The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz | full movie (2014)

互联网之子：亚伦·斯沃茨的故事 | 完整影片（2014） 该纪录片审视了天才程序员兼数字活动家亚伦·斯沃茨的一生，从他童年早期对RSS、知识共享（Creative Commons）和Reddit的贡献，到他反对国家审查制度和封闭数据生态系统的斗争。在斯沃茨通过麻省理工学院的网络批量下载了JSTOR的数百万篇学术文章后，联邦检察官根据《计算机欺诈与滥用法案》对他提起了严厉的多项罪名起诉，面临数十年监禁的威胁。面对高昂的诉讼费用、被迫接受重罪认罪协议的巨大压力以及系统性的刑事司法过度追诉，斯沃茨在26岁时自杀身亡，这也引发了全球对开放获取和法律改革的呼声。 Reddit联合创始人、RSS与知识共享（Creative Commons）的关键技术贡献者亚伦·斯沃茨，因通过麻省理工学院网络下载JSTOR学术文章，根据《计算机欺诈与滥用法案》（CFAA）面临最高35年联邦监禁和100万美元罚款。 (0:50) 斯沃茨组织了多场重大的数字权利运动，包括创立Demand Progress，并动员包括维基百科和Reddit在内的大规模互联网抗议黑屏行动，成功促使国会放弃了SOPA和PIPA法案。 (69:18) 在一项包含13项重罪指控的替代起诉书带来的不断升级的压力和濒临破产的境况下，斯沃茨拒绝了要求承认重罪的认罪协议，于2013年1月11日自杀身亡，年仅26岁。 (94:13) 对斯沃茨的起诉引发了公众对检察权滥用的广泛抗议，并促使立法者提出《亚伦法案》（Aaron's Law），以改革CFAA过于宽泛的法定定义。

The Internet's Own Boy documents the life and death of technologist and activist Aaron Swartz, examining how his mission to liberate information brought him into direct conflict with entrenched corporate and government institutions. Commentators in the film argue that federal prosecutors and institutional silence subjected Swartz to disproportionate legal coercion under outdated anti-hacking laws, culminating in his suicide at age twenty-six. Information Architecture and Public Domain Battles (29:45) From co-authoring the RSS specification at age fourteen and developing machine-readable architectures for Creative Commons to co-founding Reddit, Aaron Swartz treated software as a tool for public empowerment rather than private wealth. After Condé Nast acquired Reddit, Swartz grew alienated from commercial tech culture, walked away from startup profits, and redirected his efforts toward universal access to knowledge through projects like Open Library. In partnership with public-interest technologist Carl Malamud, Swartz examined the federal court system's PACER paywall, which charged ten cents per page for public legal filings while generating $120 million annually. Using a free pilot program at federal libraries, Swartz deployed an automated scraping engine that downloaded roughly twenty million pages of public court documents. Although the download breached no laws, it prompted an aggressive FBI surveillance investigation of Swartz and his family home in Highland Park, Illinois. Grassroots Internet Activism and Defeating SOPA (76:32) Swartz expanded his focus from coding to civic organizing, co-founding the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and later launching Demand Progress to mobilize public pressure on legislative institutions. When Congress introduced the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in late 2011, political insiders regarded passage as inevitable due to broad bipartisan support and substantial entertainment industry campaign funding. The bills proposed site-wide blacklists and DNS filtering that organizers argued would fundamentally compromise the internet's architecture. Demand Progress deployed custom Voice-over-IP systems that connected millions of constituent calls and petitions directly to congressional switchboards. Public opposition escalated through targeted economic boycotts against corporate supporters like GoDaddy, followed by the coordinated blackout of Wikipedia, Reddit, and thousands of other websites on January 18, 2012. The overwhelming public backlash prompted roughly one hundred lawmakers to withdraw support within twenty-four hours, entirely collapsing the legislation and demonstrating that coordinated grassroots action could overcome entrenched lobbying machines. The JSTOR Standoff and Criminal Escalation (40:00) In the autumn of 2010, while holding a Harvard research fellowship, Swartz connected a laptop to the open campus network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and ran a Python script to systematically download millions of academic articles from the commercial repository JSTOR. Swartz viewed academic publishers as exploitative cartels that locked publicly funded scientific research behind corporate paywalls, restricting access to wealthy domestic institutions while excluding researchers across the Global South. After surveillance detected him swapping hard drives in an unlocked network closet, local police and the U.S. Secret Service arrested him. Although JSTOR settled civilly with Swartz and publicly declined to pursue criminal charges, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston escalated the prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a statute enacted in 1986 following Cold War anxieties over computer hacking. Prosecutors filed a thirteen-count superseding indictment threatening up to thirty-five years in federal prison and a $1 million fine. Despite its historical celebration of campus hacking traditions, MIT maintained total public neutrality and refused defense appeals to intercede with federal authorities. Prosecutorial Pressure, Loss, and Reform (89:19) Civil rights advocates like Bryan Stevenson characterized the federal case as an abuse of prosecutorial discretion, reflecting a hyper-punitive legal system that uses felony threats to force plea bargains. Swartz refused plea offers requiring admissions of felony guilt, which would have permanently stripped him of voting rights and disqualified him from public service. The ongoing defense consumed his personal savings and required millions of dollars in legal expenses, while two straight years of federal coercion took a severe psychological toll. On January 11, 2013, Swartz committed suicide in his Brooklyn apartment. His death generated global mourning across the technology and civil liberties communities, prompting World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee to eulogize him and spurring congressional leaders to propose 'Aaron’s Law' to reform the vague language of the CFAA. Memorial speakers highlighted the human stakes of information access by citing teenager Jack Andraka, who utilized unhindered scientific papers on JSTOR to devise an early-detection methodology for pancreatic cancer. The documentary concludes that while Swartz proved that networked grassroots activism could defeat powerful legislative cartels like SOPA, his death exposed the profound vulnerability of individual reformers when confronted by the state's punitive apparatus and outdated cybercrime statutes. The unresolved struggle remains whether the open architecture of the internet can endure against state surveillance, aggressive legal deterrence, and institutional gatekeeping.

本片记录了互联网神童与数字民权活动家亚伦·斯沃茨（Aaron Swartz）的生平，展现了他致力于打破知识壁垒、推动公共资源开放的理想主义追求；影片同时尖锐地批判了美国司法系统对过时法律的严苛运用以及学术机构的冷漠妥协，认为这种制度性过度施压最终将这位天才活动家逼上了绝路。 技术天才与对商业资本的决绝疏离 (22:34) 亚伦·斯沃茨自幼展现出惊人的认知与自学能力。3岁时他便能流利阅读，12岁时凭借家庭简易服务器搭建出早于维基百科形态的协同编辑网站theinfo.org，13至14岁时深度参与了RSS标准的制定，并在15岁协助劳伦斯·莱斯格（Lawrence Lessig）构建了知识共享（Creative Commons）的机器可读规范架构。斯沃茨将编程视作能够解决现实世界难题的“魔法”，并在极早时期就对强调服从与死记硬背的传统正规教育体制产生了怀疑，逐步演化出对权威控制与封闭系统的终身审视。 在联合创立的Reddit被传媒巨头康泰纳仕（Condé Nast）以超过百万美元的价格收购后，20岁出头的斯沃茨迅速对硅谷的商业企业文化产生排斥。他无意追求豪宅、奢饰品等个人财富积累，无法忍受企业办公环境下对开发者自由的压制，最终选择离开科技初创企业界。斯沃茨将蒂姆·伯纳斯-李（Tim Berners-Lee）放弃万维网商业专利、普惠公众的举动奉为楷模，决定将卓越的技术能力投入到知识共享与社会公共利益的制度变革中。 公共领域解放与反对SOPA的草根胜利 (69:18) 离开商业界后，斯沃茨将精力投向公共领域的知识解放。针对美国联邦法院电子记录系统PACER每页收费0.10美元、年营收约1.2亿美元的不合理门槛，他与卡尔·马拉穆德（Carl Malamud）合作编写爬虫程序，在合法的免费试用项目中抓取了约2000万页（760 GB）的公共法律案卷，因此招致联邦调查局（FBI）对其住所的秘密监视与上门调查。此后，他涉足政治制度革新，联合创立了进步变革行动委员会（PCCC），推动基层动员并助力伊丽莎白·沃伦（Elizabeth Warren）竞选联邦参议员。 2011年，当好莱坞与唱片工业游说国会力推《禁止网络盗版法案》（SOPA）与《保护知识产权法案》（PIPA）时，传统政客普遍视法案通过为定局。斯沃茨创立了“需求进步”（Demand Progress）组织，开创性地将网络请愿与定制的网络电话（VoIP）系统结合，使选民能够直接向国会议员办公室施压。在发起对支持法案的域名注册商GoDaddy的抵制、并联合维基百科与Reddit于2012年1月18日举行全网抗议黑屏行动后，国会电话系统因潮水般的民众呼声瘫痪，数十名议员迅速撤回支持，促成了草根网络力量对强大企业游说集团的历史性胜利。 JSTOR事件与计算机欺诈法的武器化 (84:29) 2010年秋天，在哈佛大学担任研究员的斯沃茨转向网络环境开放的麻省理工学院（MIT）。面对学术出版巨头（如JSTOR、励德爱思唯尔）垄断公立资金资助的研究成果、收取高昂许可费而将全球多数学者拒之门外的现状，斯沃茨利用假名“Gary Host”将一台宏碁笔记本电脑接入MIT的16号楼地下网络配线间，运行Python脚本自动化下载JSTOR学术期刊文章。2011年1月，在暗中安装的监控摄像头拍到其取回硬盘后，特勤局与校警以伏击方式将其逮捕，并搜查了他的住所与办公室。 波士顿联邦检察官办公室计算机犯罪部门负责人斯蒂芬·海曼（Stephen Heyman）亲自接管该案。起诉的核心武器是制定于1986年的《计算机欺诈与滥用法》（CFAA）——一部在冷战时期受好莱坞科幻电影《战争游戏》（WarGames）引发的技术恐慌而仓促出台的陈旧法规。该法对“越权访问”定义极度宽泛，使检察官能够轻易将违反民事服务条款的行为升格为联邦重罪。检方在2012年9月提起替代起诉书，将指控罪名从4项重罪剧增至13项（其中11项基于CFAA），使斯沃茨面临高达35年的监禁和100万美元罚款的毁灭性威胁。 体制绞杀、残酷施压与不可挽回的陨落 (94:13) 在面临联邦指控的同时，被视为受害方的JSTOR早已放弃民事索赔，并公开发表声明表示无意追究刑事责任；而向来以黑客文化自居的MIT却选择全面沉默与中立，拒绝利用其学术权威向司法部求情。观察人士与辩护律师指出，联邦检方执意将斯沃茨树立为打击网络激进分子的“威慑”标杆，断然拒绝免除牢狱之灾的轻罪和解方案，强制要求其认罪为重罪犯。对于抱有崇高政治抱负与公共服务志向的斯沃茨而言，重罪判决将永久剥夺其投票权与从政资格，因此他坚决拒绝屈服并准备抗辩到底。 长达两年的司法机器碾压给斯沃茨带来了极大的心理创伤与经济破产风险，辩护诉讼费用高达数百万美元，彻底耗尽了他与家人的积蓄。尽管辩护团队相信陪审团最终会判定其无罪，但无休止的起诉升级与剥夺人格的司法程序最终摧毁了其精神防线。2013年1月11日，年仅26岁的亚伦·斯沃茨在布鲁克林的公寓内自杀身亡。他的逝世引发了全球数字社区的巨大悲痛，万维网发明者蒂姆·伯纳斯-李称其为“我们失去的孩子与导师”，劳伦斯·莱斯格等学者则痛斥美国司法体系对金融危机始作俑者网开一面，却对一名致力于知识普及的年轻人赶尽杀绝。 亚伦·斯沃茨之死迅速转化为推动制度反思的全球性声浪，促成了限制检察官过度运用CFAA的《亚伦法案》（Aaron's Law）立法动议。正如片中所提及的14岁少年杰克·安德拉卡（Jack Andraka）利用开放学术文献研发出胰腺癌早期检测法所展现的那样，知识自由共享不仅关乎信息正义，更直接关乎人类社会的进步与生命福祉；然而，陈旧的版权壁垒与威权式的司法控制体系所带来的制度性矛盾，至今仍是数字时代未竟的抗争。

## Background 该视频由 moviemaniacsDE 于 2014 年 7 月 1 日发布在 YouTube 平台上，是导演兼制片人 Brian Knappenberger 执导的完整纪录片《互联网之子》（The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz）。根据影片简介，本片采用知识共享许可协议（CC BY-NC-SA 3.0）公开发布，通过对家人、朋友及互联网巨擘的深度访谈，完整记述了美国杰出程序员、作家、政治组织者与网络活动家亚伦·斯沃茨的生平，直至他在经历严酷法律诉讼后自杀身亡，并深入探讨了驱动其行动的信息获取权与公民自由议题。 ## TL;DR 本片全景式展现了天才计算机程序员与数字人权活动家亚伦·斯沃茨非凡而悲壮的一生。亚伦自幼展现出惊人的学习与编程天赋，少年时期便深度参与了 RSS 协议规范的制定以及知识共享（Creative Commons）架构的搭建，随后联合创立了 Reddit；但他毅然放弃了硅谷的商业财富，投身于信息平等与公民行动主义。在利用自动化脚本公开 PACER 司法文书及从 MIT 网络批量下载 JSTOR 学术期刊后，亚伦遭到了美国联邦检察机关动用过时的《计算机欺诈与滥用法案》（CFAA）实施的高达 13 项重罪、最高 35 年监禁的严酷指控。在经历反抗《禁止网络盗版法案》（SOPA）的辉煌胜利与漫长诉讼的精神、财务双重重压后，26 岁的亚伦在纽约寓所自杀身亡，其悲剧彻底揭露了司法滥权并激起了全社会对知识获取权的深刻反思。 ## Atmosphere & style 全片弥漫着一种兼具理想主义激昂与深沉悼念的厚重质感，家庭录像中童年亚伦的稚嫩求知与法庭上冰冷残酷的刑事机器形成了令人窒息的鲜明对照。叙事节奏层层递进，既有技术极客打破信息垄断、带领全网阻击 SOPA 恶法的澎湃热血，也有伴侣与亲友追忆时无法释怀的悔恨、愤怒与痛楚。观影体验如同见证一颗耀眼的文明彗星被落后僵化的旧体制生生撕碎，在为天才陨落扼腕叹息的同时，强烈的悲剧力量促使每一位观众反思信息公地与司法正义的终极代价。 ## Bulletin - [01:07:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=4022s) 亚伦·斯沃茨因利用脚本从麻省理工学院网络批量下载 JSTOR 学术论文，遭到联邦检方依据《计算机欺诈与滥用法案》（CFAA）提起 13 项重罪指控，潜在刑期高达 35 年并面临 100 万美元罚款。 - [01:03:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=3792s) 尽管案件受害者 JSTOR 随后撤回了所有指控并不愿追责，联邦检察官办公室仍以“杀一儆百”建立司法威慑为由坚持重罪诉讼，拒绝达成免除重罪标签的和解。 - [01:34:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=5653s) 亚伦在遭遇长达两年的高压诉讼与巨额财务消耗后，于 2013 年 1 月 11 日在布鲁克林寓所自杀身亡，年仅 26 岁，引发全球互联网悼念及国会推动修改 CFAA 的“亚伦之法”。 - [01:16:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=4592s) 在深陷官司期间，亚伦联合创立 Demand Progress 并主导了反对《禁止网络盗版法案》（SOPA）的全国性运动，通过全网黑屏抗议促成 24 小时内约百名议员撤回支持，成功挫败该法案。 ## Key takeaways - [04:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=291s) 亚伦·斯沃茨自幼展现出对知识共享的执着，12 岁独立开发出早于维基百科模式的协同知识站点 The Info，14 岁作为核心贡献者共同起草了 RSS 1.0 规范。 - [15:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=941s) 15 岁时斯沃茨与劳伦斯·莱斯格深度合作，将“保留部分权利”的法律条款编写为机器可读的代码规范，奠定了知识共享（Creative Commons）的底层技术架构。 - [22:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=1354s) 参与联合创办 Reddit 并随公司被康泰纳仕收购后，斯沃茨主动脱离硅谷商业体系与企业官僚机制，选择将技术能力全部倾注于公共利益与制度变革。 - [31:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=1893s) 斯沃茨参与“U盘军团”行动，编写高并发脚本从试点图书馆抓取了 760 GB（约 2000 万页）本应公开但被高额收费的 PACER 联邦法院公共文档，引发 FBI 蹲点调查，最终迫使法院修改隐私规则。 - [37:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=2241s) 斯沃茨批判由纳税人资助的学术研究被爱思唯尔等商业出版寡头垄断并牟取暴利，导致发展中国家学者及公众被彻底剥夺获取全人类知识遗产的权利。 - [41:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=2515s) 在 MIT 实施批量下载时，校方在未上锁的配线间内秘密架设摄像头取证，特勤局随后依据《爱国者法案》扩充的电子犯罪管辖权全面接管该案。 - [46:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=2795s) 检方强行将斯沃茨编写脚本自动化下载学术论文的行为等同于“持撬棍入室行窃”，抹杀其未谋利、未造成实体损坏且未外泄文档的学术与公益研究性质。 - [49:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=2975s) 斯沃茨拒绝了要求承认联邦重罪并服刑 3 个月的辩诉交易，因为重罪犯记录将剥夺其公民投票权，并彻底断送其利用政策与立法改造社会的政治理想。 - [58:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=3491s) 检方通过“一日女王”豁免协议向斯沃茨女友施压，获取了其 2008 年撰写的《游击队开放获取宣言》，并将其作为证明斯沃茨具有对抗法律之“犯罪动机”的核心呈堂证据。 - [01:06:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=3992s) 拥有深厚黑客传统与校园自由声誉的麻省理工学院，在面临联邦政府起诉自身访客时采取冷漠的企业自保中立立场，未运用其道德声望保护斯沃茨。 - [01:12:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=4348s) 在反抗 SOPA 的抗争中，斯沃茨将 VoIP 呼叫工具等技术能力与草根竞选策略结合，通过数百万抗议电话和全网主流站点黑屏瘫痪国会，实现了击溃恶法的政治“概念验证”。 - [01:24:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=5069s) 检方升级的 13 项重罪指控严重依赖源自冷战恐慌的《计算机欺诈与滥用法案》（CFAA），该法案被过度滥用，甚至使违背网站常规“服务条款”的行为面临被定性为联邦重罪的风险。 - [01:30:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=5446s) 面对长达两年耗资数百万美元的法律拉锯战、精神重压与可能的牢狱灾难，亚伦·斯沃茨坚决拒绝认罪妥协，最终在开庭前夕以自杀方式告别世界。 - [01:36:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=5780s) 舆论与法律界强烈批判司法系统的失衡：酿成全球金融危机的华尔街高管安然无恙，致力于知识自由平等的无私青年却被国家司法机器逼入绝境。 - [01:40:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=6033s) 斯沃茨逝世后，国会议员提出旨在修正 CFAA 严苛条款的“亚伦之法”；而 14 岁少年借助开放期刊攻克胰腺癌检测的实例，直接印证了打破知识付费高墙的人道主义生命价值。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=50s) 序幕：天才坠落与体制风暴 社交新闻与娱乐平台 Reddit 的联合创始人亚伦·斯沃茨（Aaron Swartz）被发现身亡，消息震动了整个互联网世界。在家人、朋友与科技界同仁眼中，亚伦毫无疑问是一名神童，但他本人从未这样看待自己，他对创办营利企业或赚钱毫无热情。亚伦在故乡伊利诺伊州高地公园（Highland Park）被亲友沉痛悼念，开放获取（Open Access）运动和计算机行动主义者失去了一位最明亮的引路人。然而，他的死亡伴随着沉重的制度问责——身边的知情者直言他实际上是被政府逼向绝路，而麻省理工学院（MIT）则背叛了其一贯倡导的崇高原则，试图将他树立为杀一儆百的严惩典型。联邦检察机关此前对他提起了潜在面临长达 35 年监禁及 100 万美元罚款的严酷起诉，引发了全社会关于起诉滥权与检察官恶意诉讼的强烈谴责与质询。 在生前的影像记录中，亚伦亲自讲述了他世界观形成的根本动因： > “Growing up, you know, I slowly had this process of realizing that all the things around me that people had told me were just the natural way things were, the way things always would be, they weren't natural at all, they were things that could be changed and they were things that, more importantly, were wrong and should change, and once I realized that, there was really kind of no going back.”（在成长过程中，我慢慢意识到，周围那些人们告诉我‘本就如此、永远都会如此’的事情，根本不是理所当然的；它们是可以改变的，更重要的是，有些事情是错的、应当被改变，而一旦我意识到这一点，就真的无法回头了。） - 亚伦·斯沃茨面临联邦重罪起诉：潜在刑期最高达 35 年，罚金最高达 100 万美元。 - 斯沃茨离世引发了针对麻省理工学院（MIT）在案件中配合联邦政府、背弃黑客伦理与学术开放原则的广泛抗议。 --- ### [02:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=143s) 高地公园的神童：童年与不可遏制的好奇心 亚伦出生并在伊利诺伊州高地公园长大，家里共有三兄弟，全都有着极高的智力天赋。孩提时代的三兄弟常常满屋疯跑、捣乱调皮，但亚伦很早就展现出一种异于常人的能力——他在极幼小的年纪就掌握了“如何去学习”。他对目标极其笃定，只要认准了想做的事，就非做成不可，其求知欲近乎无穷无尽。3 岁左右的一天，亚伦突然指着家里的冰箱问母亲苏珊（Susan）：“高地公园市中心的‘免费家庭娱乐活动’（free family entertainment in downtown Highland Park）是什么？”母亲听后目瞪口呆，完全不敢相信一个三岁的幼儿竟已经无师自通地学会了认字阅读。 亚伦不仅疯狂热爱汲取知识，更天然地热衷于向他人传授知识。父亲鲍勃（Bob）回忆，有一次在芝加哥大学图书馆，他随手从书架上抽出一本约 1900 年出版的古旧藏书展示给亚伦，告诉他这里是一座非凡的宝库。亚伦吸收得极快，当他上完人生第一堂代数课回到家时，立刻拉住弟弟诺亚（Noah）说：“诺亚，我来教你代数！”诺亚一脸茫然地问代数到底是什么，而亚伦已经沉浸在传道授业的兴奋中。 --- ### [04:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=291s) 计算机即魔法：从自制 ATM 到 The Info 构想 大约在亚伦两三岁时，父亲鲍勃首次带他接触了计算机，从此点燃了他一生的痴迷。虽然三兄弟都会用电脑，但唯独亚伦完全扎了进去，将网络视为自己的栖息地。亚伦很小便开始自学编程，兄弟回忆两人用 BASIC 语言编写的第一个程序是一个《星球大战》（Star Wars）知识问答游戏。亚伦可以坐在地下室的电脑前连续工作数个小时。对亚伦而言，世界上永远有等待被解决的课题，编程就是能赋予凡人超能力的“魔法”。他曾用一台 Macintosh 电脑和硬纸板手工做出了一台可以运转的 ATM 机；万圣节他不愿穿传统奇装异服，却热衷于说服弟弟全身套上硬纸板，扮成他当时最心爱的第一代苹果 iMac。 12 岁那年，亚伦在自己的卧室里、靠着一台简陋的小服务器和老旧技术，独立写出了一个名为 The Info（theinfo.org）的网站。该网站的核心逻辑是让所有人自由贡献与编辑知识：如果有人精通金箔工艺，就可以写一篇科普放在网上，其他网民随后能查阅该词条，并在发现内容有误时进行修改。这一产品构想实际上早于维基百科（Wikipedia）的诞生。然而，当学校老师得知这一创意时，却给出了严厉的否定，怒斥道：“这是个糟糕透顶的主意！你怎能随便让任何人编写百科全书？我们之所以需要学者，就是为了让他们替我们写书，你怎么会产生这种可怕的念头？”对此，亚伦的兄弟多年后调侃道，日后全世界都在为维基百科惊叹，可他们家早在五年前就已经拥有完全一样的系统了。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: The Info 系统运作逻辑 accDescr: 展示亚伦·斯沃茨 12 岁时独立开发的 The Info 知识协同共享机制 subgraph UserContribution["内容生产与编辑"] U1["网民贡献专业知识\n(如：金箔工艺词条)"] --> S["The Info 服务器\n(由12岁亚伦在卧室内搭建)"] U2["其他访客阅读与纠错\n(自由编辑与修正词条)"] <--> S end subgraph IdeologicalClash["理念冲突"] S -.->|"超前模式验证"| W["维基百科模式\n(数年后风靡全球)"] S -.->|"传统权威质疑"| T["传统教师评价\n'不能让普通人编写百科全书'"] end ``` --- ### [07:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=440s) 走入成年人世界：RSS 规范与 14 岁规格制定者 The Info 网站为亚伦赢得了由剑桥网页设计公司 ArsDigita 主办的学校竞赛大奖（ArsDigita Prize）。全家人陪同他前往剑桥领奖，家人们完全弄不懂技术细节，但已真切感受到亚伦在网络领域的卓越地位。很快，亚伦深入到了前沿的在线编程社区中，参与到了构建万维网全新基础工具的进程中。当亚伦回家兴奋地告诉兄弟本（Ben）自己正在参与开发“RSS”时，本完全无法理解这个缩写是什么、为何有用，而亚伦所参与的正是构建现代超文本网络底层骨架（Plumbing）的标准化工作。 在负责起草 RSS 规范以及 XML 相关标准的邮件列表（Mailing List）中，出现了一位名叫“亚伦·斯沃茨”的成员，言辞犀利、观点敏锐且富有建设性。当工作组同行好奇他为何从不出席线下的面对面技术闭门会、发信询问他何时能来时，亚伦回复道： > “You know, I don't think my mom would let me. I, you know, I'm 14. I just turned 14.”（我想我妈妈可能不会放我出门。我……我只有 14 岁，才刚满 14 岁。） 整个专家委员会先是震惊于整整一年来并肩制定互联网核心协议的同行竟然只有 13、14 岁，随后爆发出强烈的渴望：“天哪，我们无论如何都一定要见见他！” - RSS（简易信息聚合）的核心功能：为网民聚合订阅数十个博客或网页更新，生成统一的结构化内容摘要，彻底改变了互联网信息分发形态。 - 亚伦在 13 岁以核心贡献者身份加入 RSS 工作组，14 岁成为 RSS 1.0 规范的共同起草人之一。 --- ### [09:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=571s) 科技神童的现实裂隙与高中体制的窒息感 为了让亚伦参加技术会议，母亲开始在芝加哥把他送上飞机，西海岸的技术同行则在旧金山机场接机，带他去见各路科技领袖展开论辩。同行们不仅惊异于从这个少年嘴里吐出的高深技术思辨，也对他奇葩的饮食习惯叹为观止——亚伦只吃白色食物，例如白面包、白米饭（拒绝炒饭，因为炒饭不够白）。同伴们开玩笑说，这个孩子只要不因坏血病夭折，将来必定会成为改变世界的大人物。在公开研讨会上，当其他人唱衰网络泡沫破裂后的创新空间时，年轻的亚伦拿起麦克风毫不客气地反驳，指出如果有人看不到正在涌现的技术革新，那一定是“把头埋进了沙子里”（head is in the sand）。在同辈眼里，亚伦有时会显露出一种“极客霸主”（Alpha Nerd）的气质，带着一种“我比你聪明，所以我比你优越、有权指导你”的少年傲慢。 然而，网络世界里的大显身手让亚伦在回到现实的高中课堂后陷入了极度痛苦与格格不入。亚伦对学校感到厌烦至极，他反感所有的教学课程，也反感僵化的老师。在他看来，自主获取知识极其容易——学几何完全可以直接读几何书，学美国历史可以一口气读完三本历史汇编，根本不需要去听老师照本宣科的灌输，更何况他全部的激情都在万维网上。 > “I was very frustrated with school. I thought, you know, the teachers didn't know what they were talking about, and they were very domineering and controlling, and the homework was kind of...”──亚伦·斯沃茨 体制化学校教育的专断与控制欲，与开放互联网络带给他的自由与自主权产生了不可调和的剧烈冲突。 ### [11:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=716s) 质疑体制与版权制度的碰撞 在反思自己的求学生涯时，亚伦·斯沃茨（Aaron Swartz）意识到学校教育在很大程度上是一场骗局，只是把学生圈禁在一起逼迫他们做无意义的琐事（busy work）。为此，他开始广泛阅读教育史书籍，研究现有教育体系是如何形成的，并探寻能让人们真正掌握知识、而非单纯向老师倒嚼死记硬背事实的替代途径。这种思考促使他进一步审视周围的一切：当他开始质疑学校，他便顺理成章地质疑建立学校的社会、学校为之输送人才的企业，以及构建了整个体系架构的政府。 在此期间，斯沃茨最投入的领域之一便是版权问题。在传统出版时代，版权虽然在某种程度上对出版业和读者构成了负担，但那是一种确保创作者获得报酬的合理机制。然而，当老旧过时的版权体系迎头撞上正在蓬勃发展的互联网与万维网时，剧烈的冲突爆发了，随之而来的便是混乱。彼时，哈佛大学法学院教授劳伦斯·莱斯格（Lawrence Lessig）正在美国最高法院就著名的 Eldred v. Ashcroft 案对版权法发起宪法挑战。年幼的斯沃茨专程从芝加哥飞往华盛顿特区旁听最高法院的庭辩。当在法庭外被问及为何远道而来时，稚气未脱的斯沃茨显得有些羞涩与局促，他回答道：“这是一个更难回答的问题……我不知道。能亲眼看到最高法院，尤其是像这样著名的案子，非常令人兴奋。” ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Aaron Swartz copyright collision path accDescr: 展现亚伦从质疑传统学校体制到参与数字版权重构的思想演进路径。 subgraph Ideology["观念觉醒"] A["质疑学校教育与灌输模式"] --> B["反思社会机制、企业与政府架构"] B --> C["聚焦版权议题"] end subgraph Collision["制度碰撞"] C --> D["传统版权体系 (All Rights Reserved)"] E["新兴互联网与万维网生态"] --> F["两相碰撞引发信息传播混乱"] D --> F end subgraph Action["早期行动"] F --> G["前往华盛顿旁听 Eldred 案庭辩"] G --> H["与劳伦斯·莱斯格合作推动 Creative Commons"] end ``` ### [13:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=821s) 共同创立知识共享（Creative Commons） 莱斯格当时正在推进一种在互联网上重新界定版权的新方式——知识共享（Creative Commons，简称 CC）。传统的版权模式是“保留所有权利”（All Rights Reserved），而 CC 的核心理念则是“保留部分权利”（Some Rights Reserved），旨在为创作者提供一种简便的机制，自由标注其希望作品拥有的开放度，向大众明确说明在何种条件下可以无需事先授权使用该作品。 当时年仅 15 岁的斯沃茨承担了核心的技术架构工作：将许可协议转化为机器可读的底层代码规范，使计算机和网络引擎能够自动化处理这些法律条款。许多成年人对此感到不可思议，甚至质疑道：“你们怎么能让一个15岁的孩子来编写知识共享的底层技术规范？难道不觉得这是一个巨大的错误吗？”莱斯格对此毫不动摇，直接回应道：“如果我们不听这个孩子的，那才是我们犯下的最大错误。” 在公开演示中，斯沃茨因为身材矮小，站在固定讲台前时，屏幕升起后几乎挡住了整张脸。但他毫不怯场，向满屋的技术专家和学者清晰演示了 CC 的许可挑选机制：创作者只需回答三个核心问题——是否要求署名、是否允许商业用途、是否允许演绎修改。与会者回忆起那一幕时无不感到震撼：台下的成年人完全把斯沃茨当成平等的成年专家来看待，全神贯注地听他阐述自己构建的技术平台。尽管后来有批评者指出 CC 并不能直接保障创作者获得经济回报，但其影响力席卷了全球，仅在相片分享平台 Flickr 上，就有超过 2 亿人采用了某种 CC 许可协议。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Creative Commons Decision Tree accDescr: 展示斯沃茨设计的知识共享核心选择逻辑流程图。 A["选择许可证"] --> B{"是否要求署名 (Attribution)?"} B --> C{"是否允许商业性使用 (Commercial Uses)?"} C --> D{"是否允许修改演绎 (Modifications)?"} D --> E["生成机器可读的 CC 协议代码"] ``` ### [15:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=947s) 个人信条与短暂的斯坦福求学生涯 斯沃茨对技术的投入远超越了纯粹的技术维度。他在个人博客中写下了深刻而赤诚的自省信条，展露了他对世界与自我的要求： > “我对事物进行深入思考，也希望别人同样如此。我为思想而工作，向他人学习。我不喜欢排挤他人。我是个完美主义者，但我不会让它阻碍成果的发表。除了教育和娱乐，我不会把时间浪费在没有影响力的事情上。我努力和每个人交朋友，但我讨厌别人不认真对待我。我不记仇，那毫无意义；但我会从经历中吸取教训。我想让世界变得更美好。” 2004 年，斯沃茨离开伊利诺伊州高地公园（Highland Park），进入斯坦福大学深造。然而他的身体状况十分糟糕，饱受溃疡性结肠炎的折磨，曾多次住院，每天必须服用大量混合药物。其中一种类固醇药物阻碍了他的身体骨骼发育，使他在同龄人中显得瘦小孱弱，内心也产生疏离感。 在学业层面，斯坦福的生活令他备受煎熬。正如朋友所评价的，斯沃茨来到斯坦福是满怀热忱准备做真正的学术研究，结果发现这里更像是一个“专为高智商高中生设立的托儿所”，这些学生被按部就班地训练，目的是在四年后成为工业巨头或跻身百分之一的富豪阶层。大学体制中弥漫的平庸与功利让斯沃茨抓狂不已。 ### [17:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=1047s) Y Combinator、Reddit 的崛起与出售 2005年，在斯坦福仅仅读了一年后，保罗·格雷厄姆（Paul Graham）创办的新型创业孵化器 Y Combinator 向斯沃茨抛出了橄榄枝。斯沃茨带着构建网站工具 Infogami 的构想果断从斯坦福退学。退学后他在马萨诸塞州租了一间小公寓，由于他没有信用记录又是大学退学生，父亲在为他担保租房时历经曲折。 Infogami 推出后在获取用户方面陷入苦战。与此同时，Y Combinator 旗下的另一个项目也面临技术人手瓶颈——由史蒂夫·霍夫曼（Steve Huffman）和亚历克西斯·奥哈尼安（Alexis Ohanian）共同创办的 Reddit。于是，斯沃茨带着 Infogami 与 Reddit 合并，成为 Reddit 的联合创始人。团队几乎是从零起步，没有资金、没有用户，代码也极其简陋，但在他们的合力开发下，Reddit 迎来了爆炸式增长，用户规模从 1,000 人迅速跃升至 10,000 人、20,000 人，成为互联网极客的重要聚集地。 Reddit 充满了幽默、艺术探讨和科技政治辩论，许多人每天清晨第一件事就是打开它获取新闻；但它也游走在混乱的边缘，充斥着 NSFW 内容、冒犯性言论以及网络喷子的聚集地。凭借爆发式的流量，Reddit 迅速吸引了传媒巨头康泰纳仕（Condé Nast）的注意。2006年，康泰纳仕正式出资收购 Reddit，当时年仅 19、20 岁的斯沃茨分得了巨额财富（据估计超过百万美元），这笔钱庞大到斯沃茨甚至不得不频繁向父亲请教如何管理和存放资金。 ### [20:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=1204s) 极简生活、信息守门人与体制内窒息 完成收购并举办盛大的庆祝派对后，团队飞往加州。令人称奇的是，骤然暴富的斯沃茨对物质享受毫无兴趣。在合租公寓中，他主动挑选了最小的一间宛如鞋盒、几乎只比壁橱大一点的房间。身边的朋友回忆，斯沃茨认为把钱花在奢侈品上完全不可思议，他曾坦白解释道：自己喜欢住在普通公寓，所以绝不会去买豪宅；自己喜欢穿牛仔裤和 T 恤，所以不会在衣物上多花一分钱。 在斯沃茨看来，真正至关重要的问题是互联网的流量如何流动，以及什么力量在支配大众的注意力。在传统的广播时代，信息受限于物理电磁波谱，电视台只能播出有限的几个或几百个频道；但在互联网时代，每个人都可以拥有自己的博客或主页，发声的门槛被彻底打破。由此带来的核心矛盾发生了转移：“现在的核心不再是谁有权使用无线电波，而是谁控制了你寻找他人的途径。”谷歌等中心化平台开始扮演把关人（Gatekeepers）的角色，掌控着人们在网络上的流向与新闻来源。信息民主的核心不再是谁拥有发声的许可证，而是“谁的声音能够被听见”。 被收购后，斯沃茨搬到旧金山进入康泰纳仕的办公室上班，但那里的企业官僚体制让他感到极度痛苦。第一天报到，公司配发了一台装满垃圾监控软件的电脑，并且规定开发者不得自行安装新软件，这彻底激怒了他。他在博客中痛苦地记录了当时的绝望心态： > “灰色的墙壁，灰色的办公桌，灰色的噪音。我来这里报到的第一天，整个人完全崩溃了；到了午饭时间，我把自己反锁在洗手间的隔间里痛哭起来。” 斯沃茨无法忍受整天有人在耳边嗡嗡作响的办公环境，更无法理解为什么公司里似乎没有人真正在工作——所有人都在各个房间之间闲逛聊天，或者跑去试玩《连线》（Wired）杂志正在测试的最新视频游戏机。这种环境与他追求效率、思想与改变世界的崇高理想背道而驰。 ### [22:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=1354s) 决裂大企业：放弃硅谷名利与蒂姆·伯纳斯-李的启示 亚伦·斯沃茨的心中始终怀揣着强烈的政治诉求，然而硅谷的商业文化根本没有让技术为政治理想服务的土壤。在 Reddit 被康泰纳仕（Condé Nast）收购后，亚伦极度反感在庞大的官僚化企业中打卡上班。