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Investigate the prosecution of Aaron Swartz, and how it came to be that tresspassing equals 50 years in jail.

Created by L.L. on January 14, 2013

Aaron Swartz was a 26 year old computer programmer and internet activist. He was a champion in the fight against SOPA and it's kin.
In 2008, Swartz targeted Pacer, the online service that provides access to court documents for a per-page fee. People were forced to pay for access to public court documents that were created at public expense. Swartz created a program to download millions of those documents and to distibute them for free.
in July 2011, Swartz was arrested for allegedly targeting JSTOR, the online publishing company that distributes articles written by academics and sells them. None of the money goes to the actual writers.
He was the target of a witchhunt, and the charges against him were trumpted up and baseless.

Criminal Justice Reform
Government & Regulatory Reform
Civil Rights & Equality
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