Aaron Swartz died three years ago today

Ironically the biggest supporters of the current iteration of the CFAA are those you'd least expect. The currently-extant grey area allows them to target little guys and threaten them with spectacular, life-destroying threats, while also allowing them to abuse and/or ignore the law because they know that it's very unlikely another big entity will care enough to choose to litigate the issue to a conclusion (a process which often takes the better part of the decade).

If the CFAA were not selectively enforced, the internet landscape would look very different. Search engines like Google never would've been able to exist. Who can quantify what we've lost because a big corporate interest threatened a small innovator with jail time and financial ruin if they didn't stop causing a problem for BigCorp's business, which actually turns out being a pretty good summary of Aaron's case.

I've yet to see any good arguments for why this case stands out, other people have spent decades in prison due to prosecutorial misconduct.

I don't mind argumentative. I look back on the people who changed a bad/given situation, and they raised that hand. The true bad asses walked, or got even.

I have a question about Aaron Schwartz. Would he even be on Hacker News? Would he put up with the political correctness. Would he put up with "arse kissing"? Would he put up with a moderator who emailed him?

I say this in light of an email I received from a moderator, I believe his name was Daniel? He stated my comments were not adding to the topic, and I should just, essentially go away.

1. I was shocked HN emailed me. I don't remember giving them permission. I'm trying to remember if I even signed a TOS, or even gave up an email? I think I once left my email up to recommend a medication, but took it down the next day.

2. Anyways email me again Hacker News. It's going into a file. Why on earth would you think it's legally permissible to email me. It's considered spam--right?

3. Hell-ban me--fine, but don't ever email me. Pass it by Hacker News lawyers? I'm still in shock. I'm not sure how to handle this of it escalates. I said some pretty personal things on this board. I do not want to be outed. I just falsely trusted Hacker News.

4. Bye! Oh yea, it's turned into a cliche, but the world needs, especially now, more Aaron Schwartz's. We have too many over zealous individuals/enetites in power. Our every move is recorded. And I look around, and I'm seeing less, and less people who question authority. (bumper sticker 90's?)

Those are very difficult questions to answer.

I imagine that any form of non-violent civil disobedience is fair game. I imagine that collective action is always more troubling for the system because the systemic response is more challenging to orchestrate.

Some things change by themselves. We can see that marijuana is slowly transitioning from being a criminalised substance a decriminalised one. I don't partake myself but society is heading that way, that's plain to see.

Same with civil rights of all kind. Yes, it might take centuries but the arrow of equality is clearly pointing in just one way. But it does take civil disobedience and protest.

In this specific case (academic articles) I personally believe that we ought to cover the cost of storage and distribution and that's it. Because this is not a civil rights issue, more a, I don't know, societal expectation(?), a right to knowledge so that society can be improved quicker rather slower. These rent-seekers are like grit in well oiled machinery gunking up the works. I more or less think the worst form of money-making is rent-seeking.

I don't know, get creative!

You can upload them to redbubble.com and set your royalty to 0%.