其他人或许会对大公司的压抑选择隐忍妥协，但亚伦绝不买账，他最终采取了一种近乎决绝的方式让自己被开除——彻底不再去办公室露面。这是一场非常不愉快的决裂，以至于 Reddit 的两位联合创始人亚历克西斯·瓦尼安（Alexis Ohanian）和史蒂夫·霍夫曼（Steve Huffman）均拒绝就本片接受采访。离开创业圈意味着亚伦主动摒弃了曾带给他名气、财富和崇拜的商业舞台，甘愿冒着让支持者大失所望的风险。科利·多克托罗（Cory Doctorow）用了一个尖锐的比喻来形容亚伦的觉醒：“他历尽艰辛爬上了那座狗屎之山，只为摘下顶峰的那朵玫瑰，结果却发现自己早就丧失了嗅觉；但他没有坐在那儿自欺欺人地说情况其实没那么糟、反正自己已经拿到了玫瑰，而是直接从山上爬了下来，这简直酷极了。” 在亚伦的世界观里，编程就是现代社会的“魔法”——程序员拥有常人所不具备的能力，能够达成普通人无法企及的奇迹。既然手握魔法，就必须面对根本的道德抉择：是利用它去赚取堆积成山的钞票，还是用它去造福世人？亚伦深受万维网发明者蒂姆·伯纳斯-李（Tim Berners-Lee）的深刻影响。伯纳斯-李在 20 世纪 90 年代坐拥人类历史上最赚钱的发明之一，却选择将其无偿公开赠予全世界，从而奠定了整个开放互联网的基础。如果当时伯纳斯-李选择将其商业化变现，世界上就会出现无数个互相割裂、无法通过超链接互通的微型网络，而无法形成连接全人类的整体。亚伦同样将这种超脱金钱的科学怀疑主义贯彻到对现实社会的审视中。在谈到自己的动力时，亚伦明确表示：“一旦我意识到世界上存在着许多我能够出手去解决的极其严重、极其根本的问题时，我就找不到任何理由去视而不见，我找不到任何置身事外的办法。” ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 亚伦的技术选择哲学 accDescr: 对比硅谷追求商业变现与伯纳斯-李开放主义两种不同路径对亚伦的影响 subgraph SiliconValley["硅谷主流模式"] A["技术专长（魔法）"] --> B["初创公司收购 / 资本套现"] B --> C["企业官僚体制与利润垄断"] end subgraph AaronPath["亚伦的实践路径（受伯纳斯-李启发）"] D["技术赋能公共利益"] --> E["打破信息壁垒 / 免费公开"] E --> F["解决社会根本结构性问题"] end ``` ### [26:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=1562s) 亲密关系与心境：奎因·诺顿眼中的亚伦与不竭的乐观 伴随着职业生涯的剧烈转向，亚伦的个人生活也迎来了转折。他和作家、数字版权活动家奎因·诺顿（Quinn Norton）从无话不谈的好友逐渐发展为恋人。两人常常在深夜促膝长谈数个小时。当诺顿的婚姻破裂、陷入无处可去的困境时，亚伦向她伸出了援手。诺顿带着年幼的女儿搬去与亚伦合租，他们一同打理屋子、添置家具，在彼此混乱而动荡的生活中找到了一段难得的宁静时光。虽然两人从相恋伊始就形影不离，但诺顿坦言他们都是个性极其执拗、很难打交道的人。 在一次非常具有“甜心俏佳人（Ally McBeal）”风格的长谈中，亚伦向诺顿坦白自己有一首人生的“主题曲”，诺顿便让他当场放给自己听。那首歌是菲奥娜·苹果（Fiona Apple）的《Extraordinary Machine》（非凡机器）。这首歌精准地击中了亚伦的精神内核——歌曲中流淌着一种虽身处重围、饱受质疑却依然奋力向前的倔强，正如歌词所唱的那样，哪怕前路是一场缓慢而煎熬的攀爬，但他早就习惯了与痛苦和不适为伴，因此永远无法停止重塑自我的脚步。诺顿回忆道，亚伦在很多时候对生活抱有一种惊人的乐观主义，哪怕在他自己深陷沮丧、根本感受不到快乐的至暗时刻，他也依然对世界未来的可能性怀抱坚定的希望。 ### [27:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=1679s) 释放公有领域：Open Library 与 PACER 的暴利黑幕 重获自由的亚伦将全副精力倾注到一系列旨在推进公共信息透明的项目中。他不仅建立了政府问责网站 watchdog.org，更全情投入到“开放图书馆”（Open Library）的宏大构想中。亚伦热爱图书馆，每到一座陌生的城市，他的第一站必然是当地的图书馆。Open Library 的愿景是成为一个开放可编辑的庞大维基系统，为人类有史以来出版过的每一本书建立专属页面，汇总来自出版商、书店、图书馆和普通读者的全部数据，并提供购买、借阅或在线浏览的指引。在亚伦看来，散落在传统实体图书馆深处的海量知识图谱一直缺乏有效的数字化检索途径，而图书作为人类共同的文化遗产，如果全部被单一跨国巨头（如 Google 等商业公司）所垄断和吞噬，将是一件极其危险而令人恐惧的事情。 这一理念顺理成章地引申出一个核心问题：公有领域（Public Domain）的内容本应归全人类免费共享，但在现实中却往往被重重铁锁封闭起来，宛如一座本该对全民开放的国家公园，外围却被挖出了深深的护城河，甚至架设起机关枪炮塔，严防公众踏入。让亚伦最终陷入巨大法律风暴的导火索，正是他对司法公有数据开放的执着。当研究人员尝试获取美国联邦法院的电子记录时，都会遭遇一个名为 PACER（法院电子记录公共访问系统）的收费黑洞。非营利机构“公众资源网”（public.resource.org）创始人卡尔·马拉穆德（Carl Malamud）对此揭露道，美国的法律信息服务已经畸变为一个每年高达 100 亿美元的垄断暴利行业。PACER 的系统极其拙劣落后，代码粗糙，既无法全文检索也不能添加书签，而且必须绑定信用卡，按照每页 10 美分的高昂标准向公众收费。 - **PACER 系统的财务与法律矛盾**：根据法院自身记录，该系统每年向全美公众收取的检索费用高达 1.2 亿美元左右，但其实际运营成本微乎其微。 - **涉嫌违法运营**：美国《2002年电子政务法案》（E-Government Act of 2002）明确规定，法院系统收取访问费用只能以“收回系统运行必要成本”为限，不得借此营利。 - **司法公正的门槛**：美国联邦地区法院审理着涵盖民权、专利等关乎国计民生的重要诉讼案，原本属于完全公开的公共记录，这种收费无异于剥夺了穷人的知情权。卡尔·马拉穆德尖锐地批评道：“法律是我们民主体制的操作系统，如果你必须付费才能查看这个系统，那这根本称不上有多民主；这是对司法获取权征收的人头税。” ### [31:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=1893s) “U盘军团”与PACER数据解放行动 为了抗议 PACER 的不合理收费，卡尔·马拉穆德发起了“PACER 回收计划”（Pacer Recycling Project），号召已经花钱购买过法庭文档的用户将其上传到公共免费数据库，实现资源共享。迫于国会与公众舆论的巨大压力，联邦法院行政办公室在全美 17 家指定公共图书馆设立了免费试用终端。然而这项“惠民”措施毫无诚意，全美平均每 2.2 万平方英里才分布着一家试点图书馆，公众根本无法便捷使用。卡尔戏谑地在官网上发起号召，呼吁志愿者组成所谓的“U盘军团”（Thumb Drive Corps），亲自带上移动硬盘或 U 盘跑到这些试点图书馆把文档拷贝出来回传给他。这个倡议最初带有一丝自嘲的幽默色彩，网站上甚至还配了一段《绿野仙踪》矮人唱歌的荒诞短视频，卡尔原以为这只是杯水车薪的象征性抗议。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: PACER 文档解放流程 accDescr: 亚伦·斯沃茨与技术活动家从联邦试点图书馆批量抓取 PACER 数据的技术流程 subgraph Library["全美17家指定公共图书馆"] A["PACER 免费查询终端"] end subgraph Exploit["自动化批量获取"] B["史蒂夫·舒尔茨的原始代码"] --> C["亚伦在数小时内重写优化的多线程代码"] A --> C C --> D["实地联络人现场自动化并发抓取"] end subgraph PublicArchive["释放至公有领域"] D --> E["760 GB 数据<br>（约 2000 万页文档 / 270 万份案卷）"] E --> F["public.resource.org 免费公开数据库"] end ``` 然而，技术专家史蒂夫·舒尔茨（Steve Schultze）和亚伦·斯沃茨敏锐地发现了其中的技术突破口。舒尔茨已经编写了一套能够自动从试点图书馆下载法庭文档的原型程序，他希望联合各方力量干一番大事。在一次技术会议上，舒尔茨找到了亚伦并讨论了针对 PACER 开展技术干预的想法。亚伦对此表现出极大的兴趣，舒尔茨回忆道：“我把代码展示给他看，当时我完全不知道接下来会发生什么；但在接下来的几个小时里，他就坐在会议大厅的一个角落里，不断完善优化我的代码，还当场联络了一个住在试点图书馆附近的朋友，让对方去图书馆现场测试他改良后的程序。” 亚伦利用从试点图书馆获取的合法认证信息，编写了高并发、高自动化的分布式并行下载脚本，以势如破竹的算力对 PACER 系统展开了海量抓取。法院系统很快察觉到后台数据流异常激增，但为时已晚——在这场突如其来的技术奇袭中，亚伦成功抓取了高达 760 GB 的法庭记录，总计约 2000 万页公共文档、近 270 万份联邦法庭案卷，将其彻底从收费高墙后解救到了公共阳光之下。 ### [34:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=2040s) PACER 调查的余波与 FBI 的盯梢 亚伦·斯沃茨（Aaron Swartz）和卡尔·马拉穆德（Carl Malamud）利用免费试用项目下载了近 2000 万页的联邦法院文档。尽管这一体量远远超出了试运行项目官员的预期，但正如片中所指出的，“让官僚感到意外并不犯法”。两人随即联系了《纽约时报》（The New York Times）公开此事，然而这也迅速招来了联邦调查局（FBI）的注意。FBI 开始在伊利诺伊州斯沃茨父母的居所周围展开盯梢。 亚伦的母亲收到消息后极其惊慌，立即发推文要求其家人联系她。亚伦的弟弟本·斯沃茨（Ben Swartz）回忆起当时的情景：一辆陌生的汽车顺着自家的车道开进来，试图探头查看亚伦是否在房间里，随后又倒车开走。直到大约五年后查阅解密的 FBI 档案，他才恍然大悟：“那辆开进我家车道的车里坐的原是个 FBI 特工。”面对联邦执法力量的介入，年轻的亚伦深感恐惧，特别是当 FBI 特工直接给他打电话、试图诱骗他在没有律师陪同的情况下前往咖啡馆面谈时，亚伦回到家直接倒在床上全身发抖。 这次大规模下载最终揭露了法院文档中普遍存在的严重隐私侵犯漏洞，迫使联邦法院系统全面修改其隐私政策，而 FBI 最终在未提起任何刑事指控的情况下结案关闭了档案。对此，卡尔·马拉穆德尖锐地批评了联邦调查机构的荒唐行径： > “时至今日，我都觉得不可思议，怎么会有任何人——哪怕是在 FBI 最偏僻闭塞的地方外勤办事处——会认为动用纳税人的钱，以涉嫌刑事盗窃为由去调查公开法律文档的人是一件合理的事？你自称执法人员，怎么可能觉得把法律公之于众在整个世界上是一件错事呢？” ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: PACER事件及后续影响 accDescr: 展示从PACER下载海量公共文档到FBI调查及政策改变的逻辑过程 subgraph Download ["公开行动"] A["通过试用终端下载2000万页PACER法院文档"] --> B["向《纽约时报》公开事实"] end subgraph Response ["体制与执法部门反应"] B --> C["FBI展开调查并蹲点亚伦父母家"] C --> D["特工致电试图诱导亚伦在无律师下会面"] A --> E["揭露法院文档中大面积隐私漏洞"] end subgraph Outcome ["最终结果"] E --> F["法院系统被迫修改隐私保护政策"] D --> G["FBI最终未予起诉，撤案结案"] end ``` --- ### [36:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=2168s) 涉足政治组织：破解体制的运作法则 随着时间的推移，亚伦对日益加剧的贫富差距深感不满，他的关注点逐渐从单纯的计算机技术扩展到更宽广的政治行动领域。一位国会相关人士回忆邀请亚伦到国会实习的经历，称亚伦当时是在“学习一套新的技巧，学习如何像黑客一样去破解政治（hack politics）”。 在谈及创立政治组织的初衷时，亚伦坦露了内心的不公感与荒诞感： > “矿工们汗流浃背地拼命敲打劳作，深知一旦停下当晚就无法养家糊口，而我仅仅坐在那里看电视，每天就能赚到越来越庞大的金钱，这显得荒谬透顶。但这个世界显然就是这般荒谬，所以我共同创立了一个名为‘进步变革行动委员会’（PCCC）的组织。” PCCC（Progressive Change Campaign Committee）的目标是通过互联网聚集关注进步政治的人群，组织邮件列表发起运动，支持全美各地的进步派候选人参与竞选。该组织后来成为推动伊丽莎白·沃伦（Elizabeth Warren）竞选联邦参议员背后关键的草根力量之一。亚伦或许觉得现行的政治体制陈旧愚蠢，但他意识到任何社会系统都可以被研究和操纵，因而必须深入其中掌握这套规则。 --- ### [37:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=2241s) 学术期刊的高墙：知识公地与暴利集团 在投身政治的同时，亚伦对知识传播和图书馆的热情从未消退。他开始把目光聚焦于把持学术期刊文章出版权的机构。作为哈佛大学等美国名校的学者，人们通常可以享有阅览全球学术资源的特权，大学为此每年向 JSTOR、汤森路透（Thomson Reuters）、ISI 等数据库支付高昂的许可费，而普通大众与非名校学者却被严密阻隔在外。 亚伦在访谈中指出，这些学术论文构成了人类全部知识财富的核心，绝大部分研究本就是由公共纳税人的资金或政府拨款资助的，但大众若想阅读，却必须再次向励德·爱思唯尔（Reed Elsevier）等巨头出版社支付昂贵费用。这种高昂壁垒使得身处印度的学者根本无力负担，直接被剥夺了接触人类科学遗产的权利。他强调，这些文献凝聚了从启蒙时代以来科学家的辛勤探索，本应作为全人类共享的“公地（Commons）”，如今却沦为极少数营利性公司的私有摇钱树。 研究人员由大学或公众资金供养，完成从思考、实验、分析到撰写的全部工作，而在流程的最后一步，却被迫将版权无偿让渡给估值数十亿美元的出版寡头。正如旁白所指出的，整个产业建立在研究人员的无偿劳动之上，顶级出版商却坐享其成抽取暴利，“英国一家出版商去年的利润就高达30亿美元，这纯粹是一场敲诈”。在这个暴利体系中，非营利数据库 JSTOR 充其量只是一个很小的角色，但亚伦却选择将其作为正面交锋的目标。据熟人回忆，在一次开放获取（Open Access）会议上，亚伦曾当面询问 JSTOR 代表需要多少资金才能将所有数据永久向全社会开放，对方给出了一个亚伦认为荒谬至极的数字：1 亿美元。 --- ### [40:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=2402s) MIT 地下机房与“幽灵笔记本” 在哈佛大学担任研究员期间，亚伦盯上了紧邻哈佛、拥有极高网络带宽且网络管理极为开放的麻省理工学院（MIT）。MIT 的网络用户拥有访问 JSTOR 核心数据库的合法权限。亚伦看到了一条路径：只要获得这扇大门的钥匙，配合一点 Shell 脚本的魔法，就能将这些海量学术文章下载出来。 2010 年 9 月 24 日，亚伦用新买的宏碁（Acer）笔记本电脑在 MIT 校园网注册，登记名字为“Gary Host”，客户端命名为“ghost laptop”。他所采用的手段并非传统意义上的系统入侵，因为 JSTOR 数据库的条目架构极为简单直观，文章 ID 基本上是按数字顺次排列（例如 44424、44425、44426）。亚伦编写了一个名为 `keep grabbing.py` 的 Python 脚本，令电脑不知疲倦地一篇接一篇自动抓取文献。 第二天，“幽灵笔记本”开始全速下载，但很快机器的 IP 地址就被封禁。对亚伦而言，这只是轻微的阻碍，他迅速重新分配了 IP 地址继续抓取。随着下载量持续飙升，JSTOR 与 MIT 采取了多种限制措施，但更常规的手段均告失效。最终，JSTOR 直接切断了整个 MIT 校园对 JSTOR 数据库的访问权限。在这场数据权限的猫鼠游戏中，技术能力显然高出一筹的亚伦始终占据主动。为了彻底绕过 Wi-Fi 限制，亚伦在 MIT 某栋建筑地下室找到了一间未上锁的网络配线壁橱，他把笔记本电脑直接插进网络交换机端口，外挂一块大容量移动硬盘，让设备独自留在密闭的机房里不分昼夜地下载。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: keep grabbing脚本下载流程 accDescr: 展示亚伦编写脚本并利用MIT网络下载JSTOR论文的机制 subgraph MIT_Network ["MIT 物理网络"] A["Acer笔记本 (ghost laptop)"] --> B["地下室配线间物理网线直连"] B --> C["外接移动硬盘"] end subgraph Automation ["脚本自动化"] D["keep grabbing.py Python脚本"] -->|"遍历顺次递增的数字ID"| E["请求JSTOR服务器"] end subgraph Defenses ["防御与规避"] E --> F["JSTOR封锁IP"] F -->|"重分配IP地址绕过"| D E -->|"下载遭阻断"| G["JSTOR切断全校访问"] end A --- D ``` --- ### [41:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=2515s) 监控探头、伏击逮捕与特勤局介入 然而亚伦并不知道，这台藏在地下室配线柜里的笔记本电脑和移动硬盘已被校方和相关部门发现。执法机构没有选择直接拔掉网线，也没有选择在现场守候当面质问使用者，而是暗中在室内架设了一台监控摄像机。现场观察者指出，他们这么做的唯一目的就是为了录像取证、以便日后提请刑事指控。 起初，监控录像中只拍到了一位利用储物间存放空瓶子和易拉罐的杂工；几天后，镜头终于捕捉到了斯沃茨的身影：录像显示他正从背包里拿出新硬盘进行替换，随后侧身在画面外忙碌了约五分钟后离开。不久后，警方策划了一次伏击抓捕。当亚伦骑着自行车离开 MIT 准备回家时，埋伏在道路两侧的便衣警员突然冲出将其扑倒在地并实施暴力压制。根据亚伦后续的回忆，这些人在行动时并未清晰表明警察身份，导致他一度以为遭到了街头暴徒的袭击和殴打。 面对这场突如其来的刑事风暴，亚伦的家人陷入了极度的震惊与崩溃。警方随即申请并执行了搜查令，突击搜查了亚伦在剑桥的公寓以及他在哈佛的办公室。 更严重的转折在于，早在亚伦被捕的两天前，这起针对学术期刊下载的案件就已脱离了 JSTOR 和剑桥当地警方的管辖范围，由美国特勤局（United States Secret Service）全面接管。特勤局自 1984 年起开始负责调查计算机和信用卡诈诈骗罪行，而在“9·11”恐怖袭击发生六周后，布什总统签署的《爱国者法案》（Patriot Act）大幅扩充了其职权，建立了所谓的“电子犯罪特遣队”（Electronic Crimes Task Forces），其成立初衷本是“为了应对现代恐怖分子带来的新现实和危险”，如今这一反恐机器却全面对准了一名在机房下载学术文献的年轻人。 - **查扣设备与化名**：宏碁笔记本电脑，注册名“Gary Host”，设备识别名“ghost laptop”。 - **抓取脚本名**：`keep grabbing.py`。 - **搜查范围**：亚伦在剑桥的住所、哈佛大学办公室及 MIT 涉事网络配线间。 - **接管机构**：美国特勤局（United States Secret Service）电子犯罪特遣队。 ### [45:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=2702s) 特勤局移交案件与检察官 Stephen Heyman 的登场 美国特勤局（Secret Service）通常介入涉及重大经济影响、有组织犯罪团伙或利用新技术进行犯罪的案件。在逮捕亚伦·斯沃茨（Aaron Swartz）后，特勤局将此案移交给了波士顿的联邦检察官办公室（U.S. Attorney's Office）。当时该办公室有一名主管计算机犯罪部门或专案组的检察官——斯蒂芬·海曼（Stephen Heyman）。受访者指出，作为一名计算机犯罪检察官，如果没有计算机犯罪大案可办，其职位就形同虚设；因此海曼紧抓该案不放，既没有转交单位内的其他同事，也没有分流给其他部门，而是由自己亲自接管。 海曼在此前曾因起诉臭名昭著的黑客阿尔贝托·冈萨雷斯（Alberto Gonzalez）而名声大噪。冈萨雷斯策划盗取了超过1亿张信用卡和ATM卡号，制造了美国历史上规模最大的信用卡诈骗案，海曼也因此赢得了媒体的大量赞誉。在纪录片引用的电视节目《美国贪婪》（American Greed）片段中，海曼公开表达了他对黑客思维的认知：“这些人的驱动力在很多方面和我们是一样的，他们有虚荣心，喜欢挑战，当然，他们也喜欢金钱以及金钱能买来的一切。”（“These guys are driven by a lot of the same things that we're driven by. They have an ego, they like challenge, and of course they like money and everything you can get from money.”）值得一提的是，在当年冈萨雷斯案的调查过程中，一名受到牵连的年轻黑客乔纳森·詹姆斯（Jonathan James）因认定罪名都会被扣在自己头上，在案件调查期间选择了自杀。 ### [46:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=2795s) “撬棍论”与量刑定性之辩 在案件初期，马萨诸塞州联邦检察官卡门·奥尔蒂斯（Carmen Ortiz，海曼的上级）在一份官方声明中强硬地宣称：“偷窃就是偷窃，无论你使用的是计算机指令还是撬棍，无论你掠走的是文件、数据还是美元。”（“Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data, or dollars.”） 然而，这种将编写脚本下载等同于暴力破门的定性遭到了强烈反驳。受访法律学者指出，这一指控从逻辑上显然站不住脚。虽然盗取信息不代表毫无危害，法律也有必要予以规范，但必须更细致地评估其究竟造成了何种实质伤害。用撬棍入室盗窃必然会造成物理破坏和直接损失，而斯沃茨编写脚本以一秒上百次的速度下载学术论文，如果是为了建立档案做学术研究，根本没有对任何人造成有形的直接损害。他既没有将下载的内容转手出售获利，也没有将其分发传播；他不是在盗窃，而是在表明一种态度。 - 卡门·奥尔蒂斯定调：将计算机脚本下载与撬棍暴力破门盗窃等同视之。 - 辩方与法学界反驳：未造成财产毁损、未进行商业变现、未造成实体损害，执法机关完全抹杀了不同性质行为的界限。 ### [47:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=2865s) 恐怖阴影笼罩与当时的黑客活动背景 被捕后的斯沃茨陷入了极度焦虑与封闭状态。他的伴侣奎因·诺顿（Quinn Norton）回忆，斯沃茨对逮捕闭口不谈，整个人始终处在压抑阴郁的情绪中。他时刻提防联邦调查局（FBI）随时上门抓人，甚至下楼洗衣服如果没锁门，都会害怕特工破门而入搜查公寓；在那段时间里，他对外绝不透露自己的行踪，害怕 FBI 已经在暗处布控等待他。 这一时期正值全球范围内前所未有的社会与政治抗议浪潮——《时代》周刊将“抗议者”（The Protester）评选为2011年年度风云人物。彼时黑客活动极为活跃：维基解密（WikiLeaks）披露了大量外交电报，切尔西·曼宁（Chelsea Manning）被捕且当时泄密源头尚未完全明朗，匿名者（Anonymous）黑客组织也在各地频繁发起行动。在这样紧张的大环境下，执法机关神经高度紧绷。但评论指出，与这些涉及国家机密或破坏性的黑客事件相比，斯沃茨的行为完全应当留在麻省理工学院（MIT）和 JSTOR 之间以民事与私下专业的方式解决，根本不应该进入联邦刑事司法系统的视野。 ### [49:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=2975s) 认罪协议与重罪标签的沉重代价 在正式起诉前，检方抛出了一份辩诉交易（plea deal）：要求斯沃茨在认罪的前提下，服刑3个月、在中途宿舍（halfway house）接受监管，并接受一年的居家监禁，期间被剥夺使用电脑的权利；而接受这一交易的前提，是他必须承认犯有联邦重罪（felony）。在斯沃茨一方尚未获得检方证据开示（Discovery）、根本不清楚政府掌握何种具体底牌的情况下，面临着要么认罪、要么面对胜诉希望渺茫之审判的巨大压力。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Aaron Swartz Plea Deal Dilemma accDescr: Flowchart illustrating Aaron Swartz's choice between accepting a felony plea deal or facing trial, leading to his rejection due to political aspirations. subgraph GovOffer ["检方的认罪协议条件"] P1["服刑 3 个月"] P2["中途宿舍监管 + 1 年居家监禁"] P3["禁止使用电脑"] P4["承认犯有联邦重罪 (Felony)"] end GovOffer --> Decision{"斯沃茨的选择"} Decision -->|接受协议| Consequences["丧失投票权 / 终身重罪记录 / 彻底断送参政可能"] Decision -->|拒绝协议| TrialThreat["检方加重指控 / 面临漫长刑期与高昂诉讼成本"] Consequences --> Result["斯沃茨毅然拒绝认罪协议"] TrialThreat --> Result ``` 波士顿联邦检察官办公室拥有大批计算机犯罪专业律师。起诉跨国网络黑客或有昂贵律师团护身的大企业异常艰难，而面对斯沃茨这样一个有明确行为轨迹、此前在 FBI 处已有记录的年轻人，检方更容易定罪。奎因·诺顿坦言，当时她极度害怕自己的电脑被没收，因为上面存有她作为记者从线人处获得的保密资料，她也极度担忧斯沃茨的命运。斯沃茨曾对她说，只要诺顿让他接受，他就会接受这个条件，诺顿一度几乎要脱口而出劝他接受。 然而，在结束创业公司生活后，斯沃茨已经投身政治行动主义，怀揣着深远的政治抱负。重罪犯身份将使他在许多州失去投票权，更意味着他的政治生涯彻底终结。斯沃茨的友人回忆，有一次他们走在白宫外，斯沃茨曾说：“他们不会让重罪犯在那里工作。”（“They don't let felons work there.”）他深知自己没有杀人、没有伤人、没有谋财，根本没有犯下任何够得上“重罪”的事情；为了未造成实际破坏的行为背负重罪标签并入狱，是极其荒谬且无法接受的。最终，斯沃茨断然拒绝了这份认罪协议。 ### [53:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=3180s) 动机之争：学术分析还是商业侵权？ 拒绝认罪协议后，海曼不仅没有退缩，反而加倍施压。即便从查获的宏碁（Acer）笔记本硬盘和优盘中掌握了物理证据，检方仍急需坐实斯沃茨的作案动机：他下载 JSTOR 论文到底想干什么？ 检方声称斯沃茨计划公开发布这些学术文章。然而，法律学者劳伦斯·莱斯格（Lawrence Lessig）等人指出，斯沃茨以往经常为了挖掘深层趋势而下载并分析海量数据集。最好的前例是他在斯坦福大学期间，曾与法学院学生合作下载了整个 Westlaw 法律数据库，通过数据挖掘揭露了极具冲击力的黑幕：营利性企业向法学教授资助课题，而这些教授撰写的法学评论文章随后被用于在埃克森美孚（Exxon）漏油等诉讼中为大公司开脱，形成了一套腐败的定制学术洗白机制。当时斯沃茨完成研究后从未公开发布过 Westlaw 的原始文档。 - 假设一（商业竞争）：若斯沃茨意图复制一个收费的 JSTOR 竞品平台，属于典型的商业侵权犯罪，但显然没人会相信他有此企图。 - 假设二（知识解放）：若斯沃茨意在打破付费墙、将人类知识成果分享给发展中国家，其行为性质完全不同于谋取私利。 - 假设三（数据挖掘）：有朋友透露，斯沃茨曾表示想分析这批学术论文，寻找大企业资助气候变化研究并导致科研结论偏向出资方的证据。 然而，联邦检方完全忽视这些实质差异，强行将这起事件套用盗取数百万信用卡记录的商业罪犯模式进行重罪起诉。 ### [55:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=3324s) 检方逼近奎因·诺顿：“一日皇后”豁免信 为了套取斯沃茨的犯罪动机，检方向斯沃茨的女友奎因·诺顿施加压力，要求与她面谈。诺顿当时承受着巨大心理压力，她一方面渴望摆脱被调查的恐怖阴霾，另一方面极其担心自己的电脑被扣押，或在面临强迫解密命令时因拒绝交出密钥而以“藐视法庭罪”被关进监狱。 检方向诺顿提供了一份被称为“一日皇后信”（Queen for a Day letter）的正式口供保护协议（proffer agreement）。根据该协议，检方可以就斯沃茨的案情向诺顿提问，作为交换，诺顿在交谈中透露的任何信息将使她免于遭到刑事起诉。尽管看似是一条全身而退的出路，诺顿对此却深感不安。她向自己的律师反复表示，整件事透着不对劲与可疑；她从始至终觉得自己没有做错任何事，既不想要、也根本不需要这种检方恩赐的豁免权。 ### [56:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=3374s) 检察官的施压与“一日女王”协议 Quinn Norton 讲述了她被联邦检察官传唤并施加巨大压力的经历。当时，她的律师态度极其严厉，坚持要求她在没有获得免诉权（immunity）保护的情况下，绝对不能与检察官会面。最终，他们达成了一项被称为“一日女王”（Queen for a Day）的协议，即一份“主动陈述信”（proffer letter）。根据该协议，Quinn 向检方提供信息，以换取免受起诉的保护。尽管在法律形式上这是提供信息，但 Quinn 当时并不这么认为，她以为这只是一次普通的谈话和采访。然而，在这种协议下，检方可以提出任何他们想问的问题，并可以利用从中得到的任何线索来起诉他人。 Quinn 曾多次试图“裸奔”（即不带任何保护协议、拒绝签署陈述信）去面对检方，因为她深信自己没有做错任何事。但当时她病了，在律师的极力施压下感到无比混乱、抑郁和恐惧。她完全无法理解自己为什么会陷入这种境地。亚伦·斯沃茨（Aaron Swartz）、他的家人以及他的律师们对此感到极其焦虑和抓狂，甚至试图说服 Quinn 更换律师。Quinn 描述了当时审讯室里令人窒息的紧张气氛：她极不习惯与一群荷枪实弹、身材魁梧的执法人员待在同一个房间里，而这些人还在不断地指责她在撒谎、一定隐瞒了什么。 在审讯中，Quinn 试图反驳他们，告诉他们正在起诉的事情根本不是犯罪，并对他们说：“你们站在了历史错误的一边。”然而，那些办案人员脸上只有冷漠和无聊，甚至连愤怒都没有。这让 Quinn 意识到，双方根本不在同一个频道上沟通。她向他们解释了人们为什么要下载学术期刊论文，并在交谈中提到了亚伦写过的一篇博客文章——《游击队开放获取宣言》（Guerilla Open Access Manifesto）。 - **一日女王协议（Queen for a Day）**：一种辩诉交易前陈述协议，证人提供信息以换取有限的免诉保护，但检方仍可利用这些线索进行后续调查。 - **审讯氛围**：Quinn 面对多名荷枪实弹的执法人员，反复被指责撒谎，承受了巨大的精神压力。 > “我告诉他们，他们站在了历史错误的一边。” —— Quinn Norton --- ### [58:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=3491s) 《游击队开放获取宣言》与背叛的痛苦 《游击队开放获取宣言》据称是亚伦于2008年7月在意大利撰写的。宣言的内容充满了对信息垄断的控诉与对知识共享的呼吁： > “信息就是力量。但就像所有力量一样，总有人想据为己有。世界上整个科学和文化遗产……正越来越多地被少数私有公司数字化并锁起来。与此同时，那些被锁在门外的人并没有袖手旁观。你们一直在穿过漏洞、翻越围栏，解放被出版商锁住的信息，并与朋友分享。但所有这些行动都在黑暗中进行，隐藏在地下。这被称为偷窃或盗版，仿佛分享丰富的知识在道德上等同于掠夺船只并谋杀船员。但分享并非不道德，它是一种道德命令。只有被贪婪蒙蔽双眼的人才会拒绝让朋友复制。遵守不公正的法律是毫无正义可言的。是时候走到阳光下了，在公民不服从的伟大传统中，宣布我们反对这种对公共文化的私人盗窃。” 这份宣言据称由四个人共同撰写，并由 Quinn Norton 进行了编辑，但最终署名的是亚伦。当问询结束，Quinn 立刻找到亚伦，把她能记住的所有细节都告诉了他，亚伦听后变得非常愤怒。Quinn 至今仍感到无比愤怒和悔恨。她试图配合这些人做正确的事，但他们却把一切都转化为对抗她的武器，用尽一切手段来伤害她和亚伦。她痛恨这个利用陷阱毁掉普通人生活的司法系统。 - **宣言起草背景**：2008年7月于意大利撰写，旨在反对私有公司对人类科学和文化遗产的数字化垄断。 - **署名与编辑**：宣言由四人合著，Quinn 参与编辑，亚伦签署了名字。 - **背叛的代价**：Quinn 透露宣言的存在后，检方将其作为指控亚伦具有“犯罪动机”的关键证据，这让亚伦感到极度愤怒，也给 Quinn 留下了终生的悔恨。 > “我更感到愤怒的是，我们居然妥协了，我们居然对这样一个试图用小陷阱诱捕人们以毁掉他们生活的司法系统感到无所谓。” —— Quinn Norton --- ### [01:01:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=3667s) 互联网人权倡导与新恋情 在等待起诉的几个月里，亚伦逐渐成为了互联网关键议题的权威专家。在一次采访中，当被问及互联网是否应该被视为一项不容政府剥夺的人权时，亚伦坚定地给出了肯定回答。他指出，以国家安全为借口关闭互联网，正是埃及、叙利亚等国政府的惯用伎俩。他认为，像 WikiLeaks 这样的网站确实会发布一些让美国政府尴尬的内容，而人们也会组织起来抗议并试图改变政府，但这正是宪法第一修正案所保障的言论自由和结社自由的真谛。亚伦幽默地表示，如果制宪先贤在世时就有互联网，他们肯定不会在宪法中写下“邮局”，而是会写下“互联网服务提供商（ISP）”。 在此期间，亚伦结识了社会活动家 Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman，两人开始约会。亚伦在没有透露具体细节的情况下，警告她自己卷入了一件他简称为“那件坏事”（the bad thing）的麻烦中。Taren 当时甚至产生了一些荒诞的猜想，比如怀疑亚伦是不是和希拉里·克林顿（Hillary Clinton）或伊丽莎白·沃伦（Elizabeth Warren）有什么婚外情。直到7月下旬的某天，亚伦打电话告诉她，“那件坏事”可能明天就要上新闻了，并问她想听他亲口说还是看新闻。Taren 选择听他亲口说。亚伦告诉她，自己因为下载了太多学术期刊文章而被捕，而政府想拿他“杀鸡儆猴”。Taren 听后的第一反应是：“就这？这听起来根本不是什么大不了的事。” - **人权观点**：亚伦坚信互联网接入权是基本人权，反对政府以国家安全为由进行网络审查或断网。 - **“那件坏事”**：亚伦对女友隐瞒了案件细节，仅称其为“那件坏事”，导致女友一度猜测他卷入了政治人物的绯闻。 > “这种认为国家安全是关闭互联网的借口的观点，正是我们在埃及、叙利亚和所有这些其他国家所听到的。” —— 亚伦·斯沃茨 --- ### [01:03:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=3792s) 正式起诉与“杀鸡儆猴”的司法选择 2011年7月14日，联邦检察官正式起诉亚伦，指控他犯有四项联邦重罪。就在同一天，英国有两名属于黑客组织 LulzSec 的成员以及其他几名真正的黑客也被捕了。亚伦在检方眼中成了一个绝佳的靶子，他们需要把他的“头颅插在长矛上挂在城门口”以示惩戒。亚伦前去自首，却遭到了极其屈辱的对待：他被脱衣搜身，鞋带和腰带被没收，并被关进了单人牢房。马萨诸塞州联邦检察官办公室发表声明称，亚伦面临最高35年的监禁、3年的监视居住、赔偿、没收财产以及高达100万美元的罚款。当天，他交纳了10万美元保释金后被释放。 令人讽刺的是，案件的主要受害者 JSTOR 在同一天正式撤销了对亚伦的所有指控，并拒绝配合起诉。JSTOR 及其母公司 Ithaka 拒绝了本片的采访请求，但当时发表声明称，是否起诉是政府的决定，而非 JSTOR 的决定。亚伦的家人和律师原本以为，随着受害方放弃追究，案件应该会结束，或者至少能与检察官 Stephen Heymann 达成某种理性的和解。然而，政府却断然拒绝。 政府拒绝和解的原因非常明确：他们要用亚伦来“以儆效尤”（deterrence）。检察官 Stephen Heymann 明确表示，需要通过此案起到威慑作用。然而，这种所谓的“威慑”在逻辑上根本站不住脚。片中评论指出，如果奥巴马政府真的致力于通过严惩来达到威慑效果，那么他们最应该起诉的是过去100年来美国最大的经济犯罪——导致华尔街金融危机的那些罪行。然而，政府却选择性地使用“威慑”这一概念，这不再是对违法行为的公正分析，而是根据政治意识形态来分配执法资源。这种做法不仅不民主，更是违背了美国的基本立国精神。据报道，检察官 Stephen Heymann 后来透露，压死骆驼的最后一根稻草，是亚伦创立的组织 Demand Progress 发出的一份新闻稿。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 亚伦·斯沃茨案的法律升级流程 accDescr: 展示从 Quinn Norton 接受问询到亚伦被正式起诉及检方拒绝和解的流程。 A["Quinn Norton 接受问询"] -->|"签署 '一日女王' 协议"| B["提及《游击队开放获取宣言》"] B --> C["2011年7月14日 联邦大陪审团正式起诉亚伦"] C --> D["亚伦自首并遭遇脱衣搜身与单独监禁"] D --> E["面临最高35年监禁及100万美元罚款"] E --> F["受害者 JSTOR 撤销指控并拒绝起诉"] F --> G["联邦检察官 Stephen Heymann 拒绝和解"] G -->|"坚持以本案作为'杀鸡儆猴'的威慑工具"| H["案件继续推进"] ``` - **起诉日期**：2011年7月14日。 - **指控罪名与惩罚**：四项联邦重罪，最高可判35年监禁和100万美元罚款。 - **受害者态度**：JSTOR 撤销了所有指控，并明确表示不希望继续追究，但联邦检察官办公室拒绝撤诉。 - **选择性执法**：检方坚持起诉以达到“威慑”效果，但舆论质疑政府放过了导致金融危机的华尔街高管，却对一名下载学术论文的青年进行政治性指控。 > “当你开始选择性地运用‘威慑’这一毫无争议的概念时，你就不再是对违法行为进行客观冷静的分析，而是开始完全基于政治意识形态来决定如何部署执法资源。” —— 影片评论员 ### [01:06:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=3992s) 麻省理工学院的沉默与公诉方的强硬姿态 当支持亚伦·斯沃茨（Aaron Swartz）的简短声援声明发布后，联邦检察官斯蒂芬·海曼（Stephen Heyman）对此反应强烈，斥责这是一场“疯狂的互联网运动”（wild internet campaign），是一个愚蠢的举动，将案子从人与人之间的一对一层面升级到了机构对抗的层面。辩护团队随后试图通过各种方式向麻省理工学院（MIT）施压，希望校方向政府出面求情并要求撤销起诉，但校方始终没有任何实质性回应。 MIT 的不作为让其校内社区感到极其愤怒与不可思议。MIT 本身是一所推崇广义“黑客文化”（hacking）的高校，在未获许可的情况下攀爬屋顶、穿梭地下管网不仅是学生的成人礼，甚至被列入校内游览路线，开锁技术在冬季学期更是被作为正式课程教授。受访者指出，MIT 完全拥有从道德制高点叫停这场起诉的影响力，但校方从未站出来对联邦政府说一句“别这么做，你们反应过度了”。相反，MIT 采取了一种冷漠的企业式自保姿态，拒绝发表评论，仅在事后出具报告声称自己保持“中立”，并认为检察官办公室根本不在乎 MIT 的态度。这种所谓的“中立”实际上完全倒向了公诉方。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: MIT在斯沃茨案中的立场与影响 accDescr: 展示公众对MIT黑客传统的预期与其实际中立立场的对比，以及该立场如何强化了检方的起诉。 subgraph MIT_Tradition["MIT 传统文化"] HACK["推崇广义黑客文化<br/>屋顶探险/冬季开锁课程"] MORAL["具备叫停过度起诉的道德权威"] end subgraph MIT_Reality["MIT 实际反应"] NEUTRAL["自称保持'中立'<br/>实则如普通企业般自保"] ASSIST["只在必要时配合政府<br/>不对亚伦提供保护"] end subgraph Legal_Outcome["司法后果"] PROSECUTOR["检方海曼不愿丢脸<br/>将公众抗议视为机构挑衅"] CHARGES["坚持推进重罪诉讼"] end HACK -.-> MORAL MORAL --"未能转化为行动"--> NEUTRAL NEUTRAL --> ASSIST ASSIST --> PROSECUTOR PROSECUTOR --> CHARGES ``` 受访者对比了科技巨头的起步史：史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs）和史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克（Steve Wozniak）靠贩卖用于盗打免费长途电话的“蓝盒子”（blue box）起家，比尔·盖茨（Bill Gates）和保罗·艾伦（Paul Allen）最初也是违规利用哈佛大学的计算机资源开创事业。然而亚伦·斯沃茨与他们最大的不同在于，亚伦所追求的从来不是赚取金钱，而是让这个世界变得更加美好。 - 受访者直言检方的心态：“That was a a poisonous combination: a prosecutor who didn't want to lose face, who had a political career in the offing maybe, and didn't want to have this come back and haunt them. You spent how many tax dollars to arrest someone for taking too many books out of the library, and then got your ass handed to you in court? No way.”（那是一个极其毒辣的组合：一个不想丢脸的检察官，可能前途正旺，绝不想让这案子反噬自己。花了那么多纳税人的钱，就为了逮捕一个从图书馆‘多借了几本书’的人，最后还在法庭上被人打得落花流水？门都没有。） - 受访者批评校方的所谓中立：“They acted kind of like any corporation would: they helped the government, they didn't help us unless they felt they had to, and they never tried to stop it.”（他们的表现就像任何一家普通公司一样：协助政府，除非迫不得已绝不帮助我们，而且他们从未试图阻止这一切。） - 受访者强调亚伦与传统科技巨头创立者的本质差异：“The difference between Aaron and the people I just mentioned is that Aaron wanted to make the world a better place; he didn't just want to make money.”（亚伦与我刚才提到的那些人之间的不同在于，亚伦是想让世界变得更美好，他并不仅仅是想挣钱。） ### [01:09:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=4160s) 投入反抗 SOPA 的立法斗争 即使官司缠身，亚伦依然积极就各种互联网议题公开发声，频繁在媒体节目中解析诸如 Flame 恶意间谍软件的技术威胁，向公众普及政府如何将计算机转化为现代监控窃听工具。随着注意力转移到国会正在推进的一项旨在打击网络盗版的法案——《禁止网络盗版法案》（Stop Online Piracy Act，简称 SOPA），亚伦的政治活动迎来了最关键的一役。电子前哨基金会（EFF）的彼得·埃克斯利（Peter Eckersley）等技术活动家敏锐地意识到，该法案以打击盗版为名，严重威胁了互联网本身的技术完整性与开放架构。 埃克斯利在发现法案危险性的第一时间就致电亚伦，探讨发起一场大型线上抗议运动的可能性。亚伦敏锐地指出，这绝不仅仅是一项关于版权的法案，而是关乎“连接自由”（freedom to connect）的生死之战。深思熟虑后，亚伦在2010年秋天联合创立了线上倡导组织“求进会”（Demand Progress），该组织迅速成长为一个拥有约150万名成员的庞大行动平台。 SOPA 表面上是为了遏制音乐和电影的网络盗版，但其手段如同“用大锤去解决本该用柳叶刀处理的问题”。法案允许版权所有公司在未经正当法律程序（due process）的情况下，仅凭单方面的侵权指控即可直接切断网站的资金链，甚至强令 Google 等搜索引擎彻底屏蔽该网站的域名解析。这种条款把每个网站管理员都变成了全天候的警察，如果未能防范潜在的非法行为，整个网站就会在没有审讯的情况下被强行关闭。这不仅将传统媒体巨头推到了生机勃勃的“混剪文化”（remix culture）的对立面，更直接动摇了美国宪法所保障的言论自由基石。 - 亚伦在电视节目中阐述其对互联网的理念：“You know the reason the internet works is because of the competitive marketplace of ideas, and what we need to be focusing on is getting more information about our government, more accessibility, more discussion, more debate, but instead it seems like what Congress is focused on is shutting things down.”（互联网之所以能够运转，靠的是思想的自由竞争市场。我们应该关注的是获取更多关于政府的信息、提高透明度、促进更多讨论与辩论；然而国会所热衷的，似乎只是关停与封锁。） - 亚伦对 SOPA 的致命威胁作出了清晰定性：“The freedoms guaranteed in our Constitution, the freedoms our country had been built on, would be suddenly deleted; new technology, instead of bringing us greater freedom, would have snuffed out fundamental rights we'd always taken for granted.”（我们宪法所保障的自由、这个国家赖以建立的自由，将在一瞬间被抹杀；新技术不仅没有带来更大的自由，反而会掐灭我们一直以来认为理所当然的基本权利。） - 亚伦回忆自己下定决心的时刻：“And I realized that day, talking to Peter, that I couldn't let that happen.”（那天在和彼得交谈时，我意识到，我绝不能让这种事情发生。） ### [01:12:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=4348s) 技术与动员结合：扭转国会的“灭顶之灾” 当 SOPA 于2011年10月被引入国会时，几乎所有人都认为它的通过是不可阻挡的。