[okfn-discuss] Aaron Swartz - should OKFN take a position?

Tue Jul 26 09:19:07 UTC 2011

I personally have a lot of sympathy for Aaron, having also been persecuted for opening things up myself (though not to the same scale or severity), see http://www.jasonkitcat.com/tag/youtube-case/

However OKFN are not a political lobbying organisation and so we will not be taking a position on this specific case.

All the best,
Jason

On 26 Jul 2011, at 03:56, Tim McNamara wrote:

> I would like to see OKFN make a statement supporting Aaron Swartz. He
> has done some great things in the open knowledge space, including
> developing the Open Library. He's been arrested and charged with
> federal crimes relating to the misuse of JSTOR's network for
> downloading tens of thousands of documents. He used guest logins at
> MIT with spoofed IP/MAC addresses to gain access. Moreover, it appears
> he broke into MIT's networking cabinets so that he could store the
> laptop & external hard drive.
> 
> Some views on the case:
> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/sj/2011/07/24/aaron-swartz-v-united-states/
> (SJ Klein, who I know from OLPC)
> 
> I feel that the community should make some public statement.
> 
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Jason Kitcat
Foundation Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation

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