Aaron Swartz’s Father Says Reddit Co-Founder Was ‘Killed By The Government’

Aaron Swartz’s Father Says Reddit Co-Founder Was ‘Killed By The Government’







HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — Internet freedom activist Aaron Swartz was
“killed by the government,” his father told mourners Tuesday during his
son’s funeral in suburban Chicago.

Swartz, who help create Reddit and RSS, the technology behind blogs,
podcasts and other web-based subscription services, was found dead
Friday in his New York apartment. He was facing federal charges that
alleged he illegally gained access to millions of articles from a
Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer archive.

“He was killed by the government, and MIT betrayed all of its basic
principles,” he said. Swartz, 26, was facing charges that carried a
maximum penalty of decades in prison. His trial was scheduled to begin
in April.U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz had no comment about Robert Swartz’s
remarks, Ortiz spokeswoman Christina DiIorio-Sterling said. Swartz’s
family also lashed out against prosecutors Saturday, saying the death
was “the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and
prosecutorial overreach.”

[i][i][i]Swartz’s
case highlighted society’s uncertain, evolving view of how to treat
people who break into computer systems and share data not to enrich
themselves, but to make it available to others.[/i][/i][/i]

Tim Berners-Lee, who developed the World Wide Web, and Harvard law
professor Lawrence Lessig, director of the Safra Center for Ethics where
Swartz was once a fellow, both spoke at the funeral.

“We felt the indictment was nonsense and that he would be acquitted,” Berners-Lee told the newspaper after the service.Source: huffingtonpost
Thanks to: http://aworldchaos.wordpress.com