Comment

The Idealist

Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet
Jan 30, 2018StarGladiator rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
[This is a re-review: someone scolded me for being too harsh on this author, and in re-reading this book I found she was correct. I had read it will suffering the flu, and was hypercritical of the author for not mentioning what Swartz had discovered after downloading the Westlaw database {covered in the documentary, The Internet's Own Boy}. Sometime before that, a lawsuit had been filed against Westlaw for the fabrication of precedent-setting legal cases, i.e., someone or ones had created fictionalized legal cases online as precedents, et cetera. There was no publicity in the USA about this lawsuit - - evidently yet another national news blackout so common here - - but I read about it in the European news and there was actually ONE Canadian newspaper which had mentioned it. Of course, one could find out about it online with a bit of effort, but not in the American PuppetMedia.] An outstanding book, accurately and fairly covering both copyright history in America and Aaron Swartz and his demise. Highly recommended, although I wished the author had mentioned how political those US Attorneys are [USAO]; e.g., Cyrus Vance, Jr., refusing to go after the banksters, yet unjustly persecuting a small, Chinese bank in NYC, the Abacus Bank; Heynmann and Carmen Ortiz never going after the banksters, yet hounding Aaron Swartz to death; Jenny Durkan being condemned by the Seattle Human Rights Commission, and her actions soundly rebuked by a federal judge, for imprisoning in solitary confinement several youths without any due process, who were clearly innocent - - and not going after the banksters!