在参议院对应的《保护知识产权法案》（PIPA）中，已有超过40位联邦参议员出任共同提案人（co-sponsors），距离跨过60票程序性门槛只有一步之遥。华盛顿的常规政治斗争向来是势均力敌的金钱利益集团之争，而当资金、游说力量全集中在一边，另一边只有数以百万计的普通民众时，在以往根本称不上是战斗，民众往往注定溃败。面对看似毫无胜算的战局，起初反抗阵营的目标仅仅是拖慢其立法节奏、尽量削弱其苛刻程度。 亚伦·斯沃茨和“求进会”打破了这一死局。亚伦将高超的技术能力与前沿的政治竞选策略完美结合，利用网络电话协议（VoIP）搭建了极其简便的线上工具，让普通网民只需点击几下就能直接打电话给各自选区的国会议员。数以百万计的抗议电话和请愿签名如潮水般涌入国会山，让傲慢的政客们措手不及。在国会辩论现场，对互联网运作一无所知的议员们甚至傲慢地宣称“一帮书呆子（nerds）绝不可能阻止我们立法”，并荒谬地要求在听证会上“把那些书呆子叫来”。这种科技无知的背后，是纽特·金里奇（Newt Gingrich）早年以浪费资金为由废除了国会科学与技术评估办公室（OTA），导致国会在长达数十年的时间里陷入了技术盲区。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 反对SOPA运动的扩散与战局逆转 accDescr: 展现从亚伦的技术动员到公众抵制GoDaddy，最终导致国会软化立场的过程。 subgraph Mobilization["亚伦与求进会的动员"] VOIP["利用VoIP技术开发极简呼叫工具"] PETITION["发起线上请愿与集会组织"] end subgraph Grassroots["公众反击浪潮"] MILLIONS["数百万选民直接致电国会"] GODADDY["抵制支持SOPA的GoDaddy<br/>数万域名数日内转出"] end subgraph Impact["政界与产业退缩"] BACKTRACK["GoDaddy在一周内撤回支持"] CONGRESS["国会支持者被迫缩减法案条款"] end VOIP --> MILLIONS PETITION --> MILLIONS MILLIONS --> GODADDY GODADDY --> BACKTRACK MILLIONS --> CONGRESS BACKTRACK --> CONGRESS ``` 转折点在域名注册商 GoDaddy 公开宣布支持 SOPA 后彻底到来。愤怒的互联网用户自发发起抗议，短短几天内数万个域名从该平台转出。在一周之内，灰头土脸的 GoDaddy 被迫完全撤回对 SOPA 的支持立场。随着基层抗议浪潮的剧烈爆发，支持电影和唱片行业利益的议员们感受到了前所未有的压力，开始被迫缩减法案的严苛条款。正如受访者所比喻的，这就像亚伦一次又一次地擦亮火柴，虽然不断被风吹灭，但他坚持不懈地收集引火物，直到火星终于引燃了干柴，最终化作了一场吞噬不公法案的参天烈火。到了2012年1月16日，甚至白宫也正式发表声明表示对该法案持保留态度。 - 资深从政者感叹该法案在国会的垄断性优势：“I haven't seen anything like PIPA and SOPA in all my time in public service. There were more than 40 United States senators on that bill as co-sponsors, so they were already a long, long way to getting the 60 votes to have it clear all the procedural hoops.”（在我所有的公职生涯中，从未见过像 PIPA 和 SOPA 这样的阵势。法案有超过40位联邦参议员作为共同提案人，距离冲破所有程序性关卡所需的60票只差一步之遥。） - 伙伴盛赞亚伦不可复制的技术与组织才华：“I never met anybody else who was able to operate at his level, both on the technological side and on the campaign strategy side.”（我从未见过任何一个人，能够同时在技术研发和竞选策略这两个层面达到他那样的高度。） - 技术活动家对国会无知与盲目自大的痛斥：“The fact that it got as far as it did without them talking to any technical experts reflects the fact that there is a problem in this town.”（该法案在没有向任何技术专家请教的情况下竟然能推进到如此地步，恰恰反映了这座城市病得有多重。） - 朋友回忆胜利曙光初现时亚伦的触动：“And I remember maybe a few months later, I remember him just turning to me and being like, 'I think we might win this.' And I was like, 'That would be amazing.'”（我记得大约几个月后，他转过头来对我说：‘我觉得我们可能会赢。’当时我回答：‘要是真能赢，那就太不可思议了。’） ### [01:16:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=4592s) SOPA 网络抗议与国会的大逆转 在《禁止网络盗版法案》（SOPA）的立法推进过程中，互联网社区发起了前所未有的抵抗。维基百科创始人吉米·威尔斯（Jimmy Wales）宣布支持全站抗议，作为全球访问量排名前五、占据整个互联网点击量相当大比例的网站，维基百科直接关闭了英文页面；随后，Reddit 和 Craigslist 等主流网络社区也相继黑屏停摆。抗议的声浪迅速冲击政界，美国国会山庄的热线电话瞬间被打到瘫痪。仅仅数天前还在积极推动法案的国会议员们，纷纷惊慌失措地发表声明撤回支持。在抗议爆发后的短短 24 小时内，国会内部反对 SOPA 的力量呈现出惊人的反转，先后有约 100 名联邦众议员改变立场。 亲历这场运动的人士回忆道，看着参众两院的议员们在一整天内一个接一个地临阵倒戈，场面极其震撼。那一刻，大家意识到他们居然赢下了这场所有人曾断言绝无可能的战役。即便是全球一些最顶级的互联网巨头，原本也仅仅将反 SOPA 视为不切实际的空想，但公众行动却将它变成了现实。华盛顿特区和国会山的工作人员透露，在抗议黑屏当天，他们收到的选民电子邮件和电话数量超过了以往美国政治史上的任何议题。这被视为互联网政治走向成熟的历史性时刻——原本裹挟着庞大游说资本的法案不仅没能在国会轻松过关，反而在公众力量的狙击下彻底崩解。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: SOPA 抗议与国会态度逆转流程 accDescr: 展示从互联网各大网站黑屏停摆到选民联络瘫痪国会，最终迫使议员倒戈放弃法案的过程。 subgraph Protest["全网黑屏抗议行动"] W["维基百科宣布黑屏停摆"] --> B["Reddit、Craigslist 等网站相继跟进"] end subgraph Reaction["公众参与与冲击"] B --> P["数以百万计网民致电发信"] P --> C["国会山庄电话线路彻底瘫痪"] end subgraph Outcome["政治立场反转"] C --> S["24 小时内约百名议员撤回支持"] S --> V["SOPA 法案被全面阻击并瓦解"] end ``` 在反对 SOPA 的街头集会上，亚伦·斯沃茨面对人群发表了极具感染力的演讲，他向支持者们喊道：“你很容易有时觉得自己无能为力，比如当你走上街头游行、呐喊，却没人理会你；但我今天在这里要告诉你，你们是有力量的。”他进一步提醒公众，某些互联网巨头其实私下里乐见小竞争对手被审查压制，人们绝不能对此妥协，并激励所有人：“你正在被倾听，你正在带来改变。只要你不停止战斗，你就能阻止这项法案。” - 维基百科、Reddit 与 Craigslist 等头部网站联手实施“黑屏抗议”（Blackout），直接切断日常访问以唤醒公众。 - 国会议员在一天之内发生大规模倒戈，反对法案的议员数量在 24 小时内暴增，席卷约 100 个众议院席位。 - 国会工作人员证实，黑屏当天收到的抗议电话和邮件数量打破了美国国会历史上的单日最高纪录。 --- ### [01:19:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=4754s) 改变世界的“概念验证”与更深层的危机 击败 SOPA 的辉煌战果对亚伦·斯沃茨个人而言具有极为特殊的意义。在身边的伴侣和友人看来，亚伦一直是一个以近乎科学的度量方式来审视自身影响力的人，他往往更看重切实实现一个微小的改变，而不是在宏大的变革中仅扮演一个微不足道的角色。但 SOPA 的胜利截然不同——他在一场颠覆历史的重大转折中发挥了关键领导作用。好友坦言，亚伦一生极度谦逊，常常觉得自己碌碌无为，而阻击 SOPA 几乎是他人生中极少数感到自己真正做成了好事、值得享受“胜利巡游”的时刻。正如友人所评价的那样，这场胜利成了亚伦人生目标的一次“概念验证”，向他自己证明了他确实能够改变世界。 然而，这场重大政治胜利的背后却笼罩着挥之不去的阴霾。击败 SOPA 的时刻，距离亚伦因下载 JSTOR 论文遭到联邦政府逮捕已经过去了一年之久，他的现实境遇远非一片坦途。即便处于保释与重罪起诉的重压之下，亚伦依然无法停下参与政治的脚步，他先后参与创办了庞大数量的社会组织。远在爱德华·斯诺登（Edward Snowden）曝光棱镜门事件的多年前，亚伦就已经开始对国家机器的全面网络监控发出警告。他在采访中严厉批评政府透明度的丧失，对于情报机构声称无法统计被监视公民数量的说辞感到震惊：“如果他们的回答是‘哦，我们监视的人太多了，根本数不过来’，那可真是太可怕的一大批人了，对吧？” - 亚伦将推动反 SOPA 的成果视作自己人生政治理想的“概念验证”，证明民间自下而上的力量能够战胜强大的建制利益集团。 - 胜利发生于其 JSTOR 案件被捕一年后，彼时亚伦一边面临联邦起诉的高压，一边仍夜以继日地投身社会运动与组织构建。 - 亚伦敏锐指责国家监控体系从尼克松政府起步、在“9·11”事件后膨胀并在奥巴马政府任内进一步扩大，抨击当局连最基本的监控统计数据都拒绝公布。 --- ### [01:22:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=4952s) 杀鸡儆猴的政治起诉与互联网的双面未来 伴随着联邦司法机器对亚伦施加的压迫与日俱增，政府不仅剥夺了他此前积累的全部积蓄，更以长年监禁的刑期威胁其人身自由。多位法律与政治评论人士指出，这种非同寻常的残酷打击，本质上与美国政府对披露银行黑幕、战争真相及政府透明度的吹哨人的打压如出一辙。保密体制服务于在位掌权者，而政府在秘密从事大量可能涉嫌违法与违宪的监控行动的同时，势必会严密捂住盖子。记者格伦·格林沃尔德（Glenn Greenwald）对此做出了极其尖锐的剖析，指出起诉亚伦不仅是一起个案，更是奥巴马政府针对黑客、信息开放以及民主活动人士群体发出的一记精准威慑。 格伦·格林沃尔德直言不讳地指出：“在我看来，对亚伦·斯沃茨的起诉是为了向奥巴马政府视为政治威胁的一群人发出明确的震慑信号，那群人本质上就是黑客、信息自由与民主活动人士群体。”他进一步强调，政府借此传递出的核心信息是：“我们知道你们有能力给体制制造麻烦，所以我们要拿亚伦·斯沃茨杀鸡儆猴，吓唬你们当中的绝大多数人，让你们不敢再惹麻烦。”当局甚至将证明监控合法的法律意见书本身也列为机密，这意味着公民根本无从知晓政府是依据哪条法条在对其实施监视。政府频频借由“网络战争”和“网络犯罪分子威胁”为借口，不断恐吓公众并强推更为严苛危险的恶法。 面对这场关乎网络未来的拉锯战，亚伦生前在接受采访时展现了客观而清醒的哲学思考。当被问及对当前抗争的前景感受如何时，他指出外界往往容易陷入两种极端的二元对立：一种是盲目乐观，认为互联网带来了前所未有的自由；另一种则是彻底悲观，认为互联网沦为了极权监控与言论控制的工具。亚伦总结道：“互联网带来了这两种结果，两者都令人惊叹；从长远来看哪一种会胜出，取决于我们自己。”对他而言，这两种力量都客观存在且长期并存，真正关键的是公众选择去放大哪一面、利用哪一面去重塑现实。 --- ### [01:24:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=5069s) 罪名升级至13项与荒谬的《计算机欺诈与滥用法案》（CFAA） 2012 年 9 月 12 日，联邦检察官对亚伦·斯沃茨提出了替代起诉书（superseding indictment），对指控进行了大幅度升级。检方追加了多项电信欺诈（wire fraud）、未经授权访问计算机以及计算机欺诈的罪名，致使亚伦所面临的重罪指控从最初的 4 项猛增至 13 项。这一举动使得检方手中的认罪谈判筹码急剧增加，亚伦面临的潜在刑期和高额罚款也成倍飙升。检方为此构建了一整套复杂的理论，试图论证亚伦利用 MIT 网络批量下载学术论文的行为构成了多项联邦重罪，依法足以判处极其严苛的刑期。 检方用来重判亚伦的核心法律武器，是制定于 1986 年的《计算机欺诈与滥用法案》（Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 简称 CFAA）。极为讽刺的是，这部重罪法案最初的立法灵感，竟然来自 1983 年由马修·布罗德里克（Matthew Broderick）主演的科幻惊悚电影《战争游戏》（WarGames）。在电影中，一名高中生通过计算机网络与军方超级电脑连线，差一点意外触发全球核战争。尽管在 20 世纪 80 年代的现实技术条件下这根本不可能发生，但影片引发的恐慌却彻底震慑了国会，促使议员们在对技术一知半解的情况下匆忙通过了 CFAA 原型法案。 法律专家与学者尖锐地批评指出，CFAA 是一部严重脱离时代、定义极端模糊且容易被检方滥用的恶法。在现代网络环境中，该法案常常被检方延伸用于惩罚对网站“服务条款”（Terms of Service）的违规行为。例如在 Match.com 或 eHarmony 等约会网站上，用户如果夸大自己的个人特征或年龄，理论上在特定管辖区都有可能被检察官指控为联邦罪行。公众日常使用网络时极少阅读那些冗长晦涩的用户协议，而许多网站条款中充斥着诸如“友善待人”或“不得从事不当行为”等宽泛语言。法律专家痛心疾首地指出，把这种纯粹民事或道德范畴的条款违约上升为动辄入狱数十年的联邦刑事重罪，无疑是荒唐且致命的司法过当。 - 2012 年 9 月 12 日，联邦大陪审团签署替代起诉书，将亚伦面临的指控由 4 项重罪增加到 13 项重罪。 - 检方的定罪理论重度依赖 1986 年颁布的《计算机欺诈与滥用法案》（CFAA），该法案最初受好莱坞冷战电影《战争游戏》的非理性恐慌刺激而制定。 - 法律专家批评 CFAA 模糊了网络民事违规与刑事犯罪的界限，使得违反任何网站的“服务条款”（TOS）都面临被公权力定性为联邦重罪的系统性风险。 ### [01:26:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=5189s) CFAA 的荒谬解释与检方的起诉动机 对《计算机欺诈与滥用法案》（CFAA）的宽泛适用导致了极其荒谬的局面。例如，赫斯特集团旗下的《Seventeen》（十七岁）杂志网站，其使用条款直到 2013 年 3 月修改前甚至规定用户必须年满 18 岁才能阅读。片中指出，按照美国司法部对 CFAA 的极端解释，“我们可能所有人都在违法”。这项原本用于惩治计算机犯罪的法律，因其条款含糊不清且极易被滥用，已经沦为检方处理各类计算机纠纷时随意挥舞的一柄大锤。在针对亚伦·斯沃茨（Aaron Swartz）的 13 项重罪指控中，有 11 项都建立在 CFAA 之上。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 检方针对亚伦·斯沃茨的指控与法理逻辑 accDescr: 展示斯沃茨的行动宣言与检方动用 CFAA 进行指控的闭环逻辑。 subgraph Defense ["辩方与批评者视角"] A["《游击队开放获取宣言》倡导信息共享"] --> B["CFAA 条款模糊与过度滥用"] B --> C["13 项重罪指控中 11 项涉及 CFAA"] end subgraph Gov ["检方法理逻辑（前联邦检察官 Orin Kerr 阐述）"] D["检方视其为违背法律的道德抗争"] --> E["若不阻止则法条名存实亡<br>（牙膏挤出后无法收回）"] E --> F["依法起诉具有前例与成文法依据"] end C <--> F ``` 司法部拒绝了纪录片团队的采访请求，但前联邦检察官、法学教授奥林·克尔（Orin Kerr）从法律层面剖析了检方的立场。克尔教授表示，基于过往判例、成文法和历史案件，检方认为这是完全合理的起诉。检方极其严肃地对待了亚伦撰写的《游击队开放获取宣言》（Guerilla Open Access Manifesto），将他视为一个将打破其眼中的“恶法”视作道德义务的人。在民主社会中，改变不公正法律的合法途径是通过国会立法（正如亚伦在反对 SOPA 时所做的那样），而亚伦的激进行动被检方认定为试图直接废止该法律。检方担心一旦庞大的学术期刊数据库被彻底公开发布，“就如同牙膏从管子里挤出来一样再也无法收回”，因此必须采取行动阻止。 - 赫斯特集团《Seventeen》杂志网站曾规定必须年满 18 岁才可浏览，成为 CFAA 条款被过度解读的荒谬例证之一。 - 前联邦检察官奥林·克尔指出：“我认为推动检方提起公诉的，是他们感到斯沃茨不仅致力于打破法律，更是要确保彻底废除这项法律的效力，让所有人都能访问该数据库，以至于再也无法收拾。”（“And I think what was driving the prosecution was the sense that Swartz was committed not just to breaking the law but to really making sure that law was nullified that everyone would have access to the database in a way that you couldn't put the toothpaste back into the tube; it would be done and Swartz's side would win.”） ### [01:29:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=5358s) 刑事司法体系的机器与无情报复 司法部拥有的自由裁量权和恐吓筹码不断膨胀，这使得绝大多数普通人根本无法承受在法庭上“用整个人生去赌博”的代价。联邦特工与检察官的办案思维早已被程序化机制所主导——他们热衷于监听电话、秘密拍摄、策反证人以构建指控。亚伦被卷入了一个极其残酷且绝不妥协的庞大司法机器之中。这一机制使美国成为了全球监禁率最高的国家。 法律专家指出，美国社会已经被恐惧与愤怒的政治氛围所俘虏。无论是对互联网未来的不确定性感到恐惧，还是对未知技术感到愤怒，社会的本能反应都是诉诸刑事司法的铁腕干预。监禁与惩罚被广泛用于解决一系列在历史上从未被视作刑事犯罪的新问题。这种动辄威胁起诉的冲动，不仅体现在对互联网信息访问权的争议上，也是美国司法体系长期对待底层民众的缩影，唯一的区别在于通常遭受此类灾难性司法打击的往往是贫困人口与少数族裔。 - 法律学者指出：“在这个国家，我们任由自己被恐惧与愤怒的政治所绑架，任何我们所害怕的事物——比如互联网的未来与信息访问权——以及任何让我们愤怒的事物，都会本能地引发刑事司法的介入。”（“We have in this country allowed ourselves to be captured by the politics of fear and anger and anything we're afraid of, like the future of the internet and access, and anything we're angry about instinctively creates a criminal justice intervention, and we've used jail, prison and punishment to resolve a whole host of problems that historically were never seen as criminal justice problems.”） ### [01:30:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=5446s) 财务崩溃、孤立与坚决拒绝认罪协议 面对可能面临的数十载牢狱之灾，亚伦的正常生活被彻底粉碎，与亲友的关系也逐渐陷入孤立。他停下了几乎所有其他工作，漫长的诉讼完全占据了他的生命。亚伦的律师曾向联邦检察官明确提出，亚伦在情感上非常脆弱，这一极为沉重的心理负担绝不能被忽视，但检方依然持续施加严苛的入狱威胁，这让亚伦感到极度恐惧。 高昂的辩护费用更是将他逼入绝境。为了打这场官司，亚伦倾尽了自己所有的积蓄，他的家人付出了巨额资金，社会各界也发起了大规模筹款，整个辩护费用高达数百万美元。亚伦极度不愿成为亲友的负担，他拼命试图将“正常生活”与“糟糕透顶的官司”分开，但两者的界限最终被彻底冲垮。面对检方提出的最终认罪协议，亚伦做出了决绝的选择：他坚决不屈服、不承认自己犯下重罪，断然拒绝了认罪协议，案件随即排定开庭日期。尽管其辩护团队坚信如果走上法庭他们完全能够打赢这场官司，并期待着胜诉后陪亚伦在波士顿河畔喝一杯庆祝，但亚伦所承受的痛苦已无法承受。 - 亚伦的法律辩护费用高达数百万美元，彻底耗尽了他与家人的财力储备。 - 亚伦的伴侣指出亚伦承受的压力：“他在长达整整两年的时间里承受着如此巨大的压力，他只是再也不想继续忍受下去了。”（“He was just under such, such enormous pressure for two years straight. He just didn't want to do it anymore.”） ### [01:34:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=5653s) 亚伦之死与全网哀悼 2013 年 1 月 11 日深夜，噩耗传来：年仅 26 岁的亚伦·斯沃茨在纽约布鲁克林的公寓内自杀身亡。消息迅速通过媒体传开，称社交新闻网站 Reddit 的联合创始人被发现身亡。亲友和同事陷入了巨大的震惊与无法自拔的悲痛之中，甚至难以向身边的孩子解释这一噩耗。 互联网上随即爆发了前所未有的悼念浪潮，Twitter 与各大社交媒体被悲伤的情绪淹没。黑客、行动主义者、学术界人士以及无数普通网民自发写下悼词，哀悼失去了一位智慧的先驱、同行者与引路人。人们将他誉为“互联网自己的孩子”（The Internet's Own Boy），并痛斥腐朽僵化的旧体制扼杀了他。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 亚伦·斯沃茨逝世与时代反思 accDescr: 展现亚伦去世后引发的悲痛、全网哀悼与对司法不公的社会反思。 Death["2013年1月 亚伦在布鲁克林寓所自杀（26岁）"] --> Grief["亲友与技术界巨大震动"] Grief --> Outpouring["全球互联网爆发空前悼念浪潮<br>（'互联网自己的孩子'）"] Outpouring --> Reflection["社会对司法体制失衡的严厉反思"] subgraph Contrast ["现实司法的荒诞对比"] R1["金融危机罪魁祸首安然无恙<br>成为白宫座上宾"] R2["追求信息公开的年轻极客<br>被司法机器逼上绝路"] end Reflection --- Contrast ``` 影片在末尾揭示了这一惨剧背后巨大的讽刺与不公：在那个时代，造成全球金融海啸、破坏无数家庭生计的金融寡头们未受到任何刑事追责，反而能频繁与总统共进晚餐；然而，一个致力于知识自由共享、从未谋取私利的年轻极客，却被联邦司法系统以数十年的刑期穷追猛打，最终酿成了无可挽回的悲剧。 - 悼词中深情写道：“在这疯狂世界里的流浪者们，我们失去了一位导师，一位睿智的长者；正义的黑客们，我们倒下了一员；抚育者、关怀者、倾听者、奉献者、父母们，我们失去了一个孩子；让我们共同痛哭。”（“Wanderers in this crazy world, we have lost a mentor, a wise elder. Hackers for right, we're one down, we've lost one of our own. Nurturers, carers, listeners, feeders, parents all, we have lost a child. Let us all weep.”） - 友人动情评价：“他是互联网自己的孩子，而旧世界杀死了他。”（“He was The Internet's Own Boy, and the old world killed him.”） - 片中对司法不公提出强烈控诉：“我们正身处一个巨大的不公却不受惩处惩戒的时代。金融崩溃的操盘手们经常与总统共进晚餐。在这样的时代背景下，政府竟将全力起诉这件事视作要务，若非是一场悲剧，简直荒谬绝伦。”（“We are standing in the middle of a time when great injustice is not touched. Architects of the financial meltdown have dinner with the president regularly. In the middle of that time, the idea that this was what the government had to prosecute just seems absurd if it weren't tragic.”） ### [01:38:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=5905s) 悼念、遗产与“亚伦之法”的推动 在亚伦·斯沃茨（Aaron Swartz）逝世后，世界各地自发涌现出大量的黑客松（hackathons）与集会。人们在哀悼的同时，开始严肃反思亚伦留下的精神遗产，并思考该如何让他的抗争延续下去。悼念者与支持者们一致认为，亚伦激发出大家心中最美好的一面，促使每个人追问“我们该如何修补这个体制”。在发言中，有人动情地评价亚伦是这个国家所孕育的真正非凡的革命者之一；无论他在这场法律斗争中最终是被打垮还是取得了胜利，整个时代与后继者都已被他所抗争的事物深刻塑造。当国家动用全副武装的执法机关去对付那些试图扩大公众知识获取权的公民时，法治便已遭到践踏，正义的殿堂也已被玷污——因为亚伦·斯沃茨绝不是罪犯。正如马丁·路德·金的名言所言，变革从来不会随着必然性的车轮滚滚而来，而是来自不懈的艰苦抗争。 亚伦身边的朋友与合作者们誓言绝不让他的“魔法”随其离世而终结。亚伦生前始终坚信自己能够改变世界，事实证明他是对的；在他离去后的废墟与悲痛中，新的火种已然在废墟中重生。针对导致亚伦面临数十年监禁的过时法案——《计算机欺诈与滥用法》（Computer Fraud and Abuse Act，简称 CFAA），众议员佐伊·洛夫格伦（Zoe Lofgren）与参议员罗恩·怀登（Ron Wyden）正式在国会提出了名为“亚伦之法”（Aaron's Law）的改革法案，试图修正那些将普通违反服务条款行为定性为重罪的严苛条款。朋友在回忆亚伦的人生哲学时提到，亚伦对生活有一种极为纯粹的要求：他认为人时时刻刻都该审视并自问，此刻在这个世界上自己所能做的最重要的事情是什么；如果你没有去做那件事，你究竟为什么不去？ - 悼念者对动用司法暴力打压获取知识者的控诉：“When we turn armed agents of the law on citizens trying to increase access to knowledge, we've broken the rule of law, we've desecrated the Temple of Justice.” - 亚伦的人生反思准则：“Aaron believed that like you literally ought to be asking yourself all of the time, what is the most important thing I could be working on in the world right now, and if you're not working on that, why aren't you?” - “亚伦之法”（Aaron's Law）的核心诉求是修改过时的 CFAA，消除检方滥用重罪指控计算机访问行为的法律漏洞。 --- ### [01:40:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=6033s) 知识开放的生命价值与最后的童年回响 集会上的呼吁逐渐汇聚成对未来的坚定承诺：过去已无法改变，但未来必须被改变。为了亚伦，也为了人类自身，必须建设一个更人道、司法真正有效运转、并将“获取知识”视为基本人权的世界。随后，受访者讲述了一个极具现实意义的真实事例：在亚伦去世后不久的二月，巴尔的摩一名年仅 14 岁的中学生（杰克·安德拉卡，Jack Andraka）登上了新闻。这名少年正是通过在 JSTOR 等学术数据库中反复搜寻、研读海量的专业学术文献，构想出了一种针对胰腺癌（pancreatic cancer）的超早期低成本检测方法。胰腺癌素来以致死率极高著称，关键就在于现存检测手段发现得太晚，往往到了晚期已无力回天。 少年把自己的检测思路群发给了约翰斯·霍普金斯大学（Johns Hopkins）肿瘤学部门的数百名教授学者。绝大多数人都把这当成一个 14 岁小孩的无稽之谈而置之不理，唯独一位研究员认真回复并邀请了他：“这想法并不完全是愚蠢的，你想过来试一下吗？”少年随后利用所有晚上和周末的时间在实验室开展实验，最终成功做出了切实可行且能挽救生命的胰腺癌早期检测手段。当这名年轻人在亚伦去世数周后的新闻采访中露面时，他公开表示，这就是为什么亚伦·斯沃茨所做的事情如此至关重要——宇宙中的真理和科学数据绝不仅仅是政策制定者用来测算公路限速的冰冷参考，更是普通人拯救生命、避免下一代因重病早逝的希望所在。如果知识被高墙阻隔，那个本可以拯救你生命的人，可能一辈子都无法找到答案。 影片在情绪的最高点渐渐收束，画面切回至亚伦极幼年时的家庭录像。稚嫩的小亚伦坐在床上，奶声奶气地读着儿童读物里的句子：“他睡得太香了，一次都没有从床上掉下来，甚至当他梦见自己回到了航天飞机上时也是如此。”母亲在录像后温柔地夸奖道：“太棒了，亚伦，读得太好了。”随后镜头与录像声响渐隐，配乐缓缓奏响，留给世人对这名年轻天才与未竟抗争的无尽思索。 - 论知识获取对于拯救生命的核心意义：“And without access, the person who might come up with a thing that's got your number on it may never find that answer.” - 改变未来的决心：“I wish we could change the past, but we cannot. But we can change the future, and we must. We must do so for Aaron, we must do so for ourselves, we must do so to make our world a better place, a more humane place, a place where justice works and access to knowledge becomes a human right.” - 影片结尾通过 14 岁少年凭借学术开放数据攻克医学难题的实际案例，直接印证了亚伦·斯沃茨为信息开放而战的终极人道主义价值。 ## Notable quotes > [01:06:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=3992s) The difference between Aaron and the people I just mentioned is that Aaron wanted to make the world a better place; he didn't just want to make money. > [01:42:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=6145s) When we turn armed agents of the law on citizens trying to increase access to knowledge, we've broken the rule of law, we've desecrated the Temple of Justice. > [01:44:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=6273s) And without access, the person who might come up with a thing that's got your number on it may never find that answer. > [01:22:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=4952s) 互联网带来了这两种结果，两者都令人惊叹；从长远来看哪一种会胜出，取决于我们自己。 — 亚伦·斯沃茨 > [46:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=2795s) Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data, or dollars. — 卡门·奥尔蒂斯 > [01:09:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=4160s) The freedoms guaranteed in our Constitution, the freedoms our country had been built on, would be suddenly deleted; new technology, instead of bringing us greater freedom, would have snuffed out fundamental rights we'd always taken for granted. — 亚伦·斯沃茨 > [01:22:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=4952s) 在我看来，对亚伦·斯沃茨的起诉是为了向奥巴马政府视为政治威胁的一群人发出明确的震慑信号，那群人本质上就是黑客、信息自由与民主活动人士群体。 — 格伦·格林沃尔德 > [58:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&t=3491s) 我更感到愤怒的是，我们居然妥协了，我们居然对这样一个试图用小陷阱诱捕人们以毁掉他们生活的司法系统感到无所谓。 — Quinn Norton ## Mentioned 亚伦·斯沃茨, Reddit, 麻省理工学院, The Info, 维基百科, ArsDigita, RSS, 劳伦斯·莱斯格, Eldred v. Ashcroft, 知识共享, Flickr, 斯坦福大学, Y Combinator, 保罗·格雷厄姆, Infogami, 史蒂夫·霍夫曼, 亚历克西斯·奥哈尼安, 康泰纳仕, 连线, 蒂姆·伯纳斯-李, 科利·多克托罗, 奎因·诺顿, Open Library, watchdog.org, PACER, 卡尔·马拉穆德, public.resource.org, 史蒂夫·舒尔茨, 联邦调查局, 进步变革行动委员会, 伊丽莎白·沃伦, JSTOR, 励德·爱思唯尔, 特勤局, 斯蒂芬·海曼, 卡门·奥尔蒂斯, 阿尔贝托·冈萨雷斯, 乔纳森·詹姆斯, 切尔西·曼宁, 维基解密, Westlaw, 游击队开放获取宣言, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, LulzSec, 彼得·埃克斯利, 电子前哨基金会, 求进会, SOPA, PIPA, GoDaddy, 吉米·威尔斯, Craigslist, 爱德华·斯诺登, 格伦·格林沃尔德, 计算机欺诈与滥用法案, 奥林·克尔, 佐伊·洛夫格伦, 罗恩·怀登, 亚伦之法, 杰克·安德拉卡, 约翰斯·霍普金斯大学 ## Video description This is the FULL MOVIE! - The Internet's Own Boy depicts the life of American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist Aaron Swartz. It features interviews with his family and friends as well as the internet luminaries who worked with him. The film tells his story up to his eventual suicide after a legal battle, and explores the questions of access to information and civil liberties that drove his work. Director / Producer: Brian Knappenberger Contact Information: http://www.takepart.com/internets-own-boy This movie is made available under the Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Remix, transform and build upon the material as you like Please support the creators of this movie! Rent it on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Instant, XBox Video, Vudu, Sony Entertainment Network or other platforms or see it in the cinema. http://www.takepart.com/internets-own-boy you can also load the full movie here: https://archive.org/details/TheInternetsOwnBoyTheStoryOfAaronSwartz [Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ)

[66:32] The difference between Aaron and the people I just mentioned is that Aaron wanted to make the world a better place; he didn't just want to make money. [102:25] When we turn armed agents of the law on citizens trying to increase access to knowledge, we've broken the rule of law, we've desecrated the Temple of Justice. [104:33] And without access, the person who might come up with a thing that's got your number on it may never find that answer. [82:32] 亚伦·斯沃茨: 互联网带来了这两种结果，两者都令人惊叹；从长远来看哪一种会胜出，取决于我们自己。 [46:35] 卡门·奥尔蒂斯: Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data, or dollars. [69:20] 亚伦·斯沃茨: The freedoms guaranteed in our Constitution, the freedoms our country had been built on, would be suddenly deleted; new technology, instead of bringing us greater freedom, would have snuffed out fundamental rights we'd always taken for granted. [82:32] 格伦·格林沃尔德: 在我看来，对亚伦·斯沃茨的起诉是为了向奥巴马政府视为政治威胁的一群人发出明确的震慑信号，那群人本质上就是黑客、信息自由与民主活动人士群体。 [58:11] Quinn Norton: 我更感到愤怒的是，我们居然妥协了，我们居然对这样一个试图用小陷阱诱捕人们以毁掉他们生活的司法系统感到无所谓。

[29:45] Carl Malamud: The law is the operating system of our democracy, and you have to pay to see it—you know, that's not much of a democracy. [45:02] Carmen Ortiz: Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar and whether you take documents, data or dollars. [82:32] Glenn Greenwald: The prosecution, in my estimation, of Aaron Swartz was about sending a particular laser-like message to a group of people that the Obama administration sees as politically threatening, and that is essentially the hacker, the information, and the democracy activist community. [27:59] Aaron Swartz: Books are a cultural legacy, you know, books are the place people go to write things down, and to have all that swallowed up by one corporation is kind of scary.

