“Strange game. The only winning move is not to play.” ~ “Joshua”, the computer in War Games
We’re well aware that things are falling apart – economies, governments, the UN, environment, habitat, climate. Let’s add diplomacy and human relations. And, maybe patience. Still, each of us in our own way has long stopped “playing” and begun working to get the word out.
But, in what ways are we still playing? Is getting the word out enough?
For example:
"If your experience is that your food comes from the grocery store and your water comes from a tap, you will defend to the death the system that brought those to you, because your life depends on it." ~ Derrick Jensen, Endgame, Vol. 1, The Problem of Civilization
As the inevitable occurs, could we find ourselves defending that which we’ve been fighting? How do we erase or lessen vulnerabilities such as these while we continue our work?Intended as the first in a series exploring how, is a timely tribute to one whose life was a prolific attempt to pry open the system.
Today he would have been 38.
Tribute to Aaron Swartz
Dependency is the system’s tool; its currency is debt. From 1604 – 1914, the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed 5200 Enclosure Acts, averaging 1 every 3 weeks over 310 years and fencing off 6.8 million acres of “open fields and common land in the country, creating legal property rights to land that was previously considered common” equaling over 10% of the total UK land. These acts impoverished local residents who’d held these lands in common with their neighbors, growing and sharing sufficient food for all. “Payment” had not really entered into it. Following Enclosure, residents had to pay the Lord of the manor for the privilege of working their own common land – which he now considered exclusively his.
In a striking parallel, the US ruling class together with primarily the military and intelligence portions of the MICIMATT created today’s Internet and channeled the majority of public use into heavily controlled and surveilled information sources.
"People – at least those with smart[sic]phones – are literally being led around by the phone, having paid dearly for their own leash. The very size of the screen in which most Americans live annihilates any vestigial urge to read and obviates research, analysis, synthesis, comparison, contrasting, source-checking, substantiation and assimilation. There’s a program or an app to tell you what you “need to know”, already pre-fact-checked [sic]. Why do people find this “convenient” rather than questionable? Why do they see “fascism” everywhere but in their own pockets?" ~ Black, “Another Failure of Imagination”, p. 21
One person took on this system in ways no one else had, trying to open it so that information is free to all.
"Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations." ~ Aaron Swartz, “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto"
In the end they got him, but not before he left a substantial mark on the internet – with corresponding freedoms for all of us.
He was 12 when he made his first contribution, Info Network, a user-generated encyclopedia widely credited as a precursor to Wikipedia.
“In 2000, at the age of 14, he co-authored RSS version 1.0, and shortly thereafter joined a working group at the World Wide Web Consortium to help develop common data formats used on the World Wide Web.” ~ Internet Hall of Fame
He was 15 at the launch of Creative Commons in December, 2002, for which he wrote the code and was instrumental in development of the CC licenses under millions of websites, including TitanicLifeboatAcademy.org, operate. The symbol on a website indicates the creators are focused on the dissemination of information rather than the generation of profit. 
Aaron merged his Infogami program using Python language to clean up code and improve functionality on Steve Huffman’s and Alexis Ohanian’s new site called Reddit. The three of them sold Reddit to Conde Nast in 2006 for several million, but this financial boon did not alter Swartz’ modest “open source lifestyle”. He continued his internet activism.
“When we asked him in late 2010 for help in stopping COICA, the predecessor to the SOPA and PIPA Internet blacklist bills, he founded an organization called Demand Progress, which mobilized over a million online activists and proved to be an invaluable ally in winning that campaign.
Other projects Aaron worked on included the RSS specifications, web.py, tor2web, the Open Library, and the Chrome port of HTTPS Everywhere. Aaron helped launch the Creative Commons. He was a former co-founder at Reddit, and a member of the team that made the site successful. His blog was often a delight.” ~ Peter Eckersley Jan 13, 2013
"And then there was Aaron Swartz--a Robin Hood of digital activism--undermining the locksmiths at MIT so he could download and release millions of JSTOR documents - giving information freely to the world. People like Aaron--mostly young, often brilliant--are exposing themselves in some instances to torture, to raids by the FBI, to threats, intimidation, and the very real possibility of a very long time in prison. They're not hardened criminals - they are people who dare to try to uphold justice, perhaps in unorthodox means, when her bearers have let her banner fall." ~ Tangerine Bolen Jan 12, 2013, Common Dreams
He was instrumental in founding Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine, which provide public access to prior internet documents, including those no longer available on the web.
“He founded Open Library, an internet database dedicated to obtaining public domain documents that had been appropriated by private interests.” ~ Henry Makow
“Open” is what Aaron Swartz was all about – and still is, through Open Access, Open Internet, Open Source software, like Joomla, on which this website is built. He lived an open-sourced life, as many described him.
“Unlike, say, Mark Zuckerberg, who built an online empire by corralling and monetizing private information, Swartz dedicated himself to limiting the amount of power institutions could wield over individuals.” ~ David Amsden, "The Brilliant Life and Tragic Death of Aaron Swartz", Rolling Stone, Feb. 15, 2013
Aaron Swartz's life ended January 11, 2013. He was 26. His work lives on.
Aaron had developed an "opensource drop box for leaked documents along the lines of WikiLeaks,” making it possible for whistleblowers to anonymously and safely provide information to publications. He called it Deaddrop and versions of it are used by many news organizations. In a moving tribute to Aaron, Deaddrop collaborator Kevin Poulsen at Wired and The New Yorker explained that The New Yorker’s version is called Strongbox. “[I]t went online this morning” he wrote May 14, 2013.
As governments clamp down harder and harder on the internet freedoms that Aaron and others have kept alive, it’s up to us to encourage our readers to value the more Open internet made of millions of news, analysis, video and information websites alternative to the designed to be addictive Google-Microsoft-Facebook-YouTube surveillance-propaganda traps.
In a very real sense, we owe it to Aaron.
More Information
"The Brilliant Life and Tragic Death of Aaron Swartz"
"Aaron's Walk - New Hampshire Rebellion"
The Internet's Own Boy (video documentary)
