Whitehouse response to Aaron Swartz petition
The White House's non-response on the two-year anniversary of Aaron Swartz's death shows why these petitions are not only flawed, but should be avoided by people who actually care about political or policy change.<p>Look at the nearby discussion: Instead of asking why Carmen Ortiz, who's been in her current job for nearly six years, is still there, we're debating the <i>terms of use</i> of the petition site. Instead of wondering why a law originally designed to protect NORAD was used to drive Aaron Swartz to suicide -- despite his JSTOR "victim" never asking for a criminal prosecution -- we're reminiscing about other, equally useless, petitions in the past.<p>I admit it's a brilliant move by this administration (to be sure, Rs would do the same thing). Instead of having people sign up to be members of EFF or ACLU or TechFreedom.org, which will send email alerts when legal fixes like "Aaron's Law" are pending in Congress, people slap their names on a petition that results in a committee-managed non-response on the two year anniversary of his death.<p>Imagine if even 5% or 10% of the 61,179 people who signed that petition instead organized rallies in their cities, or a kind of Leave The Internet Alone rally in DC. That might or may not accomplish something; it surely would accomplish more than signing the petition did. (You could wrap in a bunch of related topics: DMCA/copyright reform, NSA reform, CFAA reform and more.)<p>I'm sorry if I sound frustrated. I spent hundreds of hours interviewing folks involved in the case and reading court documents about the Aaron Swartz prosecution while I was at CNET before leaving to build <a href="http://recent.io/" rel="nofollow">http://recent.io/</a>. What happened to him was a tragedy, but Carmen Ortiz will leave for a seven-figure law firm job at a time that's convenient for her, and an effort in Congress to fix things actually coughed up a bill to make current law worse:
<a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/aarons-law-rewrite-backfires-reformers-now-on-defensive/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cnet.com/news/aarons-law-rewrite-backfires-reform...</a><p>If you're interested, here's a detailed piece I wrote about the federal anti-hacking law Carmen Ortiz wielded against Aaron Swartz, and how it was never originally intended to cover what he was accused of doing:
<a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/from-wargames-to-aaron-swartz-how-u-s-anti-hacking-law-went-astray/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cnet.com/news/from-wargames-to-aaron-swartz-how-u...</a>