[0:02] [Music] [0:19] [Music] [0:40] [Music] [0:50] a co-founder of the social news and [0:52] entertainment website Reddit has been [0:54] found [0:56] dead he certainly was a prodigy although [0:59] he never kind of thought of himself like [1:01] that he was totally unexcited about [1:05] starting businesses and making [1:08] money there's a profound sense of loss [1:11] tonight in Highland Park Aaron Schwarz [1:14] Hometown as loved ones say goodbye to [1:16] one of the internet's brightest lights [1:18] Open Access and computer activists are [1:20] mourning his loss an astonishing [1:23] intellect you talked to people who knew [1:24] him he was killed by the government and [1:26] MIT betrayed all of its basic principles [1:29] wanted to make an example out of him [1:34] okay governments have insatable desire [1:38] to control he was potentially facing 35 [1:40] years in prison and a $1 million fine [1:43] raising questions of prosecutorial Zeal [1:46] and I would say even [1:48] misconduct um have you looked into that [1:51] particular matter and reached any [1:55] [Music] [1:56] conclusions growing up you know I slowly [1:59] had this process of realizing that all [2:00] the things around me that people had [2:02] told me were just the natural way things [2:04] were the way things always would be they [2:06] weren't natural at all they were things [2:07] that could be changed and they were [2:08] things that more importantly were wrong [2:10] and should change and once I realized [2:12] that there was really kind of No Going [2:16] [Music] [2:23] Back welcome to story reading time the [2:28] name of the book is Paddington at the [2:32] fair well he was born in Highland Park [2:34] and grew up here Aaron came from a [2:37] family of three brothers all [2:38] extraordinarily bright Bo [2:43] over so we were all you know not the [2:46] best behaved children and you know three [2:48] boys running around all the time causing [2:50] trouble hey no no [2:53] no what but I've come to the realization [2:57] Aaron learned how to learn at a very [2:59] very young age 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 [3:06] 10 who's there Aon Aon who Aaron funny [3:11] man he knew what he wanted and he always [3:14] wanted to do it he always accomplished [3:15] what he [3:16] [Music] [3:17] wanted his curiosity was endless here's [3:21] a little picture of what's a planet sign [3:24] and each planet has a symbol Mercury [3:27] symbol the Venus's symbol Earth symbol [3:31] my symbol symbol one day he said to [3:33] Susan what's this free family [3:35] entertainment in downtown Highland Park [3:37] free family entertainment downtown Hall [3:39] Park there was three at the time and she [3:43] said what are you talking about he said [3:44] look it says here on the refrigerator [3:46] free family entertainment on downtown H [3:49] and so she was floored U and astonished [3:52] that he could read it's called my family [3:58] svor [4:00] the night is different from all other [4:03] nights I remember once we were at the [4:06] University of Chicago Library I pulled a [4:09] book off the shelf that was from like [4:12] 1900 um and showed him and said you know [4:14] this is really just an extraordinary [4:15] place we all were curious children but [4:18] Aaron really liked learning and really [4:21] liked teaching and they were going to [4:24] warn the ABC's backwards Z YX w we you I [4:31] remember he came home from his first [4:33] algebra class and he was like Noah let [4:36] me teach you algebra and I'm like what [4:39] is algebra and he was always like that [4:42] now it's press now you press the click [4:45] button there now it's got that now it's [4:49] in [4:51] pink when he was about 2 or 3 years old [4:53] and Bob introduced him to computers and [4:56] he just took off like crazy on them go [4:59] back [5:02] onec we all H computers uh but Aaron [5:05] really took to them um really took to [5:07] the internet IDE working at the computer [5:11] uhuh how how Mommy why is nothing [5:15] working he started programming from a [5:17] really young age I remember the first uh [5:19] program that I wrote with him was in [5:20] basic and it was a Star Wars trivia [5:24] game he sat down with me in the basement [5:28] where the computer was uh for hours [5:31] programming this [5:34] game the problem that I kept having with [5:36] him is there was nothing that I wanted [5:37] done and to him there was always [5:40] something to do always something that [5:42] programming could [5:42] [Music] [5:46] solve the way Aaron always saw it is [5:49] that programming is Magic right you can [5:51] accomplish these things that normal [5:52] humans can't Aaron made an ATM using [5:55] like a Macintosh and like a cardboard [5:57] box one one year for Halloween I didn't [6:00] know what I wanted to be and he thought [6:02] it'd be really really cool if I dressed [6:04] up like his new favorite computer which [6:06] at the time was the original [6:08] iMac I mean he hated dressing up for [6:10] Halloween but he loved convincing other [6:12] people to dress up his things that he [6:13] wanted to [6:15] see host and St guys come on look at the [6:20] [Music] [6:23] camera he made this website called the [6:27] info where people can just fill in [6:29] information [6:31] like I'm sure someone out there knows [6:32] all about gold gold leafing why don't [6:35] they write about that on this website [6:36] and then other people could come at a [6:37] later point and read those read that [6:39] information and and edit the information [6:41] if they thought it was uh bad uh not too [6:44] dissimilar from Wikipedia right and this [6:46] was this was before Wikipedia had begun [6:49] and this was developed by a 12-year-old [6:52] in his room by himself running on you [6:55] know this tiny server using ancient [6:57] technology and one of the teachers [6:59] responds like this is a terrible idea [7:02] you can't just like let anyone author [7:05] the diction like author the encyclopedia [7:07] the whole reason we have Scholars is to [7:08] write these books for us how could you [7:10] ever have such a terrible idea me and my [7:13] other brother would be like oh you know [7:14] yeah Wikipedia is cool but we had that [7:16] in our house like 5 years [7:20] ago Aaron's website the info.org wins a [7:24] school competition hosted by the [7:26] cambridge-based web design firm RS dig [7:34] we all went to to Cambridge for the when [7:36] he won the artist digital prize and you [7:38] know we had no clue what Aaron was doing [7:39] it was obvious that the prize was really [7:43] important Aaron soon became involved [7:45] with online programming communities then [7:48] in the process of shaping a new tool for [7:50] the web he comes up to me it's like Ben [7:53] there's this really awesome thing that [7:55] I'm working on you need to hear about it [7:57] I'm like yeah what is it says say thing [7:59] called [8:01] RSS and he explains to me what RSS is [8:03] I'm [8:04] like like why is that useful Aron like [8:08] is any site using it like why would I [8:10] want to use it there was this mailing [8:12] list for people who were working on RSS [8:15] and XML more generally and there was a [8:17] there was a person on it named Aon [8:18] Schwartz who was combative but very [8:20] smart and who had lots of good ideas and [8:24] um he didn't ever come to the face t- [8:26] face meetings and they said you know are [8:29] when are you going to come out to one of [8:30] these face Toof face meetings and he [8:31] said you know I don't think my mom would [8:33] let me I uh you know I'm I'm 14 I just [8:36] turned 14 and so their first reaction [8:38] was well you know this person this [8:40] colleague we've been working with all [8:41] year is was 13 years old while we were [8:44] working with him and he's only 14 now [8:46] and their second reaction was Christ we [8:48] really want to meet him you know that's [8:50] extraordinary he was part of the [8:51] committee that drafted an RSS what he [8:53] was doing was to help build the plumbing [8:56] for modern hypertext the piece that he [9:00] was working on um RSS was a tool that [9:03] you can use to get summaries of things [9:06] that are going on in other web pages uh [9:08] most commonly you would use this for a [9:10] Blog you might have 10 or 20 people's [9:12] blogs you want to read you use their RSS [9:15] feeds these summaries of what's going on [9:17] on those other pages to create a unified [9:20] list of all the stuff that's going on [9:22] Aaron was really young uh but he he [9:25] understood the technology and he saw [9:26] that it was imperfect and looked for [9:28] ways to help make it better [9:31] [Music] [9:35] so his mom started bundling mom planes [9:37] in Chicago we pick them up in San [9:39] Francisco we'd introduce him to [9:40] interesting people to argue with and [9:42] we'd Marvel at his horrific eating [9:44] habits he only ate white food only like [9:47] uh you know steamed rice and not fried [9:48] rice cuz that wasn't sufficiently white [9:51] and white bread and and and so on and [9:53] you know you kind of Marvel at this the [9:56] quality of the debate emerging from this [9:58] what what appeared to be a small boy's [10:00] mouth and you think you know this is a [10:02] kid who's really going to go somewhere [10:03] if he doesn't die scurvy Aaron you're up [10:06] um I think the difference is that now [10:08] you can't make companies like Doc was [10:09] saying you can't have companies that [10:11] just you know let's sell dog food over [10:13] the Internet let sell dog food over cell [10:14] phones but there's still a lot of [10:16] innovation going on I think if you don't [10:18] see the Innovation maybe your head is in [10:20] the S he takes on this Alpha nerd [10:22] personality where he's sort of like I'm [10:25] smarter than you and because I'm smarter [10:27] than you I'm better than you and I can [10:28] tell you what to do it's an extension of [10:31] like him being kind of like a [10:34] twerp so you aggregate all these [10:36] computers together and now they're [10:37] solving big problems like searching for [10:39] aliens and trying to cure [10:41] [Music] [10:43] cancer first met him on IRC on internet [10:46] Rel chat he didn't just write code he [10:49] also was sort of got people got people [10:52] excited about solving problems he got he [10:53] was a he was a connector the free [10:56] culture movement has had a lot of his [10:57] energy I think Aon was trying to make [11:00] the world work he was trying to fix it [11:03] he had a very kind of strong personality [11:05] that definitely ruffled feathers at [11:07] times it wasn't necessarily the case [11:10] that he was always comfortable in the [11:12] world and the world wasn't always [11:14] comfortable with [11:15] [Music] [11:18] him Ain got into high school and was [11:21] really just sick of school he didn't [11:23] like it he didn't like any of the [11:24] classes that were being taught he didn't [11:26] like the teachers Aon really knew like [11:29] how to get information he was like I [11:30] don't need to go to this teacher to [11:32] learn how to do geometry I can just read [11:35] the Geometry book and I don't need to go [11:37] to the teacher to learn their version of [11:40] American History like I have like three [11:43] historical compilations here like I [11:45] could just read them and I'm not [11:46] interested in that I'm interested in the [11:48] web I was very frustrated with school I [11:50] thought you know the teachers didn't [11:51] know what they were talking about and [11:53] they were very domineering and [11:54] controlling and the homework was kind of [11:56] a sham and it was just like you know all [11:58] the way to pin and together and forc [12:00] them to do busy work and you know I [12:02] started reading books about like the [12:04] history of education and how this [12:06] educational system was developed and you [12:08] know alternatives to it in ways that [12:10] people could actually learn things as [12:11] opposed to just regurgitating facts [12:13] their teachers told them and that kind [12:15] of led me down this path of questioning [12:17] things you know once I questioned the [12:18] school I was in I questioned the society [12:20] that built the school I questioned the [12:21] businesses the schools were training [12:23] people for and I questioned the [12:25] government that you know set up this [12:27] whole structure one of the things he was [12:28] most passionate about was copyright [12:30] especially in those early days copyright [12:32] has always been something of a burden on [12:35] the publishing industry and on readers [12:37] um but it wasn't an excessive burden it [12:41] was a reasonable institution to have in [12:43] place uh to make sure that people got [12:45] paid what Aaron's generation experienced [12:48] was the collision between this antique [12:51] copyright system and this amazing new [12:53] thing we were trying to build the [12:55] internet and the web these things [12:57] collided and what we got was [13:01] chaos he then met Harvard law professor [13:04] Lawrence lek who was then challenging [13:06] copyright law in the Supreme Court a [13:09] young Aaron Schwarz flew to Washington [13:10] to listen to the Supreme Court hearings [13:13] I am Ain Schwarz and I'm here to listen [13:15] to the to see the Elder argument why did [13:18] you fly out here from Chicago and come [13:20] all this way to see the Ed argument [13:23] that's a more difficult [13:28] question I I don't [13:31] know very exciting to see the Supreme [13:33] Court especially such a prestigious case [13:35] as this [13:41] one leig was also moving forward with a [13:44] new way to define copyright on the [13:46] internet it was called creative comments [13:49] so the simple idea of creative comments [13:50] is to give people creators uh a simple [13:53] way to mark their creativity with the [13:56] freedoms they intended to carry so if [13:59] copyright is all about all rights [14:01] reserved um then this is a kind of some [14:03] rights reserved model it's I want a [14:05] simple way to say to you here's what you [14:07] can do with my work um even if there are [14:09] other things which you need to get my [14:11] permission before you could do and [14:13] Aaron's role was the computer part like [14:16] how do you architect the licenses so [14:19] they would be simple and understandable [14:20] and expressed in a way that machines [14:22] could process it and people are like why [14:24] do you have this you know 15-year-old [14:26] kid writing the specifications for the [14:28] creative comments like don't you think [14:30] that's a huge mistake and Larry's like [14:31] the biggest mistake we would have is not [14:33] listening to this [14:34] kid barely is not even tall enough to [14:37] get over the podium and it wasn't these [14:40] movable Podium so it it's this [14:41] embarrassing thing where once he put his [14:43] screen up nobody could see his face when [14:46] you come to your come to our website [14:48] here and you go to choose license it [14:51] gives you this list of options explains [14:53] what it means and you fill out three [14:56] simple questions do you want to require [14:58] attribution [14:59] do you want to allow commercial uses of [15:01] your work do you want to allow [15:04] modifications of your work I was floored [15:07] just completely flabbergasted that these [15:09] adults regarded him as an adult and [15:12] Aaron stood up there in front of a whole [15:13] audience full of people and just started [15:15] talking about the platform that he' [15:18] created for Creative Commons and they [15:20] were all listening to him [15:22] just I was sitting at the back thinking [15:25] he's just a kid why are they listening [15:27] to him but they did well I don't think I [15:31] comprehended it fully though critics [15:33] have said it does little to ensure [15:34] artists get paid for their work the [15:37] success of Creative Commons has been [15:39] enormous currently on the website Flickr [15:41] alone over 200 million people use some [15:44] form of Creative Commons license he [15:47] contributed through his technical [15:50] abilities uh and yet it was not simply a [15:54] technical matter to [15:56] him Aaron often wrote candid in his [15:59] personal blog I think deeply about [16:02] things and I want others to do [16:05] likewise I work for ideas and learn from [16:08] people I don't like excluding people I'm [16:11] a perfectionist but I won't let that get [16:13] in the way of [16:14] publication except for education and [16:17] entertainment I'm not going to waste my [16:19] time on things that won't have an impact [16:21] I try to be friends with everyone but I [16:23] hate it when you don't take me [16:25] seriously I don't hold grudges it's not [16:28] productive [16:29] but I learn from my experience I want to [16:32] make the world a better [16:39] place in 2004 Schwarz leaves Highland [16:42] Park and enrolls in Stanford University [16:46] he had had all sort of colitis which was [16:49] very troubling and we were concerned [16:50] about him taking his medication uh he [16:53] got hospitalized and he would take this [16:54] cocktail of pills every day and one of [16:57] those pills was a steroid which Ed his [16:59] growth and made him feel different from [17:02] many of the other students Aaron I think [17:04] shows up at Stanford ready to do [17:06] scholarship and finds himself in [17:08] effectively a babysitting program for [17:10] overachieving high schoolers who uh in [17:13] four years are meant to become um you [17:17] know captains of industry uh and and one [17:20] centers and like I think he just it just [17:24] made him bananas in 2005 after only one [17:27] year of college Schwarz was offered a [17:30] spot at a new startup incubation firm [17:32] called y combinator led by Paul Graham [17:36] and he's like hey I have this idea for a [17:38] website and Paul Graham likes him enough [17:41] and says yeah sure so and drops out of [17:43] school moves to this apartment so this [17:46] used to be aon's apartment when he moved [17:48] here I have vague memories of my father [17:51] telling me how difficult it was to get a [17:54] lease um because Aaron had no credit and [17:56] he dropped out of college Aaron lived in [17:59] what's now the living room and some of [18:00] the posters are left over from when [18:02] Aaron lived here and then the library [18:05] there are more books but a lot of them [18:07] are [18:10] erands Aaron's y combinator sign was [18:13] called infogami a tool to build websites [18:17] but infogami struggles to find users and [18:19] Schwarz eventually merges his company [18:22] with another YC combinator project in [18:23] need of help it was a project headed by [18:26] Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian called [18:29] Reddit there we were starting from [18:30] almost nothing no users no money no code [18:33] and growing day by day into a hugely [18:35] popular website and it showed no signs [18:38] of letting up first we had a th000 users [18:40] then 10,000 then 20,000 and on and on it [18:42] was just [18:43] incredible Reddit becomes huge and it's [18:45] a real sort of geeky corner of the [18:51] internet there's a lot of uh humor [18:55] there's a lot of Art and there's just [18:57] people who to flock to the site and make [19:01] that site the main site they go to every [19:04] morning to get their [19:06] news Reddit kind of just borders on on [19:09] chaos at some level so on the one hand [19:12] it's a a place where people discuss uh [19:15] news of the day technology politics and [19:18] issues and yet there is a lot of kind of [19:21] not safe for work material offensive [19:23] material there's some subreddits where [19:26] uh trolls find a welcome home home and [19:29] so in that sense Reddit has been kind of [19:31] home to controversy as well it kind of [19:34] sits on that edge of chaos Reddit [19:37] catches the attention of the corporate [19:38] magazine giant K Nast who makes an offer [19:41] to buy the company some large amount of [19:43] money large enough that my dad was [19:45] getting bugged with questions about like [19:47] how do I [19:49] store this money like a lot of money [19:52] like a lot of money [19:55] like probably more than a million [19:58] dollars but I don't actually know and he [20:00] is how old at the time [20:04] 1920 so it was in this apartment they [20:07] like sat around on what predated these [20:10] couches hacking on Reddit and when they [20:14] sold Reddit they had they threw a giant [20:15] party and then all flew out to [20:17] California the next day and left the [20:19] keys with [20:23] make it was funny you know he just saw a [20:25] startup so we all kind of Presumed he [20:27] was the richest person around but he uh [20:30] he said oh no I'll take this tiny little [20:31] shoe box sized room that's all I need [20:34] like it was barely larger than a closet [20:36] the idea of him spending his money on [20:39] fancy objects just seems so implausible [20:42] he explains it's like I like living in [20:44] apartment so I'm not going to spend a [20:45] lot of money on a new place to live I'm [20:46] not going to buy a mansion and I like [20:48] wearing jeans and a t-shirt so I'm not [20:50] going to spend any more money on clothes [20:51] so like it's you know really no big deal [20:54] what is a big deal to Schwarz is how [20:56] traffic flows on the internet and what [20:58] commands our attention in the old system [21:01] of broadcasting you're fundamentally [21:02] limited by the amount of space in the [21:04] airwaves you know you could only send [21:06] out 10 channels over the airwaves of [21:08] Television right or even with cable you [21:09] had 500 channels on the internet [21:11] everybody can have a channel everyone [21:13] can get a blog or a MySpace page [21:15] everyone has a way of expressing [21:17] themselves and so what you see now is [21:19] not a question of who gets access to the [21:20] airwaves it's a question of who gets [21:22] control over the ways you find people [21:24] you know you start seeing power [21:26] centralizing in sites like Google these [21:27] sort of Gatekeepers that tell you where [21:29] on the internet you want to go the [21:31] people who provide you your sources of [21:32] news and information so it's not you [21:35] know only certain people have a license [21:37] to speak now everyone has a license to [21:38] speak it's a question of who gets [21:41] [Applause] [21:43] heard after he started working in San [21:46] Francisco at K Nast he comes into the [21:49] office and they want to give him a [21:52] computer with all this crap installed on [21:53] it and say that he can't install any new [21:56] things on his computer which to [21:57] developers outrageous right right from [21:59] the first day he was complaining about [22:00] all this [22:04] stuff gray walls gray desks gray noise [22:08] the first day I showed up here I simply [22:10] couldn't take it by lunchtime I had [22:11] literally locked myself in a bathroom [22:13] stall and started crying I can't imagine [22:15] staying sane with someone buzzing in my [22:17] ear all day let alone getting any actual [22:19] work done nobody else seems to get work [22:22] done here