Internet.

1235
01:16:58,720 --> 01:17:00,110
Wikipedia went black,

1236
01:17:00,266 --> 01:17:01,580
Reddit went black,

1237
01:17:01,724 --> 01:17:02,970
Craigslist went black,

1238
01:17:03,306 --> 01:17:06,110
phonelines on Capitol Hill flat out melted,

1239
01:17:06,280 --> 01:17:09,395
members of Congress started rushing to issue statements

1240
01:17:09,422 --> 01:17:12,960
retracting their support for the bill, that they were promoting just a couple of days ago.

1241
01:17:13,600 --> 01:17:17,973
Within 24 hours the number of oponents of SOPA in Congress

1242
01:17:18,017 --> 01:17:19,475
went from this...

1243
01:17:19,546 --> 01:17:21,130
...to this.

1244
01:17:22,711 --> 01:17:27,697
To see Congressmen and Senators slowly flipside

1245
01:17:27,733 --> 01:17:31,244
throughout the day of blackout was pretty unbeliveable,

1246
01:17:31,271 --> 01:17:34,080
there was like a hundered representatives swing,

1247
01:17:34,506 --> 01:17:38,581
And that was when, as hard as it was for me to believe after all this

1248
01:17:38,581 --> 01:17:39,925
We had won!

1249
01:17:40,690 --> 01:17:42,426
The thing everyone said was impossible,

1250
01:17:42,462 --> 01:17:48,540
that some of the biggest companies in the world had written of as kind of a pipe dream had happened.

1251
01:17:48,702 --> 01:17:50,030
We did it!

1252
01:17:50,942 --> 01:17:52,275
We won!

1253
01:17:55,777 --> 01:17:58,773
This is a historic week in Internet politics, maybe American politics.

1254
01:17:58,826 --> 01:18:02,488
The thing that we heard from people in Washington D.C,

1255
01:18:02,533 --> 01:18:06,970
from staffers on Capitol Hill was, they recieved more e-mails and more phone calls

1256
01:18:06,970 --> 01:18:10,462
on SOPA blackout day than they ever recieved about anything.

1257
01:18:10,581 --> 01:18:12,928
I think that was an extremenly exciting moment,

1258
01:18:12,928 --> 01:18:17,770
this was the moment when the Internet had grown up politically.

1259
01:18:17,770 --> 01:18:21,269
It was exhilarating because its hard to believe that it actually happened.

1260
01:18:21,351 --> 01:18:25,470
It's hard to believe, a bill with so much financial power behind it

1261
01:18:25,893 --> 01:18:29,244
didn't simply sail through the Congress.

1262
01:18:29,376 --> 01:18:32,298
and not only did it not sail through, it didn't pass at all.

1263
01:18:34,060 --> 01:18:36,293
It's easy sometimes to feel like you are powerless

1264
01:18:36,311 --> 01:18:39,060
like, when you come out on the streets and you march and you yell,

1265
01:18:39,075 --> 01:18:40,435
and nobody hears you.

1266
01:18:40,462 --> 01:18:43,057
But I'm here to tell you today: You are powerfull!

1267
01:18:46,053 --> 01:18:48,550
Maybe sometimes you feel like you not being listened to,

1268
01:18:48,577 --> 01:18:51,860
but I'm here to tell you that you are, that you are being listened to,

1269
01:18:51,870 --> 01:18:56,405
You are making a difference. You can stop this bill if you dont stop fighting.

1270
01:18:59,968 --> 01:19:02,404
Stop PIPA! Stop SOPA!

1271
01:19:04,444 --> 01:19:07,370
Some of the biggest Internet companies, to put it frankly, would benefit

1272
01:19:07,600 --> 01:19:11,160
from a world in which the little competitors could get censored.

1273
01:19:12,524 --> 01:19:14,040
We can't let that happen.

1274
01:19:15,114 --> 01:19:19,125
For him it was more important to be sure that you made a small change

1275
01:19:19,582 --> 01:19:22,640
than to play a small part in a big change.

1276
01:19:23,377 --> 01:19:26,990
But SOPA was like playing a major part in a major change.

1277
01:19:27,351 --> 01:19:30,008
and so for him it was kind of like his proof of concept.

1278
01:19:30,862 --> 01:19:34,540
Okay, you know, what I want to do with my life is to change the world.

1279
01:19:34,826 --> 01:19:40,074
I think about it in this really scientific way of measuring my impact

1280
01:19:40,186 --> 01:19:42,310
and this shows that it is possible

1281
01:19:42,528 --> 01:19:45,472
right, the thing that I want to do with my life is possible.

1282
01:19:46,044 --> 01:19:50,860
I have proved that I can do it. That I, Aaron Swartz, could change the world.

