If you are reading this article, odds are you’re already a felon. Bold statement, I know. The problem is that I’m probably right. If you weren’t a felon when you started reading this paragraph, you are now.

The state of computer and internet related laws in the United States of America is appalling. Most of the laws that get applied in criminal cases involving computers were written before the internet as we know it existed. This means that the laws themselves have no understanding of the internet written into them.

The worst is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA.) The CFAA was enacted in 1986 as an amendment to the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. The CFAA itself has been amended multiple times. None of the updates have done anything to address the problems of broad language and over-criminalization. In fact, amendments to the law actually broadened its scope and made it much worse. Currently Rep. Zoe Lofgren has introduced a bill, H.R. 2454 – Aaron’s Law Act of 2013, that will fix some problems with the CFAA. It doesn’t fix them all though. There is a lot more to be done if we want to stop the legal system from sending many of our brightest minds to prison, or worse.

Let’s return to the first paragraph’s point, that you have now committed a felony. “How?” you ask, “I’m just looking at an article that was published online, that anyone can see!” Here is where you learn just how bad the CFAA is and why it needs to be fixed now, not later. The law is so vague that prosecutors can and have interpreted it to mean that violating the Terms of Service of any website is a felony. The current Terms of Service for this website (0v.org) state very clearly that you may not read the article you are currently reading. While this is a rotten trick – and one that I’ve done to demonstrate a point – there are millions of websites you’ve visited over your lifetime whose Terms of Service you probably never even looked at. Many say it is illegal for minors under 18 to access a website, even if there is no sexual or adult content on the site, or forbid “hotlinking” of images, or copying their written content. How many times have you committed this particular felony without realizing it?

Has the severity of that revelation set in yet? Interpreting the law in this specific way, which our government has done before, makes us a nation of unconvicted felons. Nearly every one of your family members, friends and fellow citizens has committed this felony. Though most will never face prosecution, if you anger the wrong person in a position of power (like Andrew Auernheimer aka ‘weev’ did) you could find yourself on the business end of an indictment for the wrong reasons.

So here we are, a nation of people who have committed multiple felonies in their lifetimes. Most of you never knew you were doing it. Now what? The first thing that needs to be done is putting pressure on congress to actually take action on this and change the laws. The next thing is for each and every one of you to go and educate your friends and family so they can do the same.

Things To Do:

• The EFF has given us a way to contact our representatives in government and voice our concerns, you can do that by clicking here.
• Donate to the people who are currently being abused by laws like these: Andrew Auernheimber,  Barrett Brown or Jeremy Hammond.
• Keep updated, thanks to @konklone we have a page that shows us the latest court documents relating to these laws here.
• Join up with groups like Fork The Law and help them make the changes happen.

Recently I was invited to speak at the Pirate Party of Massachusetts’ annual convention about my experiences in activism. Being one of the first guys involved in Anonymous’ transformation into a protest movement in 2008, I naturally have a lot to say about getting out in the streets and getting things done. I was asked about how activists can juggle the needs of family with their causes, and since my wife and I are both involved in activist groups and raising two kids I had a lot more to say on the subject than time allowed. Marc Stober mentioned to me that I should write this up as a blog post.

Trading off the kids

If you are lucky enough to have a partner who is involved with your kids and the same activist groups that you are, one possible way to juggle both is to trade off who stays home with the kids and who goes out to the protests. This can be a great solution, especially for couples that are good at communicating after events, because your partner can act as a proxy for you. Events like protests and speeches are great places to network with other activists and make plans for future demonstrations, and having someone there who can represent you means you don’t have to miss out on everything. It does mean that your group will have one less person at the events, but they will still have access to your (or your partner’s) ideas, connections and resources.

There are, of course, situations where this will not work out, most obviously for single parents. Parents who have a partner that is uninterested in their activism will experience a lot of pushback if they suggest the other partner going to events in their stead from time to time, and asking the other partner to act as babysitter for every event may simply be too much.

Bringing the Kids

Is this a thing? For some activist causes, bringing children along is a no brainer: can you imagine a nurse-in with no babies? For other causes, it can be tempting to assume that all protests are child-free zones, but I believe that’s just lazy thinking. Parents will likely find that there are opportunities to include their children in activist events with proper planning and supervision.

I can speak from experience on this one, as my wife and I brought the kids down to Occupy on several occasions and spent some time feeling out what worked for our family. The most important thing for us was making sure that the kids were aware of what was going on, were not pressured to be there or to participate, and were kept away from the areas where civil disobedience actions were taking place. For safety reasons, we stuck strips of duct tape on the kids clothing with their mom’s cell phone number, just in case they got separated from us in the group. We had a very strict rule that the kids could not hold any sign that they did not understand, and so the 7 year old had a sign that read “99% is a lot” while the 4 year old had one that simply read “HONK!” We talked with them about the issues that Occupy was attempting to address and about the historical precedent of protesting in this country, and especially in Boston. The result was that we all had a good time, the kids were not holding any signs that expressed values they didn’t share, and they had a meaningful experience. Later, when the MBTA proposed service cuts that would have decimated our town, we attended a rally at the state house where our girl made a sign saying that the MBTA is her school bus, and the little man learned that some state troopers will say “honk” if you wave a sign at them.