either everybody's always [22:24] coming into our room to hang out and [22:26] chat or invite us to play the new video [22:28] game system that wired is [22:31] testing he really had different [22:34] aspirations that were politically [22:37] oriented and Silicon Valley just doesn't [22:40] really quite have that culture that [22:42] orients uh technical activity for the [22:45] purposes of political goals Aaron hated [22:48] working for a corporation they all hate [22:50] working for conas but Aaron is like the [22:51] only one who's not going to take it and [22:53] Aaron basically gets himself fired by [22:56] not showing up to work [22:57] ever [23:01] it was said to be a messy breakup both [23:03] Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman [23:05] declined to be interviewed for this [23:08] film he rejected the business world one [23:12] of the really important things to [23:14] remember about that choice when Aaron [23:17] decided to kind of leave startup culture [23:19] is that he was also leaving behind the [23:22] things that had made him you famous and [23:26] well-loved and you know he was was at [23:29] risk of letting down fans he got to [23:32] where he was supposed to be going and [23:34] had the self-awareness and the [23:36] ordinariness to uh realize that he had [23:40] climbed the mountain of [ __ ] to pluck [23:42] the single rows and discovered that he' [23:44] lost his sense of smell and rather than [23:46] sit there and insist that it wasn't as [23:48] bad as it seemed uh and and he did get [23:51] the rose in any event uh he climbed back [23:54] down again uh which is pretty cool the [23:58] way Aaron always saw it is that [24:00] programming is Magic right you can [24:02] accomplish these things that normal [24:03] humans can't by being able to [24:06] program so if you had magical powers [24:10] would you use them for good or to make [24:11] you mountains of [24:14] cash Schwarz was inspired by one of The [24:16] Visionaries he had met as a child the [24:18] man who had invented the worldwide web [24:21] Tim burner Lee in the 1990s burner's Lee [24:24] was arguably sitting on one of the most [24:26] lucrative inventions of the 20th Century [24:29] but instead of profiting from the [24:30] invention of the worldwide web he gave [24:33] it away for [24:35] free it is the only reason the worldwide [24:37] web exists [24:40] today Ain is [24:42] certainly deeply influenced by Tim Tim [24:45] is certainly a very prominent early [24:48] internet genius who doesn't in any sense [24:51] cash out is not at all interested in how [24:53] he's going to figure out how to make a [24:55] billion dollars people would have seen [24:56] oh there's money being made there so [24:57] there would be there would have been [24:59] lots of little webs instead of one big [25:01] one and one little web lots of little [25:03] webs doesn't work because you can't [25:05] follow links from one of the [25:08] other you know you had to have the the [25:11] critical mass of this thing was the [25:12] entire planet so it's not going to work [25:14] unless the whole planet can get on [25:21] board I mean I you know feel very [25:24] strongly that it's not enough to just [25:27] live in the world as it is is to just [25:28] kind of take what you're given and you [25:30] know follow the things that adults told [25:33] you to do and that you know your parents [25:34] told you to do and that Society tells [25:36] you to do I think you should always be [25:38] questioning you know I take this very [25:40] scientific attitude that everything [25:41] you've learned is just provisional that [25:43] you know it's always open to recantation [25:45] or reputation or questioning and I think [25:47] the same applies to society once I [25:49] realized that there were real serious [25:51] problems fundamental problems that I [25:53] could do something to address I didn't [25:55] see a way to to forget that I didn't see [25:57] a way not to [25:58] [Music] [26:02] we just started spending a lot of time [26:04] just kind of as [26:07] friends we would just talk for hours [26:10] into the [26:11] [Music] [26:13] night I definitely should have [26:15] understood that he was flirting with me [26:17] I think to some degree I was like this [26:19] is a terrible idea and impossible and [26:22] therefore I will pretend it is not [26:24] happening as my marriage was breaking [26:26] down and I was really stuck with that [26:28] anywhere to go we became roommates and [26:31] brought my daughter [26:33] over we moved in and furnished the house [26:35] and it was really peaceful like my life [26:37] had not been peaceful for a while and [26:39] really neither had [26:40] [Music] [26:45] his we were extremely [26:50] close uh from the beginning of our [26:52] romantic relationship we just we were in [26:55] constant [26:56] contact but we're [26:58] both really difficult people to deal [27:03] with in a very Ali mcel discussion uh he [27:07] confessed he had a theme song and I made [27:09] him play it for [27:11] me it was Extraordinary Machine by Fiona [27:15] Apple I think it was just that sense of [27:18] kind of being a little bit [27:21] embattled that the song has [27:24] um and it also had like this hopefulness [27:27] to it it's a slow climb but I'm good at [27:31] being uncomfortable so I can't stop [27:34] changing all the time cuz in many ways [27:38] Aaron was tremendously optimistic about [27:41] life even when he didn't feel it he [27:44] could be tremendously optimistic about [27:46] [Music] [27:52] lifein what are you doing flicker has [27:55] video [27:57] now [27:59] Schwartz threw his energy into a string [28:01] of new projects involving access to [28:03] public information including an [28:05] accountability website called [28:14] watchdog.org and the idea is to be a [28:16] huge Wiki an editable website with one [28:18] page per book so for every every book [28:21] ever published we want to have a web [28:22] page about it that combines all the [28:24] information from Publishers from book [28:26] sellers from libraries from readers onto [28:29] one site and then gives you links where [28:31] you can buy it you can borrow it or you [28:33] can browse it I love libraries you know [28:35] I'm the kind of person who goes to a new [28:37] city and immediately seeks out the [28:39] library that's the dream of open library [28:41] is building this website where both you [28:43] can leap from book to book from person [28:45] to author from subject to idea go [28:48] through this vast tree of knowledge [28:50] that's been embedded and lost in big [28:52] physical libraries that's hard to find [28:53] that's not very well accessible online [28:55] is really important because books are a [28:57] cultural Legacy [28:58] you know books are the place people go [29:00] to write things down and to have all [29:01] that swallowed up by one [29:03] Corporation is kind of [29:05] scary how can you bring public access to [29:09] the public domain it may sound obvious [29:12] that you'd have public access the public [29:14] domain but in fact it's not true so the [29:16] public domain should be free to all but [29:19] it's often locked up there's often you [29:22] know guard cages it's it's like having a [29:24] national park but with a moor around it [29:27] and gun turrets pointed to out in case [29:29] somebody might want to actually come and [29:31] enjoy the public domain one of the [29:33] things Aaron was particularly interested [29:35] in is bringing public access to the [29:38] public domain this is one of the things [29:40] that got him into so much [29:45] trouble I had been trying to get access [29:49] to federal court records in the United [29:53] States what I discovered was a puzzling [29:56] system called called Pacer which stands [29:59] for public access to court electronic [30:02] records I started Googling and that's [30:05] when I ran across Carl [30:08] malam access to Legal materials in the [30:10] United States is A10 billion perear [30:14] business Pacer is just this incredible [30:17] abomination of government service it's [30:20] 10 cents a page it's it's this most [30:23] brain dead code you've ever seen you [30:25] can't search it you can't bookmark [30:27] anything you got to have a credit card [30:29] um and these are public records it's [30:31] it's you know us district courts are [30:33] very important it's where a lot of our [30:34] our seminal litigation starts you know [30:37] civil rights cases patent cases um all [30:40] sorts of stuff and journalists and [30:42] students and citizens and lawyers all [30:44] need access to Pacer and it it fights [30:46] them every step of the way people [30:48] without means um can't see the law as [30:52] readily as people that have that gold [30:53] American Express card it's it's a pole [30:55] tax on access to Justice you know the [30:58] law is the operating system of our [31:01] democracy and you have to pay to see it [31:04] uh you know that's not much of a [31:06] democracy they make about $120 million a [31:09] year on the Pacer system and it doesn't [31:13] cost anything near that according to [31:15] their own records in fact it's [31:18] illegal the e-government act of 2002 [31:21] states that the courts May charge only [31:24] to the extent necessary in order to [31:26] reimburse the cost of running [31:31] [Music] [31:33] Pacer as the founder of [31:35] public.resource.org [31:37] malamud wanted to protest the Pacer [31:39] charges he started a program called the [31:42] Pacer recycling project where people [31:44] could upload Pacer documents they had [31:46] already paid for to a free database so [31:49] others could use them the Pacer people [31:50] were getting a lot of a lot of flack [31:52] from Congress and others about public [31:54] access and so they put together this [31:56] system in 17 l liaries across the [31:58] country there was free Pacer access you [32:02] know that's that's one one Library every [32:04] 22,000 square miles I believe so it [32:06] wasn't like really convenient I [32:08] encouraged volunteers to join the [32:09] so-called thumb drive Corp and download [32:12] docs from the public access libraries [32:14] upload them to the Pacer recycling site [32:17] people take a thumb drive into one of [32:18] these libraries and they download a [32:19] bunch of documents and they send them to [32:21] me and nothing I mean it was just a joke [32:24] um in fact when you clicked on thumb [32:26] drive core there was a wizard of as you [32:28] know the munchkin singing um so little [32:30] video clip came up [32:32] weent lollipop but of course I get this [32:36] phone call from Steve Schultz and and [32:38] Aaron saying gee we'd like to join the [32:41] thumb drive [32:42] Corp around that time I ran into Aaron [32:46] at a conference this is something that [32:48] really has to be a collaboration between [32:50] a lot of different people so I [32:52] approached him and I said hey I'm [32:54] thinking about an intervention on the [32:57] Pacer problem [32:58] [Music] [33:00] Schultz had already developed a program [33:02] that could automatically download Pacer [33:04] documents from The Trial libraries [33:06] Schwarz wanted to take a look so I [33:09] showed him the code and I didn't know [33:12] what would come next but as it turns out [33:15] over the course of the next few hours at [33:18] that conference he was off sitting in a [33:20] corner improving my code recruiting a [33:23] friend of his that lived near one of [33:25] these libraries to go into the library [33:28] and to begin to test his improved code [33:32] at which point the folks at the courts [33:34] realized something's not going quite [33:37] according to plan and data started to [33:39] come in and come in and come in and soon [33:42] there were 760 GB of Pacer docs about 20 [33:46] million [33:47] Pages using information retrieved from [33:50] The Trial libraries Schwarz was [33:52] conducting massive automated parallel [33:55] downloading of the Pacer system he was [33:57] able to acquire nearly 2.7 million [34:00] federal court documents almost 20 [34:02] million pages of text now I'll grant you [34:05] that 20 million pages had perhaps [34:07] exceeded the expectations of the people [34:09] running the pilot Access Project but [34:12] surprising a bureaucrat isn't illegal [34:14] Aon and Carl decided to go talk to the [34:17] New York Times about what happened they [34:20] also caught the attention of the FBI who [34:23] began to stake out schwarz's parents [34:24] house in Illinois but I get a tweet from [34:28] his [34:28] mother saying call me it's like oh my [34:31] god what the hell's going on here and so [34:34] I finally got a hold of Aaron and and [34:36] you know Aaron's mother was like oh my [34:37] God FBI FBI [34:39] FBI an FBI agent drives down our homes [34:42] driveway trying to see if Aaron is like [34:45] in his [34:46] room and I remember being home that day [34:49] and wondering why this car was driving [34:51] down our driveway and just driving back [34:52] out I was like that's [34:54] [Music] [34:55] weird like 5 years later I read this FBI [34:58] file and I'm like oh my goodness that [35:01] was the FBI [35:03] agent in my driveway he was terrified he [35:07] he was totally [35:08] terrified he was way more terrified [35:11] after the the FBI actually um called him [35:14] up on the phone and tried to sucker him [35:16] into coming down to a coffee shop [35:17] without a lawyer um he said he went home [35:20] and laid down on the bed and and you [35:22] know was was [35:24] shaking the downloading also uncovered [35:27] massive privacy violations in the court [35:29] documents ultimately the courts were [35:31] forced to change their policies as a [35:34] result and the FBI closed their [35:36] investigation without bringing charges [35:39] to this day I find it remarkable that [35:42] anybody even at the most remote Podunk [35:45] field office of the FBI thought that A [35:47] fitting use for taxpayer dollars was [35:50] investigating people for criminal theft [35:53] on the grounds that they had made the [35:54] law public how can you call yourself a [35:57] law man [35:58] and think that there can possibly be [36:00] anything wrong in this whole world with [36:02] making the law public Aaron was willing [36:04] to put himself at risk for the causes [36:07] that he believed [36:08] in bothered by wealth disparity Schwarz [36:11] moves Beyond technology in into a [36:14] broader range of political causes I went [36:16] into Congress and I invited him to come [36:19] and hang out and intern for us for a [36:21] while so that he could learn you know [36:23] the political process uh he was sort of [36:26] learning a new commity a new set of [36:28] skills and kind of learning to hack [36:30] politics it seems ridiculous that miners [36:33] should have to hammer away until their [36:34] whole bodies are dripping with sweat [36:36] faced with the knowledge that if they [36:38] dare to stop they won't be able to put [36:39] food on the table that night while I get [36:41] to make larger and larger amounts of [36:43] money each day just by sitting and [36:44] watching [36:45] TV but apparently the world is [36:48] ridiculous so I co-founded a group [36:51] called the progressive change Campaign [36:52] Committee and what we try and do is we [36:54] try and organize people over the [36:55] Internet who care about Progressive [36:57] politics and moving the country in a [36:58] more Progressive direction to kind of [37:00] come together join our email list join [37:02] our campaigns and help get progressive [37:04] candidates elected all across the [37:05] country the group is responsible for [37:07] igniting the Grassroots effort behind [37:09] the campaign to elect Elizabeth Warren [37:11] to the Senate he might have thought it [37:13] was a dumb system but he came in and he [37:16] said I need to learn this system cuz it [37:17] can be manipulated like any you know [37:19] like any social system but his passion [37:22] for knowledge in libraries didn't take a [37:24] backseat Aaron began to take a closer [37:27] look at institutions that publish [37:29] academic Journal articles by virtue of [37:31] being students at a major US University [37:34] I assume that you have access to a wide [37:36] variety of scholarly journals pretty [37:38] much every major university in the [37:40] United States pays these sort of [37:42] Licensing fees to organizations like jar [37:44] and Thompson and isi to get access to [37:47] scholing journals that the rest of the [37:49] world can't read these scholarly [37:51] journals and articles are essentially [37:54] the entire wealth of human knowledge [37:56] online and many have been paid for with [37:59] taxpayer money or with government grants [38:02] but to read them you often have to pay [38:04] again handing over steep fees to [38:06] Publishers like Reed ele these licensing [38:09] fees are so substantial that people who [38:11] are studying in India instead of [38:13] studying in the United States don't have [38:15] this kind of access they're locked out [38:17] from all of these journals they're [38:19] locked out from our entire scientific [38:22] Legacy I mean a lot of these Journal [38:24] articles they go back to the [38:26] enlightenment every time someone has [38:28] written down a scientific paper it's [38:29] been scanned and digitized and put in [38:31] these collections that is a legacy that [38:34] has been brought To Us by the history of [38:37] people doing interesting work the [38:38] history of scientists it's a legacy that [38:40] should belong to us as a Commons as a [38:42] people but instead it's been locked up [38:45] and put online by a handful of [38:46] for-profit Corporations who then try and [38:49] get the maximum profit they can out of [38:52] it so a researcher paid by University or [38:56] or the people publishes a paper and in [38:59] the very very last step of that process [39:01] after all the work is done after all the [39:02] original research is done the thinking [39:04] the lab work the analysis after [39:06] everything is done at that last stage [39:08] then the researcher has to hand over his [39:10] or her copyright to this multi-billion [39:12] dollar company and it's sick it's an [39:15] entire economy built on volunteer Labor [39:18] uh and then the Publishers sit at the [39:19] very top and scrape off the cream talk [39:22] about a scam one publisher in in Britain [39:26] made a profit of $3 billion last year I [39:29] mean what a racket Jay store is just a [39:31] very very small player in that story but [39:34] for some reason J store is the player [39:36] that Aaron decided to [39:40] confront he'd gone to some conference [39:42] around Open Access and open publishing [39:44] and I don't know who the person from jar [39:46] was but I think they at some point eron [39:48] asked the question like how much would [39:50] it cost to open up J store in [39:53] perpetuity um and they gave some I think [39:56] it was $100 million something that Aaron [39:58] thought was totally [40:00] ridiculous working on a fellowship at [40:02] Harvard he knew users on mit's famously [40:05] open and fast Network next door had [40:07] authorized access to the riches of J [40:09] store Schwarz saw an opportunity you [40:12] have a key to those Gates and with a [40:15] little bit of shell script magic you can [40:18] get those Journal [40:20] articles on September 24th 2010 Schwarz [40:24] registered a newly purchased Acer laptop [40:27] on the the MIT Network under the name [40:29] Gary host the client name was registered [40:33] as ghost [40:34] laptop he doesn't hack J store in the [40:37] traditional sense of hacking the J store [40:39] database was organized so it was [40:40] completely trivial to figure out how you [40:42] could download all the articles in J [40:44] store because it was basically numbered [40:45] it was basically you know SL SL SL [40:47] number article [40:50] 44424 and 25 then 26 he wrote a python [40:53] script called keep grabbing dopy which [40:55] was like keep grabbing one article after [40:57] another the next day ghost laptop begins [41:01] grabbing articles but soon the [41:03] computer's IP address is blocked for [41:05] Schwarz it's barely a bump in the road [41:08] he quickly reassigns his computer's IP [41:10] address and keeps downloading well J [41:13] Stewart and uh MIT take a number of [41:16] steps to try to interfere with this when [41:17] they notice that this is happening and [41:19] when the more modest steps don't work [41:21] then in a certain stage they J store [41:23] just cuts off MIT from having access to [41:25] the J store database so the this kind of [41:27] cat and mouse game around getting access [41:31] to the uh J store database Aaron [41:34] ultimately obviously is the cat because [41:36] he has more technical capability than [41:39] the J store database people do in [41:41] defending them eventually there was an [41:43] unlocked Supply Closet in the basement [41:45] of of one of the buildings and he went [41:47] instead of going through Wi-Fi he went [41:48] down there and