1283
01:19:50,869 --> 01:19:56,352
For a guy who never really thought he had done much

1284
01:19:56,672 --> 01:19:57,888
which was Aaron.

1285
01:19:59,381 --> 01:20:02,517
it was one of the few moments where you could really see

1286
01:20:03,925 --> 01:20:06,848
that he felt like he had done something good.

1287
01:20:06,890 --> 01:20:11,392
feeling like here is his maybe one and only victory lap.

1288
01:20:13,717 --> 01:20:16,341
Everyone said that there was on way could we stop SOPA.

1289
01:20:16,356 --> 01:20:22,025
We stopped it. This are 3 outrageously good victories and the year isn't over yet.

1290
01:20:22,025 --> 01:20:25,194
I mean, if there is a time to be positive it's now.

1291
01:20:27,200 --> 01:20:29,845
He wins SOPA a year after he is arrested.

1292
01:20:30,016 --> 01:20:31,978
it's not an unambigously happy moment.

1293
01:20:31,978 --> 01:20:33,344
There is a lot going on.

1294
01:20:33,344 --> 01:20:40,149
He is so atuned towards participating in the political process, you can't stop him.

1295
01:20:40,337 --> 01:20:44,350
The list of organizations Swartz founded or co-founded is enourmous.

1296
01:20:44,352 --> 01:20:48,256
and years before Edward Snowden would expose widespread Internet surveillance

1297
01:20:48,448 --> 01:20:50,737
Swartz was already concerned.

1298
01:20:50,737 --> 01:20:50,858
It is shocking to think that accountability is so lax
Swartz was already concerned.

1299
01:20:50,858 --> 01:20:54,622
It is shocking to think that accountability is so lax

1300
01:20:55,290 --> 01:20:57,111
that they don't even have basic statistics

1301
01:20:57,137 --> 01:20:59,110
about how big this spying programme is.

1302
01:20:59,200 --> 01:21:03,594
The answer is "We are spying on so many people we can't possibly even count them."

1303
01:21:03,594 --> 01:21:05,749
then thats an awful lot of people.

1304
01:21:06,602 --> 01:21:10,058
One thing that they said was "Look, we know number of telephones we are spying on,

1305
01:21:10,058 --> 01:21:12,868
we dont know exactly how many real people that corresponds to."

1306
01:21:13,210 --> 01:21:15,349
but they came back and said we can't give you a number at all.

1307
01:21:15,386 --> 01:21:18,800
Thats pretty... I mean, that's scary is what it is.

1308
01:21:18,888 --> 01:21:25,730
And they put incredible pressure on him, took away .. all of the money he had made.

1309
01:21:27,500 --> 01:21:29,807
they threatened to take away his physical freedom.

1310
01:21:30,057 --> 01:21:34,293
Why did they do it? Why are they going after whistleblowers?

1311
01:21:34,540 --> 01:21:38,337
Why are they going after people who tell the truth

1312
01:21:38,650 --> 01:21:42,986
about all sorts of things from the banks

1313
01:21:43,066 --> 01:21:46,190
to war, to just sort of government transparency.

1314
01:21:46,447 --> 01:21:51,466
So secrecy serves those who are already in power, and we are living in an era of secrecy..

1315
01:21:51,620 --> 01:21:54,408
That coincides with an era where the government is doing

1316
01:21:54,480 --> 01:21:58,293
and also a lot of things that are probably illegal and unconstitutional.

1317
01:21:58,595 --> 01:22:01,520
So, those two things are not coincidences

1318
01:22:01,530 --> 01:22:04,275
It's very clear that this technology has been developed

1319
01:22:04,311 --> 01:22:07,351
not for small countries overseas, but right here

1320
01:22:07,440 --> 01:22:09,920
for the use in United States by the US government.

1321
01:22:09,920 --> 01:22:13,724
The problem with the spying programme is that its sort of long, slow expansion

1322
01:22:13,720 --> 01:22:16,622
you kknow, going back to the Nixon Administration.

1323
01:22:16,890 --> 01:22:19,920
Obviosly it became big after 9/11 under George W. Bush

1324
01:22:19,973 --> 01:22:21,768
and Obama has continued to expand it

1325
01:22:21,848 --> 01:22:23,866
the problems have slowly grown worse and worse

1326
01:22:23,991 --> 01:22:26,515
but there has been this moment you can point to and say

1327
01:22:26,551 --> 01:22:30,970
"Okay we need to galvanize opposition today because today is when it matters."

1328
01:22:32,230 --> 01:22:34,888
The prosecution, in my estimation, of Aaron Swartz

1329
01:22:34,977 --> 01:22:41,230
was about sending a particular laser like message to a group of people

1330
01:22:41,237 --> 01:22:45,504
that the Obama Administration sees as politically threatening

1331
01:22:47,422 --> 01:22:53,780
and that is the essentially the hacker, the information and the democracy activist community.

