To: The United States House of Representatives and The United States Senate
Demand investigation into prosecution of Aaron Swartz
Congress: Fully investigate the prosecution and death of Aaron Swartz and make sure prosecutors can never abuse their power this way again.
Why is this important?
On January 11, 2013, facing trumped up felony charges and potentially decades in prison, my beloved partner, Aaron Swartz, made the tragic choice to end his life. He was only 26. We need you to help us learn more about why this happened -- and help make sure it never happens to anybody ever again.
Aaron faced 35 years behind bars for the nerdiest alleged crime in history – downloading too many academic journal articles. Aaron had authorized access to all of these articles through a nonprofit online library called JSTOR. Two years ago he was accused of downloading 4.8 million of these academic articles at once. He never distributed the articles or used them for anything, and he reached a private settlement with JSTOR (the supposed victim here) – who even publicly asked prosecutors to drop the criminal charges.
But US Attorney Carmen Ortiz and prosecutor Steve Heymann decided that the best use of the US government’s resources were to throw the book at Aaron. I believe that they recklessly persecuted an innocent man because they thought it would advance their careers. I also believe that there may have been serious irregularities, possibly even violations of Aaron’s constitutional rights, in the way that they pursued the case and hounded him to his death.
But I can’t prove any of that right now – and that’s where I need your help.
Join me in calling on Congress to conduct a full nonpartisan investigation into the events leading up to Aaron’s death.
The law treated Aaron like a dangerous criminal, but everyone else knew a different Aaron, the real Aaron; he was an innovator, entrepreneur and social justice advocate who co-authored RSS 1.0 (the web’s format for sharing and distributing content) at age 14, co-founded the social news website Reddit and led the fight to stop SOPA and PIPA -- the bills that attempted to censor the internet. He wanted to reform our criminal justice system and keep the internet free and open.
The case hung over our entire relationship – we started dating just weeks before Aaron was indicted. I believe Aaron was innocent of any crime and would have been acquitted at trial, but the stress and the exhaustion and the uncertainty finally became too much for him to handle. Aaron will never have the chance to prove his case to a jury of his peers, and his family, his friends and I will never get him back.
But we still have the chance to do some justice for Aaron with a full investigation. Congressmen Darrell Issa and Elijah Cummings have taken the initial step of writing a letter to the Department of Justice, and have already indicated that they're considering launching an investigation, but it's not a done deal yet.
Please join us in encouraging them to proceed: We hope that a nonpartisan and thorough airing of the facts can help yield the policy shifts we need to make sure that agents of the law use their power to uphold justice -- rather than engage in destructive witch hunts like the one that befell Aaron.
Sign the petition to Congress: Fully investigate the prosecution and death of Aaron Swartz and make sure prosecutors can never abuse their power this way again.
We can never be made whole, but we also believe that we can find some peace in an investigation. We also hope that we can prevent this kind of abuse from happening to anyone else again. We know that’s what Aaron would have wanted in the wake of his death.
Thank you,
Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, partner of Aaron Swartz
Aaron faced 35 years behind bars for the nerdiest alleged crime in history – downloading too many academic journal articles. Aaron had authorized access to all of these articles through a nonprofit online library called JSTOR. Two years ago he was accused of downloading 4.8 million of these academic articles at once. He never distributed the articles or used them for anything, and he reached a private settlement with JSTOR (the supposed victim here) – who even publicly asked prosecutors to drop the criminal charges.
But US Attorney Carmen Ortiz and prosecutor Steve Heymann decided that the best use of the US government’s resources were to throw the book at Aaron. I believe that they recklessly persecuted an innocent man because they thought it would advance their careers. I also believe that there may have been serious irregularities, possibly even violations of Aaron’s constitutional rights, in the way that they pursued the case and hounded him to his death.
But I can’t prove any of that right now – and that’s where I need your help.
Join me in calling on Congress to conduct a full nonpartisan investigation into the events leading up to Aaron’s death.
The law treated Aaron like a dangerous criminal, but everyone else knew a different Aaron, the real Aaron; he was an innovator, entrepreneur and social justice advocate who co-authored RSS 1.0 (the web’s format for sharing and distributing content) at age 14, co-founded the social news website Reddit and led the fight to stop SOPA and PIPA -- the bills that attempted to censor the internet. He wanted to reform our criminal justice system and keep the internet free and open.
The case hung over our entire relationship – we started dating just weeks before Aaron was indicted. I believe Aaron was innocent of any crime and would have been acquitted at trial, but the stress and the exhaustion and the uncertainty finally became too much for him to handle. Aaron will never have the chance to prove his case to a jury of his peers, and his family, his friends and I will never get him back.
But we still have the chance to do some justice for Aaron with a full investigation. Congressmen Darrell Issa and Elijah Cummings have taken the initial step of writing a letter to the Department of Justice, and have already indicated that they're considering launching an investigation, but it's not a done deal yet.
Please join us in encouraging them to proceed: We hope that a nonpartisan and thorough airing of the facts can help yield the policy shifts we need to make sure that agents of the law use their power to uphold justice -- rather than engage in destructive witch hunts like the one that befell Aaron.
Sign the petition to Congress: Fully investigate the prosecution and death of Aaron Swartz and make sure prosecutors can never abuse their power this way again.
We can never be made whole, but we also believe that we can find some peace in an investigation. We also hope that we can prevent this kind of abuse from happening to anyone else again. We know that’s what Aaron would have wanted in the wake of his death.
Thank you,
Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, partner of Aaron Swartz