he just plugged his [41:49] computer directly into the network and [41:51] just left it there with an external hard [41:52] drive downloading these articles to the [41:54] to the [41:55] computer unknown KNN to Schwartz his [41:58] laptop and hard drive had been found by [42:02] authorities they didn't stop the [42:04] downloads instead they installed a [42:06] surveillance [42:09] camera they found the computer in this [42:12] room in the basement of an MIT building [42:14] they could have unplugged it they could [42:16] have waited for the guy to come back and [42:19] said dude what are you doing you know [42:21] cut it out who are you and they could [42:23] have done all that kind of stuff but [42:24] they didn't what they wanted to do was [42:26] film it to gather evidence to make a [42:29] case that's the only reason you film [42:31] something like [42:33] [Music] [42:37] that at first the only person caught on [42:39] the Glitchy surveillance camera was [42:41] using the closet as a place to store [42:43] bottles and [42:46] [Music] [42:52] cans but days later it caught [42:56] Schwartz [42:57] [Music] [43:05] sortz is replacing a hard drive he takes [43:09] it out of his backpack leans out of [43:11] frame for about 5 [43:13] minutes and then [43:26] leaves [43:27] [Music] [43:37] and then they like organized like a a [43:39] stake out where as he was biking home [43:41] from MIT these cops came out from like [43:44] either side of the road or something [43:45] like that and started going after [43:48] him he he describes that he's he was [43:51] pressed down and and assaulted by the [43:54] police he tells me that they it's [43:56] unclear that they were police that were [43:58] after him he thought that someone was [44:00] trying to attack him I he does tell me [44:03] they beat him [44:03] [Music] [44:07] up I was just devastated the notion of [44:10] any kind of criminal prosecution of [44:12] anyone in in our family or anything was [44:15] so foreign and incomprehensible I didn't [44:17] know what to do well they execute search [44:19] warrants at at Aaron's house his [44:21] apartment in Cambridge in his office at [44:26] Harvard [44:27] two days before the arrest the [44:29] investigation had gone beyond Jore and [44:32] the local Cambridge Police it had been [44:34] taken over by the United States Secret [44:36] Service the Secret Service began [44:38] investigating computer and credit card [44:40] fraud in [44:41] 1984 but six weeks after the attack on [44:44] 911 their role [44:48] expanded President Bush used the Patriot [44:50] Act to establish a network of what they [44:52] called electronic crimes task [44:55] forces the bill for me takes account of [44:58] the new realities and dangers posed by [45:00] modern terrorists according to the [45:02] Secret Service they are primarily [45:04] engaged in activity with economic impact [45:06] organized criminal groups or use of [45:09] schemes involving new technology the [45:11] Secret Service turned schwarz's case [45:13] over to the Boston us attorney's office [45:16] there was a guy in the US attorney's [45:17] office who had the title head of the [45:19] computer crimes division or task force [45:22] um I don't know what else he had going [45:24] but you're certainly not much of a [45:25] computer crimes prosec uter without a [45:28] computer crime to prosecute so he jumped [45:30] on it kept it for himself didn't assign [45:33] it to someone else within the office or [45:34] the unit and that's Steve Heyman [45:37] prosecutor Steven Heyman has been [45:38] largely out of public view since the [45:40] arrest of Aaron Schwarz but he can be [45:42] seen here in an episode of the [45:44] television show American Greed filmed [45:46] around the time of aon's arrest he is [45:49] describing his previous case against the [45:51] notorious hacker Alberto Gonzalez a case [45:54] that garnered himman enormous press [45:55] attention and accolades Gonzalez [45:57] masterminded the theft of over a 100 [45:59] million credit card and ATM numbers the [46:02] largest such fraud in history here Hyman [46:05] describing Gonzalez gives his view on [46:08] the hacker [46:09] mindset these guys are driven by a lot [46:12] of the same things that we're driven by [46:16] they have an ego they like Challenge and [46:20] of course they like money and everything [46:23] you can get from money one of the [46:25] suspects implicated in the Gonzalez case [46:27] was a young hacker named Jonathan James [46:30] believing Gonzalez's crimes would be [46:32] pinned on him James committed suicide [46:34] during the [46:35] investigation in an early press release [46:38] describing the government's position in [46:39] the case of Aaron Schwarz heyman's boss [46:42] us attorney for the District of [46:43] Massachusetts Carmen Ortiz said this [46:46] stealing is stealing whether you use a [46:48] computer command or a crowbar and [46:50] whether you take documents data or [46:52] dollars it's not true it's obviously not [46:55] true uh I'm not saying it's harmless and [46:58] I'm not saying that we shouldn't [47:01] criminalize [47:03] stealing of [47:05] information but you've got to be much [47:07] more subtle in trying to figure out [47:09] exactly which kind of harms are harmful [47:13] here um so the thing about a crowbar is [47:16] every time I break into a place with a [47:18] crowbar I do damage there's no doubt [47:20] about it um but when Aaron writes a [47:23] script that says download download [47:24] download a hundred times in a second um [47:28] there's no obvious damage to anybody uh [47:31] if he does that for the purpose of [47:32] gathering a archive to do academic [47:35] research on it there is never any damage [47:37] to anybody he wasn't stealing he wasn't [47:40] selling what he got or giving it away he [47:43] was making a point as far as I could [47:45] tell the arrest took its toll on Schwarz [47:48] he just wouldn't talk about it um and [47:50] he's like very stressed if you thought [47:51] like the FBI was like going to come to [47:54] your doorstep any day anytime you went [47:56] down on the hall even to do your laundry [47:59] and they would break into your apartment [48:01] cuz you left the door unlocked like I'd [48:04] be pretty stressed um and it was clear [48:07] and so Aaron was always sort of like in [48:09] like a d [48:10] [Music] [48:17] mood he wouldn't give off any sensitive [48:21] information about his whereabouts during [48:23] this time cuz he was so afraid that the [48:26] FBI would be waiting for [48:30] him it was a time of unprecedented [48:32] social and political [48:34] activism Time Magazine would later name [48:37] as their 2011 person of the year the [48:41] protester there was a kind of hot bed of [48:44] hacker activity going [48:48] on Wikileaks had released a trove of [48:52] diplomatic cables the Manning had been [48:55] under arrest at the time time it was [48:57] unknown whether he was the source of the [48:59] leak uh Anonymous uh which is a kind of [49:03] protest Ensemble that has a lot of [49:05] hackers in its ranks were going on [49:09] various sprees of sorts if you compare [49:12] that to what he did his stuff should [49:15] have been left behind for MIT and J [49:17] store to deal with in a kind of private [49:20] uh professional matter it should have [49:23] never gotten the attention of the the [49:26] criminal [49:27] system it just didn't belong [49:31] [Music] [49:35] there before he was indicted Schwarz was [49:38] offered a plea deal that involved 3 [49:40] months in prison time in a halfway house [49:43] and a year of home detention all without [49:46] the use of a computer it was on the [49:48] condition that Schwarz plead guilty to a [49:51] felony here we are we have no Discovery [49:54] no evidence whatsoever about what the [49:57] government's case is and we have to make [49:59] this immense decision where the lawyer [50:03] is pushing you to do this the government [50:06] is giving you a [50:08] non-negotiable demand and you're told [50:10] that your likelihood of prevailing is [50:12] small so whether you're guilty or not [50:15] you're better off taking taking the [50:17] deal Boston has its own computer crimes [50:20] division lots of lawyers probably more [50:23] lawyers than they need so you know you [50:27] can imagine all sorts of cases where it [50:28] would be really hard to prosecute [50:30] because you've got some criminals in [50:32] Russia or you've got some people inside [50:35] of a corporation that are going to have [50:36] $500 lawyers or $700 an hour lawyers [50:40] sitting down against you and then you've [50:41] got this case with this kid which is [50:44] pretty easy to prove uh that he did [50:46] something and he's already marked [50:50] himself as a troublemaker with the FBI [50:52] so why not go as tough as you can in [50:55] here against that guy it's good for you [50:57] the prosecutor it's good for the [50:58] Republic cuz you're fighting all those [51:01] terrorist types I was so scared I was so [51:03] scared of having my computer seized I [51:05] was so scared of going to jail because [51:08] of my computer being seized I had [51:10] confidential material from from sources [51:13] from my previous work on my laptop and [51:16] that is above all my priority is to keep [51:19] my sources safe I was so scared of of [51:23] what was going to happen to [51:24] aah Aaron told me that they offered him [51:27] a deal and he finally just said that he [51:30] would take it if I told him to and I [51:33] said I came real close to saying take [51:36] it he had these he had developed like [51:40] serious political aspirations in the [51:43] intervening time between when you know [51:45] that moment when he ended that [51:49] entrepreneurial startup life and begun [51:52] this new life that had come to this [51:54] political activism [51:57] and he just didn't believe that he could [52:01] continue in his life with a felony you [52:04] know he said to me one day we were [52:06] walking by the White House and he said [52:07] to me they don't let felons work [52:09] [Music] [52:16] there and you know he really he really [52:19] wanted that to be his [52:21] life he hadn't killed anybody he hadn't [52:24] hurt anybody he hadn't like stolen money [52:28] he didn't done anything that seemed [52:29] felony worthy [52:31] right [52:34] and there is this idea that like there's [52:37] no reason that he should be labeled a [52:38] felon and taken away his right to vote [52:41] in many states for doing what he did [52:44] like that's just outrageous like it [52:45] makes sense for him to be you know maybe [52:48] find a bunch of money or you know asked [52:51] not to come back to MIT again but like [52:54] to be a felon to face [52:57] jail [53:00] time Schwarz turned down the plea [53:03] deal hman redoubled his efforts Hyman [53:07] continued to press us at all at all [53:11] levels even with the physical evidence [53:14] seized from Aaron's Acer computer hard [53:16] drive and USB drive the prosecutors [53:19] needed evidence of his motives why was [53:22] Aaron Schwarz downloading articles from [53:23] J store and just what did he plan to do [53:26] with [53:28] them the government claims that he was [53:30] planning to publish these uh we don't [53:33] really know whether that was his real [53:35] intention because Aaron also had a [53:36] history [53:38] of doing projects where he'd analyze [53:41] giant data sets of articles in order to [53:43] learn interesting things about them the [53:45] best evidence for that was that when he [53:47] was at Stanford he also downloaded the [53:50] whole Westlaw legal database in a [53:54] project with Stanford law students [53:55] Schwarz had had downloaded the West law [53:57] legal database he uncovered troubling [54:00] connections between funders of legal [54:01] research and favorable results he did [54:04] this amazing analysis of for-profit [54:07] companies giving money to law professors [54:09] who wrote law review articles which were [54:11] then beneficial to like Exxon during an [54:14] oil spill right so it was a very corrupt [54:16] system of of funding you know vanity [54:18] research Schwarz had never released the [54:21] West law documents in theory he could [54:23] have been doing the same thing about the [54:24] J store database that would have been [54:26] complet completely okay if he were on [54:28] the other hand intending to create a [54:30] competitive service to J store like [54:33] we're going to set up our own you know [54:35] access to the Harvard Law review and [54:37] charge you know money for it then you [54:39] know okay now it seems like criminal [54:41] violation uh because you're commercially [54:43] trying to exploit this material but it's [54:45] kind of crazy to imagine that's what he [54:46] was [54:47] doing so but then there's a middle case [54:49] well what if he was just trying to [54:50] liberate it for all the developing [54:52] world but depending on what he was doing [54:55] it creates a very different character to [54:57] how the law should be thinking about it [54:58] um the government was Prosecuting him as [55:00] if this was like a commercial criminal [55:03] violation like stealing a whole bunch of [55:04] credit card records that it was that [55:06] kind of crime I don't know what he was [55:08] going to do with that database but I [55:10] heard from a friend of his that Aaron [55:12] had told him he was going to analyze the [55:14] data for evidence of corporate funding [55:17] of climate change research that led to [55:18] biased results and I I I totally believe [55:22] [Music] [55:24] that I was just told that Steve wanted [55:27] to talk to [55:28] me um and I thought maybe this is a way [55:31] I could get out of this just just exit [55:34] the situation and I didn't want to live [55:36] in fear of having my computer [55:37] seized um I didn't want to live in fear [55:39] of having to go to jail on a contemp of [55:41] Court charge if they tried to compel me [55:44] to um decrypt my computer when they came [55:47] to me and said you know Steve wants to [55:48] talk to [55:49] you that seemed [55:51] reasonable they offered Norton what is [55:54] known as a Queen for a Day letter or a [55:56] profer it allowed prosecutors to ask [55:59] questions about Aaron's case Norton [56:01] would be given immunity from prosecution [56:03] herself for any information she revealed [56:05] during the meeting I didn't like it I I [56:08] told my lawyers repeatedly that I didn't [56:11] this seemed fishy I didn't like this I [56:12] didn't want immunity I didn't need [56:14] immunity I hadn't done anything but they [56:16] were really really stringent that there [56:18] was they did not want me meeting the [56:20] prosecutor without immunity but just to [56:22] make clear this is a Queen for a Day [56:24] deal a profer right a profer letter in [56:26] which basically handed information over [56:28] them in exchange for protection from [56:29] prosecution so um it wasn't handing [56:32] information over it was at least that's [56:34] not how I saw it it was just having a [56:36] discussion having an interview with them [56:38] well they're asking you questions [56:39] they're asking me questions they ask [56:41] them about whatever they want right and [56:42] whatever they learn I really prosecuted [56:45] for that right and I I repeatedly tried [56:48] to go in naked I repeatedly I repeatedly [56:51] tried to turn down the proper letter I [56:53] was ill I was being pressured by my [56:55] lawyers I was confused I was not doing [56:59] well by this point I was depressed and I [57:02] was scared and I didn't understand the [57:04] situation I was in I had no idea why I [57:07] was in this situation I hadn't done [57:10] anything interesting much less wrong we [57:13] went out of our minds Aaron was clearly [57:16] very distraught about it we were very [57:17] distraught about it Aaron's attorneys [57:19] were very distraught about it we tried [57:21] to get Quinn to change attorneys I was [57:24] very unused to being in a room with [57:26] large men well-armed that are [57:28] continually telling me I'm lying and [57:31] that I must have done [57:32] something I told them that this thing [57:35] that they were [57:36] Prosecuting [57:38] wasn't a [57:40] crime I told them that they were on the [57:42] wrong side of History I used that phrase [57:44] I said you're on the wrong side of [57:46] History um and they look bored they [57:49] didn't even look angry they just look [57:51] bored and I I it began to occur to me [57:55] that we weren't having the same [57:56] conversation I mean I told them plenty [57:58] of things about you know why people [58:00] would download Journal articles and [58:02] eventually I don't remember what was [58:04] around it um uh I mentioned that he'd [58:07] done this blog post the gorilla Open [58:08] Access [58:11] Manifesto uh this is the gorilla Open [58:14] Access [58:15] Manifesto uh supposedly written in July [58:17] 2008 in [58:19] Italy information is power but like all [58:22] power there are those who want to keep [58:23] it for themselves the world's entire [58:25] scientific ific and cultural heritage [58:27] published over centuries in books and [58:28] journals is increasingly being digitized [58:31] and locked up by a handful of private [58:33] corporations meanwhile those who have [58:35] been locked out are not standing idly by [58:38] you've been sneaking through holes and [58:39] climbing over fences liberating the [58:41] information locked up by the Publishers [58:42] and sharing them with your friends but [58:44] all this action goes on in the dark [58:46] hidden underground it's called stealing [58:48] or piracy as if sharing a wealth of [58:50] knowledge were the moral equivalent of [58:52] plundering a ship and murdering its crew [58:54] but sharing isn't immoral it's a moral [58:56] imperative only those blinded by greed [58:59] would refuse to let a friend make a copy [59:02] there's no justice in following unjust [59:03] laws it's time to come into the light [59:05] and in the grand tradition of Civil [59:07] Disobedience declare our opposition to [59:09] this private theft of public [59:11] culture the manifesto itself was [59:14] allegedly written by four different [59:15] people and also edited by Norton but it [59:19] was Schwarz who had signed his name to [59:21] it when it's over I go immediately to [59:24] Aaron and tell him every I can remember [59:27] about it and he gets very [59:33] angry the things that I'd done shouldn't [59:36] have added up that [59:39] way I hadn't done anything wrong and [59:43] everything had gone [59:46] wrong but I was [59:47] [Music] [59:55] never [59:57] I'm still [59:59] angry I'm still angry that you can try [60:03] your best with these people to do the [60:05] right thing and they will turn [60:07] everything against you and they will [60:09] hurt you with anything they [60:12] [Music] [60:14] can and in that moment I regret that I [60:17] said what I did but my much larger [60:20] regret is that we have settled for this [60:23] that we are okay with this that we are [60:26] okay with a justice system that tries to [60:28] game people into little traps so they [60:30] can ruin their [60:31] lives so yeah I wish I hadn't said that [60:35] but I am much much angrier that this is [60:40] where I [60:41] am that this is what we as a people [60:45] think is [60:47] okay they used every method that I think [60:51] they could think of to get her to [60:53] provide information which would be [60:55] unhelpful to Aaron and helpful to the [60:58] prosecution of [60:59] Aaron but but you know I don't think she [61:02] had information that was helpful to to [61:05] um to the [61:06] government months go by as schwarz's [61:09] friends and family await a looming [61:11] indictment in the meantime Schwarz was [61:13] becoming a go-to expert on a series of [61:16] Internet issues to you then do you think [61:18] that the internet is something that [61:20] should be considered a human right and [61:22] something that the government cannot [61:23] take away from you yes definitely I mean [61:26] this notion that National Security is an [61:29] excuse to shut down the internet that's [61:30] exactly what we heard in Egypt and Syria [61:32] and all these other countries and so [61:34] yeah it's true sites like Wikileaks are [61:36] going to be putting up some embarrassing [61:37] material about what the US government [61:39] does and people are going to be [61:40] organizing to protest about it and try [61:42] and change their government you know and [61:44] that's a good thing that's what all [61:45] these First Amendment rights of free [61:47] expression a freedom of Association are [61:49] all about and so the notion that we [61:50] should try and shut those down I think [61:52] just goes against very basic American [61:54] principles the principle I think is one [61:56] that our founding fathers would have [61:57] understood if the internet had been [61:58] around back then instead of putting post [62:00] offices in the Constitution they would [62:02] have put [62:03] isps