1332
01:22:54,030 --> 01:22:57,306
and the message that the Obama Administration wanted to send

1333
01:22:57,333 --> 01:23:00,800
to that particular community was in my estimation

1334
01:23:00,853 --> 01:23:04,808
"we know you have the ability to make trouble for the establishment

1335
01:23:06,910 --> 01:23:08,862
and so were going to try to make an example out of Aaron Swartz

1336
01:23:08,897 --> 01:23:13,600
to scare as many of you as possible into not making that trouble."

1337
01:23:13,706 --> 01:23:14,817
And the governement said

1338
01:23:14,888 --> 01:23:20,270
"oh, the legal opinions we are using to legalize the spying programme are also classified

1339
01:23:20,355 --> 01:23:23,448
so we can't even tell you which laws we are using to spy on you."

1340
01:23:23,490 --> 01:23:26,533
Everytime they can say "Oh this is another instance of cyber war"

1341
01:23:26,560 --> 01:23:28,440
"the cyber criminals are attacking us agian"

1342
01:23:28,462 --> 01:23:30,360
"we are all in danger, we are all under threat".

1343
01:23:30,435 --> 01:23:33,970
they use those as an excuse to push through more and more dangerous laws.

1344
01:23:37,320 --> 01:23:40,897
Interviewer: Personally, how do you feel the fight is going?

1345
01:23:41,004 --> 01:23:42,890
It's up to you.

1346
01:23:47,635 --> 01:23:52,195
You know, there are sort of these two polarizing prespectives

1347
01:23:52,320 --> 01:23:55,457
Everything is great, Internet has created all this freedom and liberty,

1348
01:23:55,457 --> 01:23:57,040
and everythings gonna be fantastic.

1349
01:23:57,084 --> 01:23:58,506
or everything is terrible.

1350
01:23:58,542 --> 01:24:00,471
Internet has created all these tools for cracking down

1351
01:24:00,497 --> 01:24:03,370
and spying and, you know, controlling what we say.

1352
01:24:03,484 --> 01:24:05,310
and I think these both are true.

1353
01:24:06,293 --> 01:24:10,069
the Internet has done both and both are kind of amazing and astonishing

1354
01:24:10,097 --> 01:24:13,102
and which one will win out in the long run is up to us.

1355
01:24:13,160 --> 01:24:15,635
It doesn't make sense to say "Oh one is doing better than the other"

1356
01:24:15,653 --> 01:24:17,620
you know, they are both true.

1357
01:24:17,728 --> 01:24:21,461
and its up to us which one we emphasize and which one we take advantage of

1358
01:24:21,711 --> 01:24:23,701
because they are both there and they are always gonna be there.

1359
01:24:29,184 --> 01:24:34,901
On September 12th, 2012, Federal prosecutors filed a superseeding indictment against Swartz

1360
01:24:34,965 --> 01:24:40,256
adding additional counts of wire fraud, unauthorized access to a computer and Computer Fraud.

1361
01:24:40,506 --> 01:24:45,397
Now instead of 4 felony counts Swartz was facing 13.

1362
01:24:45,760 --> 01:24:48,576
The prosecution leverage had dramatically increased

1363
01:24:48,826 --> 01:24:51,797
as did Swartz's potential jail time and fines.

1364
01:24:52,047 --> 01:24:55,488
They filed a seperate indictment to add more charges

1365
01:24:55,738 --> 01:25:01,589
and they had a theory about why this conduct constituted a number of federal crimes

1366
01:25:01,839 --> 01:25:05,749
and that a very significant sentence could attach to it under the law.

1367
01:25:07,048 --> 01:25:10,515
That theory and much of the prosecution case agianst Swartz

1368
01:25:10,640 --> 01:25:13,857
involved a law created originally in 1986.

1369
01:25:14,044 --> 01:25:16,500
it is called "Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.".

1370
01:25:16,885 --> 01:25:19,914
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was inspired by the movie "War Games"

1371
01:25:19,982 --> 01:25:21,660
with Mathew Brodrick, which was a great movie,

1372
01:25:23,320 --> 01:25:27,884
In this movie, a kid get the ability through the magic of computer networks

1373
01:25:27,911 --> 01:25:30,257
to, like, launch a nuclear attack.

