Aaron Swartz and Anonymous

After watching the documentary about Aaron Swartz, I couldn't help but think of ANONYMOUS, an international "activist" collective that voices any kind of concern about corruption. Through hacking and protesting, Anonymous has recently picked up momentum since its start in 2003. With the name Anonymous, it can never be specified who/whom is engaged and involved in this intricate web. In addition, Anonymous has been known to hold public activist protest events, where members wear creepy masks. Talk about an American Horror Story kind of style in mask choice huh? 

According to an article from The Guardian, "Anonymous said there were Million Mask Marches in 481 locations this year and has claimed it is the largest global protest. Cities where protests took place included Washington DC, Vancouver, Tel Aviv, Dublin, Paris, Chicago, Sydney and Kabul."


Recently, in another article from the Huffington Post, "Members of the hacker collective Anonymous are targeting the Ku Klux Klan after the designated hate group reportedly threatened protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. The hackers claim to have seized two KKK Twitter accounts and say that they have launched denial-of-service attacks against a number of white supremacist websites affiliated with the Klan. The group has also publicized personal information allegedly belonging to KKK members."

 Sorry but I really love this picture of Aaron Swartz styling a "SCIENCE: it works, bitches" T-shirt

In comparison to Anonymous, Aaron Swartz did not hide behind a mask or attempt to conceal his identity. He openly and freely voiced his opinions and provided lectures to the public about his ideas, beliefs and plans for the future. For these reasons, I find Aaron Swartz's efforts to be inspiring and commendable. If only we could truly and thoroughly access/understand all of his motives, potential schemes and intentions! I admire the fact that he as an individual was not afraid to question the workings of the world, have curiosity for knowledge and not possess the fear to challenge unjust laws such as SOPA (The Stop Online Piracy Act), which was unconstitutional.

However, it is unfortunate that the law seemed to work against him at one point by labeling him as a "felon" due to his "unknown motives" for downloading files from JSTOR. Felons and their crimes are on a spectrum, but I really would like to believe that Swartz's motives were to honestly benefit the majority of the public instead of solely himself or some other selfish cause. From my impression of Swartz he was a human rights activist, progressive, intellect and creative. His punishment (of 50 years) was more severe than felons guilty of: manslaughter, bank robbery, selling child pornography, knowingly spreading AIDS, selling slaves and even THREATENING THE PRESIDENT! To me, this is crazy.

Moreover, I completely agree with Swartz that, "books are cultural legacy", and to not have access to them (and having to pay with a credit card to access them with funds going to big corporations) is unjust. I think that the attempt to, "make an example out of Swartz" just goes to show that KNOWLEDGE REALLY IS POWER. I think that we as human beings should have the right to share public knowledge and not necessarily "own" historic archives. We have many freedoms, but do we really need to put that "we have a freedom to obtaining and sharing knowledge through online means"?

Lastly I would just like to bring up a key point in this documentary about Swartz's character being portrayed in a positive light. Several people mention that Swartz was not looking to utilize the knowledge and power he had to be greedy financially. This is directly portrayed when he quit his job, despite being paid a pretty decent salary. This also is supported since Swartz did not steal or sell the documents downloaded onto his computer. The kid preferred to wear plain t-shirts and jeans! He was by no means materialistic or extremely superficial. He slept in a room that was practically the size of a closet and was content! It can definitely be argued that the hacking Swartz did was to obtain more knowledge and share his intellect with the public for free. Where is the harm in that? I mean, it's not like he was hacking people's personal accounts with credit card information! On the other hand, there is to some degree an unfair advantage to having access to all of these files, especially ones that may be have been private.