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Caught Red-Handed, Aaron Swartz Was Prepping For Key Federal Court Evidence Hearing
The Smoking Gun ^ | January 13, 2013 | Smoking Gun Staff

Posted on 01/13/2013 5:13:19 PM PST by libstripper

At the time of his suicide, Aaron Swartz was preparing for a crucial hearing in his federal criminal case, likely his best chance to thwart federal prosecutors who had developed solid evidence against the Internet activist who was facing an April trial on a 13-count felony indictment.

The 26-year-old Swartz, who killed himself Friday in his Brooklyn apartment, was scheduled for a January 25 evidentiary hearing in U.S. District Court in Boston, Massachusetts. Lawyers for Swartz were seeking to suppress material gathered in connection with Swartz’s breach of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer network.

The January 2011 incursion netted Swartz, a Reddit cofounder who also helped develop the RSS standard, millions of scholarly papers from the JSTOR archive. He was planning to make the material public at no cost.

(Excerpt) Read more at thesmokinggun.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: hacker; prosecution; suicide; swartz
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To: meadsjn

Just because a thief steals something that you also think ought to be free, doesn’t mean he’s on your side, even if you happen to be both right in this particular case. We are not discussing intellectual property rights, we are discussing the man’s political views, which we understand (perhaps incorrectly) to have been radically Left. Read his blog which is still up. Here’s a lovely piece on Bush: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001119


41 posted on 01/14/2013 9:42:04 AM PST by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: kiryandil

Even funnier to read self righteous comments from those who think they know everything about a poster based upon the starting date for posting. I know it seems hard to believe but some folks lurked for a very long time before joining. Jim was always very well known in my mom’s town.


42 posted on 01/14/2013 10:54:31 AM PST by Nifster
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To: Nifster

Why don’t you give us all a synopsis of the WP/LAT case against FR, clownboy, then compare it with your comments about Aaron Swartz?


43 posted on 01/14/2013 11:02:06 AM PST by kiryandil (turning Americans into felons, one obnoxious drunk at a time (Zero Tolerance!!!))
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To: Nifster
He took a coward’s way out and has left the usual devastation in his wake

It's always endearing when keyboard warriors with zero knowledge have such strong and brutal comments. Devastation? Seriously? Nobody was hurt, he didn't sell the articles and nobody lost money. He was making a point and a legitimate one. Being in academia, the problem of whether or not journals should be so expensive (prohibitive for individuals) is an important one and discussed by every scientist/mathematician and academic I know. The recent disputes between the Nature publishing group (the premier journals in all of science) and many of the prominent american universities over massive costs are well documented.

This is Not an intellectual property issue. This is not the same as pharmaceutical companies being upended by cheap generic drugs. The scientific content in journals is Not intellectual property. The authors do not get paid, the referees do not get paid and their research funding is unrelated to the journals while the scientific editors are essentially volunteers. But still journals are amazingly expensive. Why? Many of the journals (even the non-profits) have amazingly high margins. Why? In the past they were printing costs and the like but now most of the downloads are online. And if you are thinking about maintaining server costs etc, remember the traffic on journal publications isn't exactly high so bandwidth costs are tiny.

Such a level of bitterness and anger regarding something you are completely unaware is pretty unfortunate.
44 posted on 01/14/2013 1:25:58 PM PST by kroll
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To: kiryandil

Jim Robinson did NOT commit suicide to avoid prosecution or a court case....end of story


45 posted on 01/14/2013 2:25:09 PM PST by Nifster
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To: Nifster

In other words, you CAN’T give us a synopsis of the WP/LAT case against FR.

‘Nuff said.


46 posted on 01/14/2013 3:35:40 PM PST by kiryandil (turning Americans into felons, one obnoxious drunk at a time (Zero Tolerance!!!))
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To: kiryandil

Not ‘nuff said.

People on Free Republic were posting articles from various newspapers. They were posting entire articles as I recall not just short excerpts or intros. The Washington Post and the LA Times sued under fair use and copy right law violation. free Republic lost.

And your point is exactly what???


47 posted on 01/14/2013 6:38:21 PM PST by Nifster
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To: Nifster

I guess you forgot about the part where the Clinton White House enjoined the WP & LAT to initiate the lawsuit, then directed it to a Clinton-appointed federal judge, in order to make the case come out as they desired.

Kind of like what happened to this kid Aaron...


48 posted on 01/14/2013 8:34:29 PM PST by kiryandil (turning Americans into felons, one obnoxious drunk at a time (Zero Tolerance!!!))
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To: Nifster
The Washington Post and the LA Times sued under fair use and copy right law violation. free Republic lost.