1374
01:25:33,920 --> 01:25:37,706
Now that's not actually possible and certainly wasn't possible in the 80s

1375
01:25:37,700 --> 01:25:40,613
but apparently this movie scared Congress enough

1376
01:25:40,702 --> 01:25:44,960
to pass the original Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

1377
01:25:45,130 --> 01:25:47,093
This is a law that is behind the times

1378
01:25:47,120 --> 01:25:53,130
for example it penalises a Terms of Service kind of arrangements

1379
01:25:53,130 --> 01:25:56,906
and something like eHarmony or match.com

1380
01:25:56,995 --> 01:26:01,400
and somebody sort of inflates their own personal characteristic

1381
01:26:01,431 --> 01:26:05,840
and all of a sudden depending on the jurisdiction and prosecutor they

1382
01:26:05,952 --> 01:26:08,106
could be in whole host of troubles.

1383
01:26:08,120 --> 01:26:10,389
We all know what Terms of Use are.

1384
01:26:10,600 --> 01:26:13,555
Most people don't read them, but not abiding by their terms

1385
01:26:13,617 --> 01:26:16,300
could mean you are committing a felony.

1386
01:26:16,426 --> 01:26:20,458
The website terms of service often say things like "Be nice to each other" or

1387
01:26:20,708 --> 01:26:22,510
"dont do anything that's improper".

1388
01:26:22,604 --> 01:26:27,600
The idea that criminal law has anything to say about these kinds of violations

1389
01:26:27,697 --> 01:26:29,840
I think strikes most people as crazy.

1390
01:26:30,586 --> 01:26:33,130
The examples even get even more crazy.

1391
01:26:33,664 --> 01:26:36,202
Untill it was changed in March, 2013.

1392
01:26:36,202 --> 01:26:42,645
the Terms of Use on the website of Seventeen magzine said you had to be 18 in order to read it.

1393
01:26:42,880 --> 01:26:46,720
I would say that the way CFAA has been interpreted by Justice Department

1394
01:26:46,764 --> 01:26:49,066
we are all probabaly breaking the law.

1395
01:26:49,600 --> 01:26:55,082
Vague and prone to misuse CFAA has become "one size, fits all" hammer

1396
01:26:55,111 --> 01:26:57,790
for a wide range of computer related disputes.

1397
01:26:57,875 --> 01:27:02,737
Though not the only factor in his case, 11 of 13 charges against Swartz

1398
01:27:02,826 --> 01:27:05,111
involved the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

1399
01:27:07,351 --> 01:27:11,760
The question "Why?" hangs over much of the story of Aaron Swartz.

1400
01:27:11,946 --> 01:27:15,626
just what was motivating the goverment and what their case would have been

1401
01:27:16,204 --> 01:27:19,440
The Dept. of Justice declined requests for answers.

1402
01:27:19,637 --> 01:27:23,285
but Prof. Orin Kerr is a former prosecutor who has studied the case.

1403
01:27:23,493 --> 01:27:27,937
I think I come about this case from a different direction than other people on a number of reasons.

1404
01:27:28,277 --> 01:27:32,437
I was a federal prosecutor at the justice department for 3 yrs before I started teaching.

1405
01:27:32,613 --> 01:27:34,640
the government came forward with an indictment

1406
01:27:34,684 --> 01:27:37,920
based on what crimes they thought were committed

1407
01:27:37,920 --> 01:27:41,137
just as a purely lawyers matter, looking at the precedents

1408
01:27:41,164 --> 01:27:43,200
lookings at the statues, looking at history,

1409
01:27:43,240 --> 01:27:45,484
looking at the cases that are out there so far

1410
01:27:45,697 --> 01:27:48,370
I think it was a fair indictment based on that.

1411
01:27:49,120 --> 01:27:51,573
You can debate whether they should have charged this case.

1412
01:27:51,573 --> 01:27:52,768
There is just a lot of disagreement.

1413
01:27:52,874 --> 01:27:56,992
Some people are on Open Access side, some people are not.

1414
01:27:57,342 --> 01:28:03,260
I think the govt took Swartz's Guerilla Open Access Manifesto very seriously

1415
01:28:03,502 --> 01:28:09,810
and I think they saw him as somebody who was committed, as a moral imperative,

1416
01:28:09,813 --> 01:28:15,488
to breaking the law to overcome the law that Swartz saw as unjust

1417
01:28:15,488 --> 01:28:20,821
and in a democracy if you think a law is unjust there are ways of changing that law

1418
01:28:20,821 --> 01:28:24,725
there is, going to congress, as Swartz did so masterfully with SOPA

1419
01:28:24,725 --> 01:28:28,458
or you can violate that law in order to nullify that law.

1420
01:28:28,458 --> 01:28:32,512
And I think what was driving the prosecution was the sense

1421
01:28:32,762 --> 01:28:39,594
that Swartz was committed not just to breaking the law but really making sure that law was nullified.

