Official Government Responses

White House Finally Responds Officially To “We The People” Petition Demanding The Firing of U.S. Distric Attorney Carmen Ortiz

This petition was originally published January 13, 2013, and reached its necessary signatures many months ago.

On January 7, 2015, the Whitehouse sent out this email to everyone who signed it, and published this same statement on the same petition page.

Response to We the People Petitions on U.S. Attorney’s Office Personnel Matters

Aaron Swartz’s death was a tragic, unthinkable loss for his family and friends. Our sympathy continues to go out to those who were closest to him, and to the many others whose lives he touched.

We also reaffirm our belief that a spirit of openness is what makes the Internet such a powerful engine for economic growth, technological innovation, and new ideas. That’s why members of the Administration continue to engage with advocates to ensure the Internet remains a free and open platform as technology continues to disrupt industries and connect our communities in ways we can’t yet imagine. We will continue this engagement as we tackle new questions on key issues such as citizen participation in democracy, open access to information, privacy, intellectual property, free speech, and security.

As to the specific personnel-related requests raised in your petitions, our response must be limited. Consistent with the terms we laid out when we began We the People, we will not address agency personnel matters in a petition response, because we do not believe this is the appropriate forum in which to do so.

 

New Hampshire Rebellion January Walk, Video

Join Lawrence Lessig’s New Hampshire Rebellion January Walk

From Lawrence Lessig:

On the morning of January 11, the anniversary of the death of my friend, Aaron Swartz, and at the place where the voting in America’s 2016 presidential election will start, Dixville Notch, we will begin the second of three walks across the state of New Hampshire.

We will also be honoring Doris “Granny D” Haddock who walked from LA to DC at the age of 88 because she understood the biggest obstacle to solving any important issue in America today — regardless of political viewpoint — is the role of money in politics.

Politicians believe America doesn’t get this. We’re walking to prove them wrong: https://walk.nhrebellion.org.

For eleven days — January 11th through 21st — we will walk across New Hampshire with hundreds of citizens demonstrating that New Hampshire and the nation want to know how our elected leaders are going to end the corrupting influence of money in politics. We demand a solution. And we’d like your help.

Please join us in New Hampshire and walk with us: https://walk.nhrebellion.org or volunteer: http://www.nhrebellion.org/volunteer.

If you can’t join the walk, you can still support us other ways:

– Register as a virtual walker: https://walk.nhrebellion.org

– Support my walk: https://walk.nhrebellion.org/lessig

– Donate your Twitter and Facebook accounts:        https://donateyouraccount.com/nhrebellion

– Read about last year’s walk and share with your friends:
https://medium.com/backchannel/larry-lessigs-long-walk-b96d80d34972

Join us. Support us. And please spread this idea.

 

OpAaronSwartz

15 MIT Websites Hacked In Honor Of The Second Anniversary of Aaron’s Death

OpAaronSwartz: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Subdomains Hacked

From the January 3, 2015 opaaronswartz-MITHackRead article:

A hacker going with the handle of @ulzr1z on Twitter has hacked and partially defaced fifteen sub-domains of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) website amid Swartz death anniversary.

The attack was conducted under the banner of #OpAaronSwartz where hacker left a message in support of Aaron Hillel Swartz on several sub-domains of the MIT’s Lab.

Links of all targeted domains along with their mirrors as a proof of hack are available here.

This is not the first time when MIT websites are under attack in support of Aaron Swartz. Last year Anonymous hackers hacked the MIT website to mark first death anniversary of Aaron Swartz. Anonymous also hacked U.S. Justice Department Website and left a warning message over Aaron Swartz’s death.

@ulzr1z also posted an inside screenshot of WordPress content management system of the MIT website as a proof.

 

 

 

The Internet's Own Boy - Press

“The Internet’s Own Boy” On the Oscar Documentary “Short List”

aaron darkBrian Knappenberger’s amazing documentary is now in line to potentially be awarded one of its highest honors.

I must say that I am thrilled and more than a little impressed by the Academy’s choosing “The Internet’s Own Boy” and “Citizen Four” in the same year.

For me, the takeaway is clear: the issues that Aaron fought for, and that Edward Snowden is still fighting for, are finally hitting home with enough people that these ideals are no longer seen as “fringe” concerns.

15 DOCUMENTARY FEATURES ADVANCE IN 2014 OSCAR RACE

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process for the 87th Oscars®.  One hundred thirty-four films were originally submitted in the category.

The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies:

“Art and Craft,” Purple Parrot Films
“The Case against 8,” Day in Court
“Citizen Koch,” Elsewhere Films
“CitizenFour,” Praxis Films
“Finding Vivian Maier,” Ravine Pictures
“The Internet’s Own Boy,” Luminant Media
“Jodorowsky’s Dune,” City Film
“Keep On Keepin’ On,” Absolute Clay Productions
“The Kill Team,” f/8 filmworks
“Last Days in Vietnam,” Moxie Firecracker Films
“Life Itself,” Kartemquin Films and Film Rites
“The Overnighters,” Mile End Films West
“The Salt of the Earth,” Decia Films
“Tales of the Grim Sleeper,” Lafayette Film
“Virunga,” Grain Media

The Academy’s Documentary Branch determined the shortlist in a preliminary round of voting.  Documentary Branch members will now select the five nominees from among the 15 titles.

The 87th Academy Awards® nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 15, 2015, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

The Oscars will be held on Sunday, February 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network.  The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.

 

 

Fight For The Future

Stop “Title X” – The Latest Net Neutrality-killing Legislation Threat

Congress wants to backstab the Internet with “Title X”

From the Fight for the Future website:

Congress leaders are planning on starting 2015 with a bill called “Title X” that would compromise the World Wide Web by taking away the FCC’s ability to protect the open Internet and giving cable companies the power to charge for less access. This bill would be a huge betrayal to the millions of Internet users that demanded that Congress support real net neutrality.