well it's definitely interesting to [62:05] see how Schwarz meets activist Taran [62:07] Stein Brickner Kaufman and the two begin [62:09] to date we need a massive Global public [62:11] outcry if there's no massive Global [62:13] public outcry it won't create any change [62:15] you know four people in this city should [62:17] cause a massive Global public outcry you [62:19] know we need a petition signer without [62:22] telling her specifics he warned her he [62:24] was involved in something he called [62:25] simply the bad thing and I had sort of [62:28] crazy theories like that he was having [62:30] an affair with Elizabeth Warren or [62:32] something I I speculated both Hillary [62:34] Clinton and Elizabeth waren actually but [62:37] um so sometime in probably late July [62:40] Aaron called me and I happened to pick [62:43] up and he said you know the bad thing [62:45] might be in the news tomorrow do you [62:47] want me to tell you or do you want to [62:48] read about it in the news and I said [62:49] well I want you I want you to tell me um [62:53] and he said uh well I've been I've been [62:58] arrested for downloading too many [62:59] academic Journal articles and they want [63:01] to make an example out of [63:03] me and I was like that's it that's the [63:06] big fuss really like just doesn't sound [63:09] like a very big deal on July 14th 2011 [63:13] Federal prosecutors indict Schwarz on [63:15] four felony accounts he gets indicted on [63:19] the same day that like two people in [63:21] England who are part of LC get arrested [63:24] and like a few other real hackers and [63:27] Aaron is just like someone who kind of [63:28] looks like a hacker enough that they can [63:30] like you know put his head on a steak [63:33] and like put it on the gates Aaron went [63:35] to surrender and they arrested [63:38] him they then uh strip searched him uh [63:42] took away his shoelaces took away his [63:44] belt and left him in solitary [63:49] confinement the District of [63:50] Massachusetts United States attorney's [63:52] office released a statement saying [63:54] Schwarz faces up to 35 years in prison [63:57] to be followed by 3 years of supervised [64:00] release restitution forfeiture and a [64:02] fine of up to $1 [64:05] million he is released on $100,000 bail [64:09] the same day the primary victim in the [64:11] case J store formally drops all charges [64:14] against Schwarz and declines to pursue [64:16] the case J store they weren't our [64:19] friends they weren't helpful or friendly [64:21] to us but they also were just kind of [64:22] like we're not part of this J store and [64:26] their parent company Ithaca also [64:28] sidestepped requests to talk with this [64:30] film but at the time they released a [64:32] statement saying it was the government's [64:34] decision whether to prosecute not J [64:37] stor and so it's our belief that with [64:40] that the case will be over that we [64:43] should be able to get Steve Heyman to [64:44] drop the case or settle it in some [64:47] rational way and the government [64:50] refused [64:54] why well but because I think they wanted [64:56] to make an example out of Aaron and they [64:58] said they wanted to the reason why they [65:01] wouldn't move on requiring a felony [65:04] conviction in jail time was that they [65:06] wanted [65:08] uh they wanted to use this case as a [65:10] case of deter for deter they told us [65:12] that they told you that yes this was [65:15] going to be an example yes he was going [65:17] to be me an example [65:19] yes the Steve Heyman said that deterring [65:22] who like there's other people out there [65:24] running around logging on to J store and [65:26] downloaded the Articles to make a [65:27] political statement I mean who are they [65:29] deterring it would be easier to [65:32] understand the Obama administration's [65:34] posture of supposedly being for [65:36] deterrence if this was an Administration [65:39] that for instance prosecuted arguably [65:42] the biggest economic crime that this [65:43] country has seen in the last 100 years [65:45] the crimes that were committed that led [65:47] to the financial crisis on Wall Street [65:50] when you start [65:51] deploying the non-controversial idea of [65:55] detur only selectively you stopped [65:58] making a dispassionate analysis of [66:01] lawbreaking and you started de deciding [66:04] to deploy law enforcement resources [66:06] specifically on the basis of political [66:09] ideology and and that's not just [66:12] undemocratic it's supposed to be [66:18] unamerican prosecutor Steven Heyman [66:21] later reportedly told mit's outside [66:23] Council that the straw that broke the [66:25] camp back was a press release sent out [66:27] by an organization Schwarz founded [66:29] called demand progress according to the [66:32] MIT account Heyman reacted to the short [66:34] statement of support calling it a wild [66:37] internet campaign and a foolish move [66:39] that moved the case from a human one-on [66:41] one level to an Institutional level that [66:44] was a a poisonous combination a [66:46] prosecutor who didn't want to lose face [66:48] who had a political career and the [66:50] offing maybe and and didn't want to have [66:52] this come back and haunt them you spent [66:53] how many tax dollars arrest someone for [66:56] taking too many books out of the library [66:57] and they got your ass handed to you in [66:59] court no way I then mve to try to put [67:02] his pressure on it in various ways to [67:04] get them to go to the government and and [67:06] request the government to to to stop the [67:10] prosecution but what is mit's reaction [67:13] that there doesn't seem to be any [67:15] reaction from MIT at that [67:22] point MIT doesn't defend Aaron which to [67:26] people inside of the MIT Community seems [67:29] outrageous because MIT is a place that [67:33] encourages hacking in the biggest sense [67:35] of the word at MIT the idea of going and [67:37] running around on roofs and tunnels that [67:39] you weren't allowed to be in was not [67:41] only a right of passage it was part of [67:44] the MIT tour and lockpicking was a [67:48] winter course at [67:50] MIT they had the moral authority to stop [67:54] it in it tracks MIT never stood up and [67:58] took a position of saying to the feds [68:00] don't do this we don't want you to do [68:03] this you're you're overreacting this is [68:05] too strong that I'm aware [68:07] of they acted kind of like a like any [68:11] Corporation would they they sort of they [68:13] they helped the government they didn't [68:14] help us unless they felt they had to and [68:18] um and they never tried to stop it MIT [68:23] declined repeated requests to comment [68:25] but later released a report saying they [68:27] attempted to maintain a position of [68:29] neutrality and believed himman and the [68:31] US attorney's office did not care what [68:33] MIT thought or said about the case mit's [68:36] Behavior seemed really at odds with the [68:40] MIT ethos right you could argue that MIT [68:44] turned a blind eye and that was okay for [68:46] them to do but taking that stance taking [68:48] that neutral stance in of itself was [68:50] taking a pro prosecutor stance if you [68:53] look at Steve Jobs and Steve wnc they [68:56] started by selling a blue box which was [68:59] a thing designed to defraud the phone [69:00] company if you look at Bill Gates and [69:03] Paul Allen they initially started their [69:05] business by using computer time at [69:08] Harvard which was pretty clearly against [69:10] the rules the difference between Aaron [69:12] and the people I just mentioned is that [69:13] Aaron wanted to make the world a better [69:14] place he didn't just want to make [69:18] money shorts continues to be outspoken [69:21] on a variety of Internet issues you know [69:23] the reason the internet works is because [69:26] of the competitive Marketplace of ideas [69:28] and what we need to be focusing on is [69:30] getting more information about our [69:31] government more accessibility more [69:33] discussion more debate but instead it [69:35] seems like what Congress is focused on [69:36] is shutting things down Aaron thought he [69:39] could change the world just by [69:41] explaining the world very clearly to [69:43] people flame can literally control your [69:46] computer and make it spy on you welcome [69:49] Aaron good to have you back on the show [69:51] here you know just like spies used to in [69:53] olden days put microphones and tap what [69:55] people were saying now they're using [69:57] computers to do the same things [69:59] schwarz's political activity continues [70:01] his attention turning to a bill moving [70:03] through Congress designed to curb online [70:05] piracy it was called soapa activists [70:09] like Peter Eckersley saw it as an [70:11] enormous overreach threatening the [70:13] technical Integrity of the internet [70:15] itself and one of the first things I did [70:17] was to call Aaron I said can we do a big [70:19] online campaign against this this isn't [70:22] a bill about [70:23] copyright it's not not no he said it's a [70:27] bill about the freedom to [70:29] connect now I was listening and he [70:33] thought about it for a while and then [70:34] said yes and he went and founded demand [70:37] progress demand progress is an online [70:39] activism organization we' got around a [70:41] million and a half members now um but [70:44] started in the fall of 2010 Aaron was [70:47] one of the most prominent people and a [70:49] community of people who help lead [70:51] organizing around social justice issues [70:53] at the federal level in this country [70:55] soapa was the bill that was intended to [70:58] curtail online piracy of music and [71:01] movies but what it did was basically [71:03] take a sledgehammer to a problem that [71:05] needed a scalpel if passed the law would [71:08] allow a company to cut off finances to [71:10] entire websites without due process or [71:13] even to force Google to exclude their [71:15] links all they needed was a single claim [71:18] of copyright infringement it pitted the [71:21] titans of traditional media against a [71:23] new and now far more sophistic ated [71:25] remix culture it makes everyone who runs [71:28] a website into a policeman and if they [71:30] don't do their job of making sure nobody [71:32] on their site uses it for anything [71:33] that's even potentially illegal the [71:35] entire site can get shut down without [71:37] even so much as a trial this was over [71:39] the top I mean this was uh a catastrophe [71:43] this bill poses a serious threat to [71:46] speech and civil liberties for all who [71:50] use the internet there were only a [71:52] handful of us who said look we're not [71:54] for piracy either but it makes no sense [71:57] to destroy the architecture or the [72:00] internet the domain name system and so [72:01] much that makes it free and open in the [72:03] name of fighting uh piracy and Aaron got [72:06] that right away the freedoms guaranteed [72:08] in our constitution the freedoms our [72:10] country had been built on would be [72:12] suddenly deleted new technology instead [72:15] of bringing us greater Freedom would [72:17] have snuffed out fundamental rights we'd [72:18] always taken for [72:20] granted and I realized that day talking [72:23] to Peter that I couldn't let that [72:27] happen when soapa was introduced in [72:29] October 2011 it was considered [72:32] inevitable our strategy when it first [72:34] came out was to hopefully slow the bill [72:36] down maybe weaken it a little bit uh but [72:40] even we didn't think that we would be [72:43] able to stop this [72:44] bill having worked in Washington what [72:47] you learn is that typically in [72:50] Washington the legislative fights are [72:53] fights between different sets of [72:56] corporate moneyed interests they're all [72:58] duking it out to pass legislation and [73:00] the the fights that are the closest are [73:02] when you have one set of corporate [73:04] interests against another set of [73:06] corporate interests and they're [73:07] financially equally matched in terms of [73:09] campaign contributions and lobbying [73:11] those are the closest ones the ones that [73:13] aren't even fights typically are ones [73:16] where all the money is on one side all [73:18] the corporations are on one side and [73:20] just millions of people on the other [73:24] side I haven't seen anything like Pippa [73:27] and soapa in all my time in public [73:30] service there were more than 40 United [73:33] State Senators on that bill as [73:36] co-sponsors so they were already a long [73:39] long way to getting the 60 votes to have [73:41] it clear all the procedural [73:43] Hoops even I began to doubt myself it it [73:46] was a rough period Schwarz and demand [73:49] progress were able to Marshall enormous [73:51] support using traditional Outreach [73:53] combined with commonly used voice [73:55] Voiceover IP to make it very easy for [73:57] people to call Congress I never met [74:00] anybody else who was able to operate at [74:03] his level both on the technological side [74:05] and on the campaign strategy side [74:08] millions of people contacted Congress [74:10] and signed anti-sopa petitions Congress [74:13] was caught off guard there was just [74:16] something about watching those clueless [74:18] members of Congress debate the bill [74:20] watching them insist they could regulate [74:22] the internet and a bunch of nerds [74:23] couldn't possibly stop them I am not a [74:25] nerd I'm just not enough of a nerd maybe [74:28] we ought to ask some nerds what this [74:29] thing really does let's have a hearing [74:31] bring in the [74:34] Nerds [74:39] really [74:41] nerds you know I think actually the word [74:43] you're looking for is [74:45] experts to Enlighten you so your laws [74:50] backfire break the internet we use the [74:54] term geek but we're allowed to use that [74:55] because we are Geeks the fact that it [74:57] got as far as it did without them [75:00] talking to any technical experts [75:01] reflects the fact that there is a [75:03] problem in this town I'm looking for [75:05] somebody to come before this body and [75:08] testify in a hearing and say this is why [75:11] they're wrong there used to be an office [75:13] that provided Science and Technology [75:15] advice and members could go to them and [75:16] say help me understand XYZ and gri [75:20] killed it he said it was a waste of [75:21] money ever since then Congress has [75:23] plunged into the dark ages I don't think [75:26] anybody really thought that soapa could [75:27] be beaten including Aaron I think it was [75:30] worth trying but it didn't seem winnable [75:34] and I remember maybe a few months later [75:36] I remember him just turning to me and [75:37] being like I think we might win this and [75:40] I was like that would be [75:43] amazing calls to Congress continue when [75:46] the domain hosting site GoDaddy becomes [75:48] a supporter of the bill tens of [75:50] thousands of users transferred their [75:53] domain names in protest within a week a [75:56] humbled GoDaddy reverses their position [75:58] on sofa uh when the U Congress people [76:02] that supported uh the the record in [76:05] movie Industries uh realized that there [76:07] was this backlash they kind of scaled [76:09] the bill back a little bit you can see [76:10] the curve happening you could see that [76:12] we were that that our uh arguments were [76:14] starting to resonate it was like Aaron [76:16] had been like striking a match and it [76:18] was being blown out striking another one [76:19] is being blown out and finally he'd like [76:21] managed to catch enough kindling that [76:22] the the flame actually caught and then [76:24] they turned into into this roaring Blaze [76:27] on January 16th 2012 the White House [76:30] issued a statement saying they didn't [76:32] support the bill and then this happened [76:36] I'm a big believer that uh we should be [76:38] dealing with issues of piracy and we [76:40] should deal with them in a serious way [76:42] uh but this bill is not the right bill [76:44] when Jimmy Wales uh put his support [76:47] towards blacking out Wikipedia the [76:49] number five most popular website in the [76:51] world this is a website that's on [76:54] several per of all of the clicks on [76:57] anywhere on the internet Wikipedia went [76:59] black Reddit went black Craigslist went [77:02] black the phone lines on Capitol Hill [77:04] flat out melted members of Congress [77:07] started rushing to issue statements [77:09] retracting their support for the bill [77:11] that they were promoting just a couple [77:12] days ago within 24 hours the number of [77:15] opponents of soapa in Congress went from [77:18] this to [77:20] [Music] [77:21] this to see congressman and Senators [77:25] slowly flip sides throughout the day of [77:29] the blackout was pretty unbelievable [77:31] there was like a hundred representative [77:33] swing and that was when as hard as it [77:36] was for me to believe after all this we [77:39] had won the thing that everyone said was [77:41] impossible that some of the biggest [77:43] companies in the world had written off [77:44] as kind of a pipe dream had [77:47] happened we did [77:50] it we [77:53] won [77:55] this is a historic week in Internet [77:57] politics maybe American politics the [77:58] thing that we heard from people in [78:01] Washington DC from staffers on Capitol [78:03] Hill was they received more emails and [78:05] more phone calls on so blackout day than [78:08] they'd ever received about anything I [78:10] think that was an extremely exciting [78:12] moment this was the moment when the [78:15] internet had grown up politically it was [78:18] exhilarating because it's hard to [78:19] believe it actually happened it's hard [78:21] to believe a bill with so much Financial [78:24] power behind it didn't simply sail [78:27] through the Congress and not only did it [78:29] not sail through it didn't pass at [78:32] all you know it's easy sometimes to feel [78:35] like you're powerless like when you come [78:37] out in the streets and you march and you [78:38] yell and nobody hears you but I'm here [78:40] to tell you today you are [78:43] [Applause] [78:44] powerful so yeah maybe sometimes you [78:47] feel like you're not being listened to [78:48] but I'm here to tell you that you are [78:50] you are being listened to you are making [78:52] a difference you can stop this bill if [78:54] if you don't stop [78:56] [Music] [78:59] fighting stop Pippa stop [79:02] [Music] [79:03] soapa some of the biggest internet [79:05] companies to put it frankly would [79:06] benefit from a world in which their [79:08] little competitors could get [79:11] censored we can't let that [79:14] happen for him it was more important to [79:16] be sure that you made a small change [79:19] than to play a small part in a big [79:22] change but Soo was like playing a major [79:25] part in a major change and so for him it [79:28] was kind of this proof of concept like [79:31] okay I you know what I want to do with [79:32] my life has changed the world I think [79:35] about it in this really scientific way [79:37] of like I'm measuring my impact and this [79:40] shows that it's possible right that the [79:42] thing that I want to do with my life is [79:44] possible um I have proved that I that I [79:47] can do it that iron sorts could change [79:50] the world for a guy who um never really [79:54] thought he had done much which was eron [79:58] um it was one of the few moments where [80:00] you could really [80:02] see that he felt like he had he had done [80:05] something good feeling like here is his [80:09] maybe one and only Victory [80:12] lap everyone said there was no way we [80:15] could stop sofa we stopped it there a [80:17] three outrageously good victories and [80:20] the year isn't even over yet I mean if [80:23] there's a time to be positive it's now [80:25] [Music] [80:27] you know he wins at soapa a year after [80:28] he's arrested it's not unambiguously [80:31] happy moment there's a lot going on he's [80:33] so attuned towards participating in the [80:37] political process you can't stop him the [80:40] list of organizations Schwarz founded or [80:42] co-founded is enormous and years before [80:45] Edward Snowden would expose widespread [80:47] internet surveillance Schwarz was [80:49] already concerned it is shocking to [80:51] think that the accountability is so [80:54] lacked that they don't even have sort of [80:56] basic statistics about how big the [80:58] spying program is if the answer is oh [81:00] we're spying on so many people we can't [81:02] possibly even count them then that's an [81:04] awful lot of people right one thing if [81:06] they said look you know we we know the [81:08] number of telephones we're spying on we [81:10] don't know exactly how many real people [81:11] that corresponds to but they just came [81:13] back and said we can't give you a number [81:14] at all that's pretty I mean it's scary [81:17] is what it is well that's scary you know [81:19] they put incredible pressure