1422
01:28:39,768 --> 01:28:43,768
That everyone would have have access to the database in a way that

1423
01:28:43,804 --> 01:28:47,066
you couldn't put the toothpaste back into the tube

1424
01:28:47,200 --> 01:28:50,400
it would be done and Swartz's side would win.

1425
01:28:52,650 --> 01:28:55,893
There is a big disagreement in society as to whether that is an unjust law

1426
01:28:56,177 --> 01:29:00,130
and ultimately thats a decision for American people to make working through Congress.

1427
01:29:00,437 --> 01:29:03,680
and than the second problem is I think, we are still trying to figure out

1428
01:29:03,724 --> 01:29:07,600
what's the line between less serious offenses and more serious offenses.

1429
01:29:07,940 --> 01:29:12,142
We are now entering that different environment of computers and computer misuse

1430
01:29:12,850 --> 01:29:16,737
and we don't yet have a really strong sense of exactly what these lines are

1431
01:29:16,782 --> 01:29:18,440
because we are just woking that out.

1432
01:29:19,208 --> 01:29:22,088
This is a poor use of prosecutorial discretion.

1433
01:29:22,204 --> 01:29:28,400
The hammer that the Justice Dept has to scare people with just gets bigger and bigger and bigger

1434
01:29:28,453 --> 01:29:32,970
and so most people, you know, can't role dice with your life like that

1435
01:29:33,004 --> 01:29:35,660
Should we tap somebody's phone? Should we film them?

1436
01:29:35,688 --> 01:29:39,320
Should we turn somebody and get them to testify against these other people?

1437
01:29:39,754 --> 01:29:42,421
That's how federal agents and prosecutors think.

1438
01:29:42,421 --> 01:29:45,194
They build cases, they make cases.

1439
01:29:46,835 --> 01:29:49,964
Swartz was caught in the gears of brutal criminal justice system

1440
01:29:50,208 --> 01:29:51,829
that could not turn back.

1441
01:29:51,875 --> 01:29:56,880
A machine that has made America the country with the highest rate of incarceration in the world.

1442
01:29:57,084 --> 01:30:02,770
We have in this country allowed ourselves to be captured by the politics of fear and anger

1443
01:30:02,773 --> 01:30:08,021
and anything we are afraid of, like the future of the Internet and access

1444
01:30:08,746 --> 01:30:11,925
and anything we are angry about instinctively creates

1445
01:30:11,991 --> 01:30:13,580
a criminal justice intervention.

1446
01:30:13,820 --> 01:30:17,182
and we have used jail, prison and punishment

1447
01:30:17,262 --> 01:30:21,173
to resolve whole host of problems that historically were never seen 

1448
01:30:21,208 --> 01:30:22,740
as criminal justice problem.

1449
01:30:22,906 --> 01:30:26,702
The impulse to threaten, indict, prosecute

1450
01:30:26,844 --> 01:30:32,780
which is part of what has created this debate and contorversy over online access and information on the Internet.

1451
01:30:33,002 --> 01:30:35,477
It's very consistent with what we have seen in other areas

1452
01:30:35,511 --> 01:30:40,284
one difference is people are usually targeted and victimized by

1453
01:30:40,328 --> 01:30:44,951
these kinds of criminal and carceral responses are typically poor and minority.

1454
01:30:47,440 --> 01:30:50,382
Swartz's isolation from friends and family increased.

1455
01:30:50,640 --> 01:30:53,155
He had basically stopped working on anything else.

1456
01:30:53,297 --> 01:30:56,740
and the case was in fact taking over his whole life.

1457
01:30:56,888 --> 01:31:00,053
One of Aaron's lawyers apparently told the prosecutors that

1458
01:31:00,053 --> 01:31:02,702
he was emotionally vulnerable.

1459
01:31:03,048 --> 01:31:06,830
and that was something they really needed to keep in mind, so that.. they knew that.

1460
01:31:06,906 --> 01:31:09,271
It was weighing on him very heavily

1461
01:31:09,324 --> 01:31:15,260
he did not like having his actions and movements restricted in any way

1462
01:31:15,514 --> 01:31:20,640
and threat of jail, which they pounded him with a lot

1463
01:31:22,097 --> 01:31:23,710
was terrifying to him.

1464
01:31:23,768 --> 01:31:26,871
Completley exhausted his financial resources and

1465
01:31:27,537 --> 01:31:32,030
it cost us a lot of money also and he raised a substantial amount of money.

1466
01:31:32,280 --> 01:31:35,680
So, you know, it was in millions of dollars.

1467
01:31:36,378 --> 01:31:38,197
Interviewer: The legal defence?
Aaron's Father: Yes.

1468
01:31:38,447 --> 01:31:40,288
Interviewer: Was it millions?
Aaron's Father: Yes.