The FCC will be making its own decision on net neutrality in February, but if Congress introduces “Title X” first, it could hijack the entire process and reverse any progress for net neutrality. Meanwhile the politicians crafting “Title X” have already taken massive amounts of cash from cable companies. These politicians need to be held accountable for trying to gut net neutrality.

Please spread this page with your friends and family. Sign the petition to tell Congress to drop their fake bill and support real net neutrality.

The Internet's Own Boy - Screenings

Screening in Los Angeles with Q & A with Brian Knappenberger Afterwards

To do in LA: screening and Q&A with director of Aaron Swartz doc, “The Internet’s Own Boy”

AARON_LIBRARY_PHOTO

If you’re in Los Angeles this evening, please join me at a special screening of the documentary about the late Aaron Swartz, “The Internet’s Own Boy.” The film has been shortlisted for an Academy Award. After the screening, I will host a question and answer session with the film’s director, Brian Knappenberger.

RSVP here.

WHEN: Tonight, January 5, 2015. Film starts promptly at 730pm. Get there by 7.

WHERE: Annenberg Space for Photography Skylight Studios, 10050 Constellation Boulevard, Los Angeles (Century City), CA 90067. Self-Parking in Garage Underneath. $1.00 with validation.

 

 

 

MayDay PAC, The Good Fight with Ben Wikler

New Good Fight On Lessig’s MayDay PAC; After the Elections

mayday
What $10 million buys you in U.S. politics

(November 11, 2014) Mayday SuperPAC, Lawrence Lessig’s anti-corruption moonshot, lost nearly all of its races in the 2014 midterm election. Does that mean it failed? Did Politico’s screamer headline, “How to waste $10 million,” tell the whole story? Or does the shadow of money in politics extend beyond mere wins and losses?

Professor Lessig and the Progressive Campaign Change Committee’s Adam Green take us behind the vote tally and into the heart of the campaign-finance darkness for part 3 of The Good Fight’s Mayday 2014 trilogy.

Aaron Swartz International Hackathon 2014, Press

Digital Journal: Activists hold worldwide ‘hackathon’ in memory of Aaron Swartz

Activists hold worldwide ‘hackathon’ in memory of Aaron Swartz

By Brett Wilkins  for Digital Journal.

Aaron

From the article:

…Swartz has become something of a martyr. Not in some pathetic, quixotic way. His life, his work and his untimely demise have inspired a whole generation of ‘hacktivists’ and other open Internet advocates who are hard at work fighting battles in defense of net neutrality and against corporatization of the Internet, government surveillance and other pressing problems.

“Since there are projects like SecureDrop (an open-source whistleblower submission system managed by Freedom of the Press Foundation) going strong, and policy movements aimed at protecting innovative students on college campuses, and more updates on the ongoing fight to have Aaron’s government documents released to the public, and so many people willing to do amazing projects in his honor, I decided to just try to include everything I could, and see how large it became,” Lisa Rein, co-founder of Creative Commons and host of The Internet Archive hackathon, told the Daily Dot.

“Aaron doesn’t deserve to go down in history as some malicious hacker out to steal and make money from his loot somehow,” added Rein.

Purcell agreed, telling the audience of several dozen than what Swartz did was “not hacking.”

“It was walking through a door that was left open for anyone to walk through,” the attorney insisted, calling Swartz’s alleged ‘crime’ “a harmless effort to point out a problem.”

Director Brian Knappenberger was on hand at the San Francisco event for a screening of his critically-acclaimed documentary feature, The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz.

A panel discussion and audience Q&A followed. Many attendees had personal connections to Swartz. There was much talk of how activists could honor his memory.

Aaron Swartz Day 2014, Press

Truthdig on Aaron Swartz Day: A Vital Legacy Lives On

Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Daniel J. Sieradski CC BY-SA
Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Daniel J. Sieradski CC BY-SA

Aaron Swartz Day:  A Vital Legacy     Lives On

By Thor Benson for Truthdig.

From the Article:

Swartz would have been 28 years this week, on Nov. 8. To celebrate his life and legacy, communities across the globe will observe Aaron Swartz Day on his birthday. He fought for an open and thriving Internet but also for causes like ending corruption and government secrecy, and the day in his honor will mark the full range of his accomplishments and his battles, which remain alive today.

Swartz was adamantly opposed to laws like SOPA and PIPA that he believed would have allowed corporations to shut down free expression and frustrate an open Internet. What many don’t realize is that he also feared government surveillance, well before Snowden arrived. “One thing that Aaron didn’t see—is he didn’t see Snowden,” Brian Knappenberger, director of a documentary about Swartz’s life called “The Internet’s Own Boy,” told Truthdig. “We have footage in the film that talked about Aaron being concerned about NSA surveillance and overreach that was a year before Snowden came forward.”

Knappenberger said Swartz was waiting for a moment when people would realize how serious a problem government surveillance was becoming, and he died before he could witness the Snowden revelations. Instead of learning from what happened to Swartz and being more lenient with Internet activists, “lawmakers in the government just get worse about whistle-blowers and hacktivists by going after them even stronger,” Knappenberger said.

Knappenberger worries when he sees the Obama administration creating “insider threat” programs that encourage people with top-secret clearance to turn in co-workers who they believe might leak information. Sometimes, a recent divorce can be considered a reason for the government to suspect that an employee might leak information. Knappenberger said the U.S. government is targeting legal whistle-blowing instead of dealing with illegal activity such as warrantless surveillance being carried out by its branches.

 

 

November 11 2023 – 11 am -6:30 pm PST