Well, to be entirely accurate, Clinton's pet federal judge CRAFTED the fair use & copyright "decision" to suit the goals of the Clinton White House.

As we know, Bill Clinton has enormous respect for the rule of law and for the authority of federal judges, which is why he perjured himself, obstructed justice and tampered with witnesses, and basically spit in the eye of the federal judge at his deposition.

The system slapped him down like it slapped down Jon Corzine. **snicker**

49 posted on 01/14/2013 8:41:07 PM PST by kiryandil (turning Americans into felons, one obnoxious drunk at a time (Zero Tolerance!!!))
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To: kiryandil

And Jim did not off himself as a solution.


50 posted on 01/15/2013 11:22:58 AM PST by Nifster
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To: Nifster

In other words, you COULDN’T give us a synopsis of the WP/LAT case against FR, and I had to explain it to you.

Freaking n00b.

And you also did not contest the over-reach accusations in both cases, or the rigged “charges”.

BTW - the circumstances of the targets in the two cases were entirely different, though you keep trying to equate them. I don’t believe that Jim faced federal prison in the WP/LAT case, though I’m sure the Clinton White House would have loved it as payment for the mark Jim left on The Big He’s tiny weenie.

They were going to throw the kid into PMITA federal prison as a sex toy, and probably told him so, and laughed about it.

It’s pretty much agreed that the MA federal persecutor is now considered pond scum, and third-railed her own career. There are a LOT of people who wouldn’t p*ss on her to save her life if she was on fire.


51 posted on 01/15/2013 12:35:41 PM PST by kiryandil (turning Americans into felons, one obnoxious drunk at a time (Zero Tolerance!!!))
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To: Valpal1

How much was JSTOR charging and how much money did it cost to publish the content?

Go back to the time before the internet. Did hard copies of journals cost money or did taxpayers just get a copy for free???


52 posted on 01/15/2013 12:55:10 PM PST by petitfour
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To: kiryandil

You did not explain it to me my second post to you gave you the thumbnail of the case. The DIFFERENCE here in the case STARTS with the fact that Free Republic had users posting information from public newspapers ( at the time there were not subscription requirements for those papers). This stupid young man ENTERED the MIT computer areas and INSTALLED hardware to steal information that exists in subscription journals that are used in various research. He entered illegally on multiple occasions.

These cases have little tyo nothing in common so get off you high horse.

my comments about his cowardly act stand


53 posted on 01/15/2013 2:28:55 PM PST by Nifster
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To: Nifster
Aaron Schwartz was a Harvard University student who used his computer skills to collect a large number of scientific journal articles from JSTOR, the institution which controls the publication and release of most academic journals and which is also trying to achieve control of many historical publications. Many of those publications were scanned in the Google activity which is now stalled in litigation; I have seen no criminal charges brought by the Obama Department of Justice against the operatives who did the Google scans...

...His [Swartz] contention was that JSTOR collected money for access to academic journal content, but did not pay the authors or copyright holders, and made it prohibitively expensive for millions of potential readers to access results of publicly financed research. JSTOR is a "non-profit" corporation...

...Most of my readers will know that I am no opponent of the legitimate copyright ownership of intellectual property. I make my living off sales or donations for access to my intellectual property. Authors, artists, composers, inventors, and other intellectual property creators have moral and ethical rights to their creations, and it is in the interest of society to protect that interest. This was considered worth its own clause in the Constitution of 1787. On the other hand, taxpayers and others who support public institutions and research have some rights too: particularly when the actual creator of the intellectual property are not being compensated, and in fact are often losing deserved esteem from citation of their works and general promulgation of their papers. Writers write to be read. Samuel Johnson observed that no man but a blockhead ever wrote for anything except money, but that isn’t quite true. Some do write to be read, and in the case of scientific research, widespread promulgation is essential to the scientific process.

It is not at all clear that the JSTOR monopoly is the best way to achieve the distribution of scientific and other academic research efforts. Perhaps it is, but I have not seen the case made. At the very least they might publish the salaries and perks of the executives and directors of JSTOR and ITHAKA. Indeed, one wonders why they do not, since they are quite proud of being non-profit corporations...

"my comments about his cowardly act stand"

Just another supporter of the American Police State, and Fascist Cronyism...

54 posted on 01/15/2013 6:07:41 PM PST by kiryandil (turning Americans into felons, one obnoxious drunk at a time (Zero Tolerance!!!))
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To: kiryandil

bleeeech


55 posted on 01/15/2013 8:21:31 PM PST by Nifster
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