1469
01:31:41,173 --> 01:31:44,950
Yea, I think he didn't want to be a burden to people. I think that was a factor

1470
01:31:45,207 --> 01:31:49,546
Like I have my normal life, and I have this shitty thing I have to deal with.

1471
01:31:49,582 --> 01:31:52,890
and I try to keep the two of them as seperate as possible.

1472
01:31:53,146 --> 01:31:57,184
But they were just begining to blur together and everything was becoming shitty.

1473
01:31:58,888 --> 01:32:02,410
Swartz faced a tough choice that was only getting tougher.

1474
01:32:02,533 --> 01:32:06,740
To admit guilt and move on with your life or do you fight a broken system.

1475
01:32:06,991 --> 01:32:12,608
with his legal case the answer was simple. He rejects the final plea deal and a trial date is set.

1476
01:32:12,728 --> 01:32:16,100
Aaron was resolute that he didn't want to knuckle under

1477
01:32:16,142 --> 01:32:18,810
and accept something that he didn't believe was fair

1478
01:32:19,066 --> 01:32:20,949
but I also think that he was scared.

1479
01:32:32,789 --> 01:32:34,325
I don't think they would have convicted Aaron.

1480
01:32:34,382 --> 01:32:38,540
I think we would have walked him out of that courthouse and I would have given him a big hug

1481
01:32:38,613 --> 01:32:42,940
and we would have walked across that little river in Boston and gone and had a couple of beers.

1482
01:32:46,044 --> 01:32:47,653
I really thought that we were right.

1483
01:32:47,751 --> 01:32:49,386
I thought we were gonna win the case.

1484
01:32:49,422 --> 01:32:51,130
I thought we could win the case.

1485
01:32:51,253 --> 01:32:55,840
He didn't talk about it very much but you could see the enourmous pain he was going through.

1486
01:33:01,162 --> 01:33:06,624
No time in his childhood did Aaron have any severe mood swings, or like depressive episodes

1487
01:33:06,624 --> 01:33:10,592
or anything that I would describe to as severe depression.

1488
01:33:10,842 --> 01:33:13,322
And it;s possible you know he was depressed, people get depressed

1489
01:33:18,702 --> 01:33:23,733
Very early in our relationship, like 3 or 4 weeks in or something,

1490
01:33:23,813 --> 01:33:29,960
I remember him saying to me that I was a lot stronger than he was.

1491
01:33:30,517 --> 01:33:36,362
you know, he was brittle in lot of ways, things were a lot harder for him than for a lot of people.

1492
01:33:36,405 --> 01:33:38,304
It was part of his brilliance too.

1493
01:33:40,770 --> 01:33:46,666
I think, he probably had something like clinical depression in his early 20s

1494
01:33:47,484 --> 01:33:49,370
I don't think he did when I was with him.

1495
01:33:49,431 --> 01:33:53,770
He wasn't a joyful person.... but that's different from being depressed.

1496
01:33:56,364 --> 01:34:00,830
He was just under such such enourmous pressure for two years straight.

1497
01:34:00,874 --> 01:34:02,816
He just didn't want to do it anymore.

1498
01:34:03,617 --> 01:34:07,290
He was just.. I think it was too much.

1499
01:34:14,213 --> 01:34:16,275
I got a phone call late at night.

1500
01:34:17,511 --> 01:34:22,420
I could tell something was wrong and then I called and I realized what had happened.

1501
01:34:23,688 --> 01:34:28,970
The cofounder of the social news and entertainment website reddit has been found dead.

1502
01:34:29,075 --> 01:34:34,020
Police say 26 year old Aaron Swartz killed himself yesterday in his Brooklyn apartment.

1503
01:34:36,870 --> 01:34:46,275
I just thought we've lost one of the most creative minds of our generation.

1504
01:34:46,444 --> 01:34:50,346
I was like the whole world fell apart at that moment.

1505
01:34:56,435 --> 01:34:59,310
It was one of the hardest nights of my life.

1506
01:34:59,982 --> 01:35:03,910
It was like I was screaming "I can't hear you.. what did you just say.. I can't hear you."

1507
01:35:07,468 --> 01:35:11,765
I can't. That's it.

1508
01:35:19,546 --> 01:35:23,710
None of it made any sense, and really still doesn't.

1509
01:35:24,542 --> 01:35:27,480
I was so frustrated and angry.

1510
01:35:38,154 --> 01:35:41,120
You know I tried to explain it to my kids.

1511
01:35:41,370 --> 01:35:46,325
My 3 yr old told me that the doctors would fix him.

1512
01:35:52,021 --> 01:35:56,160
I know lots of people who have died but I've never lost anybody like this.

