Rep. Alan Grayson Honors Aaron Swartz
Aaron Swartz, the Internet freedom advocate who committed suicide in mid-January, was an intern in Florida Congressman Alan Grayson's office after the onset of the economic crisis. Grayson recently paid tribute to Swartz at a memorial service in Washington, D.C.
, the Internet freedom advocate who committed suicide in mid-January, was an intern in Florida Congressman Alan Grayson’s office after the onset of the economic crisis. Grayson recently paid tribute to Swartz at a memorial service in Washington, D.C.
Grayson compared the loss of Swartz to the suicide of 20th-century mathematician Alan Turing. Turing developed the basis for modern computers and helped Britain and the United States defeat the Nazis during World War II by breaking Nazi communication codes. Afterward he was convicted of homosexuality — a crime in the U.K. at the time — and barred from the government’s cryptography labs and forced to take estrogen injections. He committed suicide two years later.
“[W]ho lost, out of that?” Grayson asked. “Well, Alan Turing lost. But so did all of we. We lost as well. All of us who would have benefited from that first, and second, and the third Nobel Prizes that Alan Turing had in him. And that Aaron Swartz had in him.”
“We’re the ones who lose.”
— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.
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On Jan. 6, Brian Knappenberger, director of the buzz-magnet documentary "The Internet's Own Boy," sat down with Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin in Los Angeles at the Annenberg Space for Photography to talk about his iconic subject, Aaron Swartz, and the impact of his life's work and legacy.
Journals like Science and other paid subscription sources should make their content available to the public for free.
With his Mayday PAC, the Harvard legal scholar and civil libertarian has emerged as the chief executor of Aaron Swartz's vision of a free, creative and open America in the digital age.
A champion of the Internet and governmental reform is celebrated around the world Saturday. His suicide -- committed under a threat of prosecution -- did not end the fight for his causes.
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