on him and [81:20] took away his um you know his all of the [81:24] money he had made they you know [81:26] threatened to take away his physical [81:28] Freedom why' they do it you know I mean [81:31] well why why are they going after [81:33] whistleblowers you know why are they [81:35] going after people who tell the you know [81:37] who tell the truth about all sorts of [81:39] things I mean from the banks to the um [81:43] you know to war to just sort of [81:45] government transparency so secrecy [81:47] serves those who are already in power [81:49] and we are living in an era of secrecy [81:51] that coincides with an era where the [81:53] government is doing also a lot of things [81:55] that are probably illegal and [81:57] unconstitutional so those two things are [82:00] not coincidences it's very clear that [82:02] this technology has been developed not [82:04] for small countries overseas but right [82:06] here for use in the United States by the [82:09] US government SP program is it's this [82:11] sort of long slow expansion you know [82:14] going back to the Nixon Administration [82:16] right obviously it became big after 911 [82:18] under George W bush and Obama has [82:20] continued to expand it and the problems [82:22] have slowly grown worse and worse but [82:24] there's never been this moment you can [82:25] point to say okay we need to Galvanize [82:28] opposition today because today is when [82:30] it matters instead it's mattered the [82:32] prosecution in my estimation of Aaron [82:34] Schwarz was about sending a particular [82:37] laser-like message to a group of people [82:41] that the Obama Administration sees as [82:44] politically [82:46] threatening and that is essentially the [82:49] hacker the information and the Democracy [82:52] activist community and the message that [82:55] the O the Obama Administration wanted to [82:56] send to that particular Community was in [82:59] my estimation we know you have the [83:01] ability to make trouble for the [83:04] establishment and so we are going to try [83:06] to make an example out of Aaron Schwarz [83:08] to scare as many of you as possible into [83:12] not making that trouble and the [83:14] government said oh the legal opinions [83:16] we're using to legalize the spying [83:18] program are also classified so we can't [83:20] even tell you which laws we're using to [83:22] spy on you you know every time say oh [83:24] this is another instance of cyber War [83:26] the Cyber criminals are attacking us [83:28] again we're all in danger we're all [83:29] under threat they use those as excuses [83:31] to push through more and more dangerous [83:34] laws and so just to follow that up like [83:37] personally how how do you feel the fight [83:39] is going I guess it's up to you I know [83:43] but we gotta like you [83:46] know you [83:49] know there's sort of these two [83:51] polarizing perspectives right everything [83:52] is great the internet has created all [83:54] the this freedom and liberty and [83:55] everything's going to be fantastic or [83:57] everything is terrible the internet has [83:58] created all these tools for cracking [84:00] down and spying and you know controlling [84:02] what we say and I think is both are true [84:05] right the internet has done both and [84:07] both are kind of amazing and astonishing [84:09] and which one will win out in the long [84:11] run is up to us it doesn't make sense to [84:13] say oh one is doing better than the [84:15] other you know they're both true and [84:17] it's up to us which ones we emphasize [84:19] and which ones we take advantage of [84:21] because they're both there and they're [84:22] both always going to be there [84:29] on September 12th 2012 Federal [84:31] prosecutors filed a superseding [84:33] indictment against Schwarz adding [84:35] additional counts of wire fraud [84:37] unauthorized access to a computer and [84:39] computer fraud now instead of four [84:41] felony counts Schwarz was facing 13 The [84:45] prosecution's Leverage had dramatically [84:47] increased as did schwarz's potential [84:50] jail time and fines they filed a [84:53] separate indictment to had more charges [84:56] and they had a theory about why this [84:58] conduct constituted a number of federal [85:01] crimes and that a very significant [85:03] sentence could attach to it under the [85:06] law that theory and much of the [85:08] prosecution's case against Schwarz [85:10] involved a law created originally in [85:13] 1986 it is called the Computer Fraud and [85:15] Abuse Act the Computer Fraud and Abuse [85:17] Act was inspired by the movie War Games [85:19] with Matthew brck which a great movie I [85:22] have you now in this movie kid gets the [85:25] ability through the magic of computer [85:27] networks to like launch a nuclear [85:32] attack you know that's not actually [85:35] possible and it certainly wasn't [85:36] possible in the 80s but apparently this [85:38] movie Scared Congress enough to um pass [85:42] the the original Computer Fraud and [85:44] Abuse Act this is a law that's just [85:46] behind the times for example that [85:48] penalizes uh terms of service kinds of [85:52] Arrangements you can have something like [85:54] e-harmony or Match.com and somebody sort [85:58] of inflates uh their own personal [86:00] characteristics and all of a sudden [86:03] depending on the jurisdiction and the [86:04] prosecutors they could be in a whole [86:06] host of troubles we all know what terms [86:09] of use are most people don't read them [86:12] but not abiding by their terms could [86:13] mean you are committing a felony the [86:16] website terms of service often say [86:18] things like be nice to each other or [86:20] don't do anything that's improper the [86:22] idea that the criminal law has anything [86:24] to say about these kinds of violations I [86:27] think strikes most people as [86:29] crazy the examples get even more crazy [86:33] until it was changed in March of 2013 [86:36] the terms of use on the website of [86:37] hurst's 17 magazine said you had to be [86:41] 18 in order to read it I would say that [86:43] the way the CFA has been interpreted by [86:45] the justice department we are probably [86:47] all Breaking the [86:48] Law vague and prone to misuse the cfaa [86:52] has become a one-size fitsa small hammer [86:54] for a wide range of computer related [86:56] disputes though not the only factor in [86:59] his case 11 of the 13 charges against [87:02] Schwarz involved the Computer Fraud and [87:04] Abuse [87:06] Act the question why hangs over much of [87:09] the story of Aaron Schwarz just what was [87:12] motivating the government and what would [87:14] their case have been the Department of [87:16] Justice declined requests for answers [87:19] but Professor Orin Kerr is a former [87:21] prosecutor who has studied the case so I [87:23] think I come about this case from a [87:25] different direction than other people on [87:26] a number of reasons I was a federal [87:28] prosecutor at the justice department for [87:30] 3 years before I started teaching the [87:32] government came forward with an [87:33] indictment based on uh what crimes they [87:36] thought were committed uh just as a [87:38] purely lawyers matter looking at the [87:40] Precedence looking at the statute [87:42] looking at the history looking at the [87:44] cases that are out there so far uh I [87:46] think it was a fair indictment based on [87:48] that you can debate whether they should [87:50] have charged this case there's just a [87:51] lot of disagreement some people are on [87:54] you know the Open Access side some [87:55] people are [87:56] not I think the government took [87:59] schwarz's Guerilla Open Access Manifesto [88:02] very seriously uh and I think they saw [88:05] him as somebody who was committed as a [88:08] moral imperative to breaking the law to [88:12] overcome a law that Schwartz saw is [88:14] unjust and in a democracy if you think a [88:17] law is unjust there are ways of changing [88:20] that law there're going to Congress as [88:21] Schwartz did so masterfully with soapa [88:24] uh or you can violate that law in a way [88:26] to try to nullify that law and I think [88:29] what was driving the prosecution was the [88:32] sense that Schwarz was committed not [88:34] just to breaking the law but to really [88:36] making sure that law was nullified that [88:40] everyone would have access to the [88:42] database in a way that you couldn't put [88:44] the toothpaste back into the TU it would [88:47] be done and schwarz's side would [88:51] win there's a big disagreement in [88:53] society as to whether that is an unjust [88:55] law and ultimately that's a decision for [88:57] the American people to make working [88:59] through Congress and then the second [89:01] problem is I think we're still trying to [89:03] figure out what's the line between less [89:05] serious offenses and more serious [89:07] offenses we're now entering this [89:09] different environment of computers and [89:11] computer misuse and we don't yet have a [89:13] really strong sense of exactly what [89:15] these lines are we're just working that [89:18] out this is a poor use of prosecutorial [89:21] discretion the hammer that the justice [89:23] department has to scare people with is [89:25] it just gets bigger and bigger and [89:27] bigger and so most people just you know [89:30] you can't roll the dice with your life [89:32] like that should we tap somebody's phone [89:34] should we film them should we turn [89:36] somebody and get them to testify against [89:38] these other people that's how federal [89:40] agents and prosecutors think they build [89:43] cases they make [89:45] cases Schwarz was caught in the gears of [89:48] a brutal criminal justice system that [89:50] could not turn back a machine that has [89:52] made America the country with the [89:54] highest rate of incarceration in the [89:56] world we have in this country allowed [89:59] ourselves to be captured by the politics [90:01] of fear and anger and anything we're [90:03] afraid of like the future of the [90:06] internet and access and anything we're [90:09] angry about instinctively creates a [90:12] criminal justice intervention and we've [90:14] used jail prison and Punishment to [90:17] resolve a whole host of problems that [90:19] historically were never seen as criminal [90:21] justice problems the impulse to threaten [90:25] indict prosecute which is part of what [90:28] has created this debate and controversy [90:29] over online access and information on [90:31] the Internet is very consistent with [90:34] what we've seen in other areas the one [90:35] difference is is that the people are [90:37] usually [90:37] targeted uh and victimized by these [90:40] kinds of criminal and carceral responses [90:43] are typically poor in [90:46] minority schwarz's isolation from [90:48] friends and family increased he had [90:51] basically stopped working on anything [90:52] else and the case was was in fact like [90:55] taking over sort of his whole life one [90:57] of Aaron's lawyers apparently told the [90:59] prosecutors that he he was emotionally [91:02] vulnerable and that that was something [91:03] that they really needed to keep in mind [91:05] so that they they knew that it was [91:07] weighing on him very heavily he did not [91:10] like having his actions and his [91:12] movements restricted in any way and the [91:16] threat of jail which they pounded him [91:19] with a [91:21] lot was terrifying to him completely [91:24] exhausted his financial resources and it [91:27] cost us a lot of money also and he [91:30] raised a substantial amount of money so [91:32] it was you know it was in the millions [91:35] of dollars the legal defense yes was in [91:38] millions [91:40] yes yeah I think he didn't want to be a [91:43] burden to people I think that was a [91:44] factor like I have my normal life and [91:47] then I have this shitty thing I have to [91:48] deal with and I try to like keep the two [91:50] of them as separate as possible but they [91:53] were just beginning to blur together and [91:55] everything was becoming [91:57] shitty Schwarz faced a tough choice that [92:00] was only getting tougher do you admit [92:03] guilt and move on with your life or do [92:05] you fight a broken system with his legal [92:07] case the answer was simple he rejects [92:10] the final plea deal and a trial date is [92:12] set Aaron was was Resolute that he [92:14] didn't want to knuckle under and accept [92:16] something that he didn't believe was [92:18] fair but I also think he was [92:20] [Music] [92:22] scared [92:24] [Music] [92:32] I don't think they would have convicted [92:33] Aaron I think we would have walked him [92:35] out of that courthouse and I would have [92:37] given him a big hug and we would have [92:39] walked across that little river in [92:41] Boston and gone and had a couple of [92:45] beers I really thought that we were [92:47] right I thought that we were going to [92:48] win the case I thought that we could win [92:50] the case he didn't talk about it very [92:52] much but you could see the enormous pain [92:55] that he was going [92:58] [Music] [93:00] through no time in his childhood did [93:02] Aaron have any severe mood swings or [93:04] like depressive episodes or anything [93:07] that I would ascribe to severe [93:09] depression and it's possible you know he [93:11] was depressed people get [93:17] depressed very early in our [93:20] relationship like 3 or 4 weeks in or [93:22] something remember him saying to [93:26] me that I was a lot stronger than he was [93:30] you know he he was he was brittle in a [93:32] lot of ways things were a lot harder for [93:34] him than for a lot of people was part of [93:37] his Brilliance [93:40] too I think he probably had something [93:43] like clinical depression in his early [93:46] 20s I don't think he did when I was with [93:48] him he wasn't a joyful person but that's [93:52] different from being depressed [93:56] was just under such such enormous [93:58] pressure for 2 years straight he just [94:01] didn't want to do it [94:02] anymore he was just like I just think it [94:05] was too [94:07] [Music] [94:13] much I got a phone call late at [94:16] night I could tell something was wrong [94:19] and then I I called and I realized what [94:21] had [94:22] happened a co-founder of the social news [94:25] and entertainment website Reddit has [94:27] been found dead police say 26-year-old [94:30] Aaron Schwartz killed himself yesterday [94:32] in his Brooklyn [94:33] [Music] [94:36] apartment I just thought we've [94:40] lost one of [94:43] the most creative minds of our [94:45] generation is like the whole world fell [94:47] apart in that moment [94:49] [Music] [94:52] um [94:56] that was one of the hardest nights in my [94:59] life so I kept screaming I can't hear [95:01] you what did you say I can't hear [95:06] you I can't that's [95:16] it [95:18] uh like yeah none of it made any sense [95:22] and really still doesn't [95:24] I was so frustrated [95:27] [Music] [95:37] angry you know I tried to explain it to [95:39] my [95:42] kids my three-year-old told me that the [95:44] doctors would fix [95:51] him I've known lots of people have died [95:53] but I've never lost anybody like [95:55] this because everybody feels than I do [95:58] too there is so much we could have more [96:02] to do like uh just didn't know he was [96:05] there I didn't know this is what he was [96:08] suffering [96:10] and he was part of [96:13] [Music] [96:15] me and I just wanted it to not be [96:18] real and [96:22] then [96:24] and then I just looked at his Wikipedia [96:25] page and I saw the end [96:31] date 2 [96:37] [Music] [96:42] 2013 Aon is [96:44] dead Wanderers in this crazy world we [96:47] have lost a mentor a wise Elder hackers [96:51] for right we're one down [96:54] we've lost one of our [96:56] own nurturers carers listeners feeders [97:01] parents all we have lost a [97:04] child let us all [97:13] weep my first thought was what if nobody [97:16] even [97:17] notices and you know because it wasn't [97:19] clear to me how Salient he was [97:24] I had never seen anything quite like the [97:28] outpouring I saw the net just lit up I [97:31] mean everyone was trying [97:33] to to explain it in their own way but [97:36] I've never seen people grieve on Twitter [97:39] before people were visibly grieving [97:45] online he was The Internet's Own [97:48] Boy and the old world killed [97:52] him [97:55] we are standing in the middle of a time [97:57] when great Injustice is not [98:00] touched architects of the financial [98:03] meltdown have dinner with the president [98:05] regularly in the middle of that time the [98:08] idea that [98:09] this was what the government had to [98:13] prosecute just seems absurd if it [98:16] weren't tragic the question is can we do [98:20] something given what's happened to make [98:23] the world a better [98:25] place and how can we further that Legacy [98:28] that's the only question one can [98:32] ask all over the world there were [98:34] starting to be hackathons and Gatherings [98:37] and Aaron Schwarz as some sense brought [98:40] the best out of us and trying to say how [98:43] do we fix [98:46] this he was in my humble opinion one of [98:49] the true extraordinary revolutionaries [98:52] that this country has produced I don't [98:55] know whether Aaron was defeated or [98:58] Victorious uh but we are certainly [99:00] shaped by the hand uh of the things that [99:04] he wrestled with when we turn armed [99:07] agents of the law on citizens trying to [99:10] increase access to knowledge we've [99:12] broken the rule of law we've desecrated [99:15] the Temple of Justice Aaron Schwarz was [99:18] not a [99:20] criminal change does not roll in on the [99:23] wheels of inevitability it comes through [99:26] continuous [99:28] struggle Aaron really could do magic and [99:32] I'm dedicated to making sure that his [99:34] magic doesn't end with his death he [99:36] believed that he could change the world [99:38] and he was [99:39] right out of the last week and out of [99:42] today phoenixes are already [99:46] Rising since schwarz's death [99:48] representative zo lran and Senator Ron [99:51] weiden have introduced legislation that [99:53] would form the Computer Fraud and Abuse [99:55] Act the outdated law that formed the [99:57] majority of the charges against Schwarz [100:00] it's called Aaron's law Aaron believed [100:04] that like you literally ought to be [100:05] asking yourself all of the time what is [100:07] the most important thing I could be [100:08] working on in the world right now and if [100:11] you're not working on that why aren't [100:20] youed stand internet freedom [100:27] [Music] [100:33] I wish we could change the past but we [100:36] cannot but we can change the future and [100:39] we must we must do so for Aaron we must [100:41] do so for ourselves we must do so to [100:45] make our world a better place a more [100:47] Humane place a place where Justice works [100:50] and access to knowledge becomes a human [100:53] right so there was a kid back in [100:56] February from uh Baltimore uh 14 years [101:01] old who uh had access to J store and [101:05] he'd been spelunking through J store [101:07] after reading something and he figured [101:09] out a way to do early tests for [101:12] pancreatic [101:14] cancer and pancreatic cancer kills the [101:17] [ __ ] out of you because we detect it way [101:19] too late by the time we detect it it's [101:20] already too late to do anything about it [101:22] uh and um he sent emails off to the [101:25] entire on oncology department at John's [101:28] Hopkins you know hundreds of them and [101:30] every 14-year-old kid yeah and most of [101:32] them ignored it right but one of them [101:34] like sent him an email back and said [101:35] this is not an entirely stupid idea [101:37] would you comeing over this kid worked [101:39] evenings and weekends with this [101:40] researcher and in February I heard him [101:42] on the news just a couple of weeks after [101:44] Aaron died when Aaron was in the news a [101:46] [Music] [101:50] lot [101:52] sorry and uh he said um the reason he [101:56] was on the news is cu they'd done it [101:58] they were shipping uh an early test for [102:01] pancreatic cancer that was going to save [102:02] lives and he said uh this is why what [102:06] Aaron did was so [102:09] important because you never know right [102:12] um this this truth of the universe is [102:13] not only something that policy makers [102:16] use to figure out you know what the [102:17] speed limit should be it's where the the [102:20] thing that's going to keep you know your [102:22] kid from dying of pancreatic cancer [102:24] comes [102:25] from and without access the person who [102:29] might come up with a thing that's got [102:30] your number on it may never find that [102:34] answer he sleeped so well he didn't fall [102:38] out [102:39] of De once not even when he dreamed he [102:44] was back on the [102:47] spacecraft very good Aon very good yeah [102:52] okay now it's gone [102:57] [Music] [103:22] time [103:29] [Music] [103:52] in [103:56] [Music]