1513
01:35:56,245 --> 01:36:03,050
Because everybody feels, and I do too, there is so much that we could've.. more to do.

1514
01:36:04,672 --> 01:36:10,059
I just didn't know that he was there. I didn't know this is what he was suffering.

1515
01:36:11,242 --> 01:36:13,601
He was part of me.

1516
01:36:15,253 --> 01:36:19,328
And I just wanted it to not be real.

1517
01:36:23,466 --> 01:36:27,989
And then I just looked at his Wikipedia page and I saw the end date.

1518
01:36:32,065 --> 01:36:34,944
02-02-2013

1519
01:36:43,697 --> 01:36:44,871
Aaron is dead

1520
01:36:45,973 --> 01:36:50,062
Wanderers in this crazy world,
we have lost a mentor, a wise elder.

1521
01:36:50,755 --> 01:36:54,017
Hackers for right, we are one down,

1522
01:36:54,257 --> 01:36:56,115
we have lost one of our own.

1523
01:36:57,057 --> 01:37:02,275
Nurturers, carers, listeners,
feeders, parents all,

1524
01:37:02,755 --> 01:37:04,933
we have lost a child.

1525
01:37:05,262 --> 01:37:07,386
Let us all weep.

1526
01:37:14,742 --> 01:37:17,953
My first thought was what if nobody even notices.

1527
01:37:18,805 --> 01:37:22,913
It wasn't clear to me how salient he was.

1528
01:37:23,818 --> 01:37:29,749
I had never seen anything quite like the outpouring I saw.

1529
01:37:29,856 --> 01:37:31,242
The net just lit up.

1530
01:37:31,505 --> 01:37:35,600
Everyone was trying to explain it in their own way

1531
01:37:35,636 --> 01:37:39,883
but I have never seen people grieve on Twitter before.

1532
01:37:39,968 --> 01:37:42,549
People were visibily grieving online.

1533
01:37:46,465 --> 01:37:51,253
He was the Internet's Own Boy... and the whole world killed him.

1534
01:37:55,328 --> 01:38:00,277
We are standing in the middle of a time when great injustice is not touched.

1535
01:38:01,960 --> 01:38:05,832
architects of financial meltdown have dinner with the President regularly.

1536
01:38:06,269 --> 01:38:09,992
in middle of that time the idea that this

1537
01:38:10,516 --> 01:38:12,669
was what the government had to prosecute

1538
01:38:14,528 --> 01:38:17,642
it just seems absurd, if it weren't tragic.

1539
01:38:17,670 --> 01:38:23,221
The question is can we do something, given what's happened,

1540
01:38:23,272 --> 01:38:25,220
to make the world a better place.

1541
01:38:26,389 --> 01:38:30,485
And how can we further that legacy. Thats the only question one can ask.

1542
01:38:33,061 --> 01:38:37,229
All over the world there are starting to be hackathons, gatherings

1543
01:38:37,260 --> 01:38:42,101
and Aaron Swartz has in some sense brought the best out us

1544
01:38:42,232 --> 01:38:45,030
in trying to say "how do we fix this".

1545
01:38:47,130 --> 01:38:50,341
He was in my humble opinion one of the true

1546
01:38:50,356 --> 01:38:54,480
extraordinary revolutionaries that this country has produced

1547
01:38:55,010 --> 01:38:59,250
I don't know weather Aaron was defeated or victorious, but

1548
01:38:59,280 --> 01:39:04,270
we are certainly shaped by the hand of the things

1549
01:39:04,527 --> 01:39:05,877
that he wrestled with.

1550
01:39:06,127 --> 01:39:08,692
When we turned armed agents of the law

1551
01:39:08,821 --> 01:39:12,192
on citizens trying to increase access to knowledge

1552
01:39:12,442 --> 01:39:14,133
we've broken the rule of law

1553
01:39:14,383 --> 01:39:16,778
and we've desecrated the temple of justice.

1554
01:39:17,028 --> 01:39:19,530
Aaron Swartz was not a criminal.

1555
01:39:21,000 --> 01:39:24,309
Change does not role in on the wheels..

1556
01:39:24,559 --> 01:39:25,390
.. of inevitability.

1557
01:39:25,390 --> 01:39:25,440
It comes through continous struggle.
.. of inevitability.

1558
01:39:25,440 --> 01:39:27,700
It comes through continous struggle.

1559
01:39:30,026 --> 01:39:31,690
Aaron really could do magic

1560
01:39:32,000 --> 01:39:33,900
and I am dedicated to making sure...

1561
01:39:34,095 --> 01:39:35,936
... his magic doesn't end with his death.

1562
01:39:36,186 --> 01:39:37,664
He believed that he could change the world.

