Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) speaks at memorial meeting for Aaron Swartz in the Capitol. Photo by Congressman Darrell Issa.
Hundreds of mourners gathered on Capitol Hill Monday to celebrate the life of Internet activist Aaron Swartz and to advocate changes to federal anti-hacking law.Although the event functioned as a critique on the federal criminal justice system, it also served as a memorial service attended by high-profile lawmakers, academics and activists angered by Swartz's prosecution on federal hacking charges. Such an event is extraordinarily rare in the Capitol complex, especially one honoring a private citizen whose suicide has made him a symbol of federal prosecutorial power.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) spoke at the event, as did Reps. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.). Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) also attended.
Some program notes:
o Ron Wyden has worked assiduously against SOPA/PIPA legislation and for privacy and against government surveillance -- Wyden wants to know "how many Americans the government had spied on through application of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's secret court, has sent a letter to CIA Director nominee John Brennan to try to get information about the administration’s use of drones to kill people."
o Darrell Issa worked against SOPA/PIPA and continuously represents the interests of Silicon Valley on the Hill; Google and other Big IT corporations are among his contributors naturally.
o Alan Grayson, yes that Alan Grayson of Florida, is back, accusing Republicans again of "legislative terrorism" again
o Jared Polis is a friend to start-ups as an entrepreneur, part of Obama's geek slush fund Start-Up America, advocate of start-up visas.
o Elizabeth Warren is the "progressive" who gained fame with the "you didn't build that" statement about how the government's support of you is prior to your own efforts -- as if your taxes out of your revenue wasn't prior, and the government second
o Zoe Lofgren in tandem with Darrell Issa did all the work against SOPA/PIPA -- from Mike Masnick's lips to her mouth.
o Jan Schakowsky is linked to the DSA regulars in Chicago, and is former community organizer. Not at all surprised to see her linked to the SEIU socialists at a Norman Thomas dinner -- but you know, Norman Thomas wasn't a stealth socialist like these folks.
I used to pick out all the DSA cadres for other foreign policy purposes and usually they'd be grouped around Ron Dellums. It's so funny to see these lefties now make common cause with Silicon Valley corporate types that as stealth-socialists they ought to loathe or at least be critical of.
When people talk about "bi-partisan" meetings like this that are supposed to represent some grand civic thing, what they really mean is that sectarians of the left and right have met at the outer edges -- "progressives" of the open source software cults meet up with the Republican Libertarians who seem to think property liberation is an innovative business model.
I guess this is sort of the rump of the Wired State.
Naturally Lessig and company were all in attendance.
The event was rife with outrageous hyperbole:
Grayson called Swartz's prosecution and death the "human sacrifice" of a luminary who sought to reform the political status quo -- a loss he said belongs in the tradition of the poisoning of Socrates.
Human sacrifice? But it's people like Atlantic writers that think that Aaron Swartz died so we can all have, as the DSAers always used to put it, "a national conversation" about computer fraud laws, mental health/suicide, and hackers. Converse away -- that someone took his own life is merely a conversational starter. Maybe they plan to make this an annual ritual?
Lessig is still in high dudgeon, absolutely evasive about his own role in this young man's death, by not going to the mat for him and in fact telling him he had "crossed a line" by his felonious hacking:
"The striking fact about this case is that the more they learned, the more obstinate they became," Harvard University law professor Lawrence Lessig told the crowd
Naturally the "progressives" have always and everywhere tried to offset this proper prosecution with "the banksters" whom they falsely claim are never prosecuted.
Center for Economic Policy and Research: "This is a Justice Department that couldn't find anyone to prosecute for the tens of billions in fraudulent mortgages that were issued, but somehow had time and resources" to pursue Swartz.
Well, maybe the Justice Department pursues cases under the rule of law and due process, unlike people who believe in code-as-law where the tribe gets to decide?
And this star turn beats all:
"Stick it to the man," Issa said. "Access to information is a human right."
Oh, my. Isn't a US congressman from California backed by Silicon Valley himself "the Man"? I guess not! I guess he's Little Brother lol!
But...Swartz had access to information -- he could access those JSTOR files any time as a student at Harvard.
Berin Szoka with the TechFreedom group was supposed to be part of the bipartisan mourn fest, but he was jeered and the crowd had to be quieted by Swartz's girlfriend when he tried to explain that Swartz was not a "martyr for openness" because he shouldn't have stolen the JSTOR files, but was a "victim" of an overzealous criminal justice system.
Oh, my.
The photo doesn't look as if "hundreds" attended -- it doesn't matter, this movement is very good at taking even just a few dozen well-resourced and well-connected people and making it seem like the entire "the Internet".
A tweet by Jay Rosen, an expert on new media and journalism who never really worked as a journalist by his own admission, via Dan Gilmor, a man who would create a lexicon of approved terms for journalists to use, about Swartz's girlfriend's blog got 103 retweets and 49 favourites. Surprisingly, or maybe not, he does get some pushback in the comments, but it's more from the tough young tech thugs who think Swartz wimped out.
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