1563
01:39:37,914 --> 01:39:39,498
And he was right.

1564
01:39:39,748 --> 01:39:42,549
Out of the last week, and out of today..

1565
01:39:42,799 --> 01:39:44,832
.. phoenixes are already rising.

1566
01:39:47,220 --> 01:39:51,637
Since Swartz's death Rep. Zoe Lofgren and Sen. Ron Wyden..

1567
01:39:51,887 --> 01:39:53,536
have introduced legislations that would reform

1568
01:39:53,786 --> 01:39:55,370
... the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

1569
01:39:55,620 --> 01:39:58,741
The outdated law that formed the majority of the charges..

1570
01:39:58,991 --> 01:39:59,936
against Swartz.

1571
01:40:00,186 --> 01:40:02,389
It's called "Aaron's Law."

1572
01:40:02,639 --> 01:40:05,802
Aaron believed that like you literally ought to..

1573
01:40:06,052 --> 01:40:07,424
.. be asking yourself all the time..

1574
01:40:07,674 --> 01:40:11,157
.. "what is the most thing i could be working on in the world right now?"

1575
01:40:11,407 --> 01:40:13,269
And if you are not working on that, why aren't you?

1576
01:40:33,700 --> 01:40:37,098
I wish we could change the past, but we cannot.

1577
01:40:37,348 --> 01:40:43,605
But we can change the future and we must. We must do so for Aaron. We must do so for ourselves.

1578
01:40:43,855 --> 01:40:48,469
We must do so to make our world a better place.. a more humane place.

1579
01:40:48,719 --> 01:40:50,304
A place where justice works.

1580
01:40:50,554 --> 01:40:54,272
And access to knowledge becomes a human right.

1581
01:40:54,522 --> 01:40:59,413
So there was a kid, back in feburary from Baltimore.

1582
01:40:59,663 --> 01:41:01,504
14 years old.

1583
01:41:01,754 --> 01:41:08,352
..who had access to JStor and he had been splunking through JStor after reading something.

1584
01:41:08,602 --> 01:41:13,365
And he figured out a way to do early tests for Pancreatic Cancer.

1585
01:41:15,300 --> 01:41:18,037
And Pancreatic cancer kills the shit out of you.

1586
01:41:18,287 --> 01:41:22,560
Because we detect it way to late. By the time we detect its already too late to do anything about that.

1587
01:41:23,370 --> 01:41:28,725
And, he sent e-mails off to entire Oncology department at John Hopkins..

1588
01:41:28,975 --> 01:41:31,434
you know hundereds of them.
Interviewer: A 14 year old?

1589
01:41:31,440 --> 01:41:33,610
14 year old kid yeah. And most of them ignored it.

1590
01:41:33,860 --> 01:41:35,594
But one of them, like, sent him a e-mail back

1591
01:41:35,844 --> 01:41:38,100
And said, "this is not an entirely stupid idea. Why don't you come on over."

1592
01:41:38,474 --> 01:41:43,189
This kid worked evenings and weekends with this researcher and in Feburary I heard him on the news..

1593
01:41:43,466 --> 01:41:46,794
.. just couple of weeks after Aaron died, when Aaron was in the news a lot.

1594
01:41:50,000 --> 01:41:51,200
Sorry.

1595
01:41:53,344 --> 01:41:58,997
And he said, the reason he was on the news is because they had done it.

1596
01:41:59,247 --> 01:42:03,200
They were shipping an early test for pancreatic cancer that was gonna save lives.

1597
01:42:03,626 --> 01:42:07,744
And he said, "This is why what Aaron did was so important."

1598
01:42:10,496 --> 01:42:12,224
Because you never know, right.

1599
01:42:12,245 --> 01:42:17,024
This truth of the universe is not only something that policy makers use to figure out...

1600
01:42:17,274 --> 01:42:19,029
.. you know, what the speed limit should be.

1601
01:42:19,279 --> 01:42:25,258
Its where the things thats gonna keep, your kid from dying of Pancreatic cancer comes from.

1602
01:42:26,026 --> 01:42:31,146
And, without access the person who might come up with the thing thats got your

1603
01:42:31,396 --> 01:42:34,901
number on it may never find that answer.

1604
01:42:35,000 --> 01:42:47,525
[?]

1605
01:42:48,210 --> 01:42:50,534
Very good, Aaron, very good!

1606
01:42:51,113 --> 01:42:56,890
Okay! Now it's [?] time

1607
01:43:28,000 --> 01:43:34,000
Subtitles Creative Commons CC0 license:
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

1608
01:43:38,000 --> 01:43:45,000
Contribute and help translating at:
https://github.com/iliasbartolini/the-internet-s-own-boy--aaron-swartz--subtitles