Bringing your children to a protest is something that every parent has to weigh for themselves. It can be a wonderful thing, teaching kids that they can have an impact on the world around them and that it is okay to stand up to authority when the authority figures are getting things wrong. On the other hand, protests can sometimes be scary environments, and certain types of demonstrations are likely to result in situations that are unsafe for children. I would strongly recommend never taking children into a situation where police confrontation is the goal. There may have been a time in our country when this was a good idea, but there are just too many examples of wildly inappropriate levels of force being used against peaceful demonstrators. Bringing kids along is also highly dependent on the children themselves: kids who have problems in large crowds or who don’t like loud noises will not do well at a protest.

Activism from Home

If you can’t make it out to events but still want to contribute to activist causes, there are lots of opportunities to help without leaving your home. No, I’m not just talking about signing online petitions here, there is real work that needs to get done. People on the street are important for shows of force and getting media coverage, but there is a lot that needs to happen behind the scenes to make any cause successful. It’s all about knowing where your skills lie, and finding a way to offer them to the groups you support.

My wife and I both take our activism home with us, in part because we are gluttons for punishment but also because we know what needs to get done and want to contribute in all the ways we can. My particular skill set is helping to connect people and manage meetings to ensure that stuff actually happens, which is something I can do online and over the phone. My wife can write and do graphic design, so she creates flyers, edits press releases, and writes essays for the causes we support. Your skills might lie in managing social media (easier than it sounds), making phone calls, maintaining websites, or proofreading. Ask what your groups need done, and see if you have any of the skills needed to help from home.

Parent Outreach

The most important thing we can do as parents who are involved in activist causes is educating other parents. Raising kids can be an all-consuming job, and it’s very easy for parents to get lost in the daily grind and miss out on causes that they would be interested in. People with kids are acutely aware of the world they are leaving to their children, and are by-and-large highly motivated to make it a better place. Some lack the opportunity to participate in activism, and others may just assume that they can’t juggle family and their favorite causes. But you can help with that. Be the activist ambassador to the playground. The other parents you meet aren’t likely to join you at a march, but they help influence opinions around their community. In the end, raising awareness is one of the most important goals of any cause, and you can accomplish it just by striking up a conversation.

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Photo by Maurice Morales

“If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress, and don’t trust federal judges, to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution with due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here.” – President Obama, response to reporter when asked about PRISM.

Is this double-speak? By one reading, Mr. President, you are admitting that it is the duty of the executive, legislative and judicial branches to behave in such a way as to merit confidence from their constituencies, and you are warning that the cohesion of our society rests on their ability to do right by us. By another, it is imploring us to hand you the reigns and bury our heads in the sand, and you are offering an implicit threat that failing to do so will have dire consequences for us. Was this speech given as a criticism of corrupt officials? No – it was delivered in defense of wiretapping. Not just wiretapping, but a massive, comprehensive compromising of our privacy rights – with ‘oversight’ that is as opaque and secretive as the surveillance itself. You seem to be claiming that the people involved in this secret surveillance program – and those in charge of secretly deciding where to infiltrate – are necessarily good, honest people. That these are people we can and should trust with this power. Not only that, but you are suggesting that it was an offense against us (and a crime against the nation) that someone with knowledge of this process would bring it to our attention.

Congratulations, Mr. President; regardless of which reading we take, you have correctly identified the problem. The American People, those folks that elected you back into office, that you and every other politician claim to care so deeply about and have such immense respect for, do not and can not trust you, your administration, their representatives in congress, or the existing justice system on a whole. That is a really big problem.

This is not a matter of “left versus right”; these are not “fringe elements” – this is mainstream opinion. This isn’t something that’s been fed to people through corporate media outlets; this is not a basic misunderstanding of current affairs; this is a rational conclusion based on all of the information available to the people. It’s a conclusion based on an awareness of historical precedent and present political realities. It’s the fundamental problem that led so many of us to join the Tea Party and Occupy movements. It is more important to us as a people than gay marriage or abortion or welfare or even the environment and regulatory bodies — more important than taxes. It is fundamental. We cannot even begin to address these very real issues, because our trust in our government has been so eroded over recent decades.

Why can’t we trust Congress? Let’s just take a look at their track record, shall we? Even when the people send strong messages through elections, the same kinds of terrible legislation is churned out year after year (or no legislation, which seems more common as time goes on). We don’t have to see how it’s made to know the sausage is rancid. If the proof of this horrible blood pudding is in the tasting, it’s not at all unreasonable for us to conclude that something has gone terribly wrong with the process. And when we look closer, when we subject ourselves to visions from the floor of the abattoir, when we elect to ask how the sausage is made – what we see is as absurd as it is disgusting. Congresspersons routinely step down over personal scandals that reveal their flawed humanity, but rarely do any resign over mismanagement or failure to meet their duties. For that matter, when was the last time more than a handful of representatives spoke out against the influence the private sector has over public policy, or advocated for making /fewer/ things illegal? These might not be majority opinions, but the viewpoints are vastly under-represented in the halls of congress.

The most important thing, however, is that we fundamentally cannot trust Congress because they prevent us from voting with a full understanding of what they’re doing. We have access to their voting records, but in closed door meetings and secret committees they make decisions that drastically affect the lives of every American, and we have no idea what calls they’re making. How can we make it clear to Congress that SECURITY IS ALWAYS LESS IMPORTANT THAN LIBERTY if we never see who it is that is making the wrong call and vote them out? Ultimately, that is what this comes down to.

Mr. President, you were the strong coffee to our drunken binge of post 9-11 neo-conservativism. We were sick of people who were willing to exploit fear in order to accomplish their own goals; we finally got wise to the game of promising ‘security’ as a means of eroding the fundamental rights set forth in the Constitution. We sent you to office with a wildly Democratic majority in Congress, and we asked you all to fix it.

You didn’t.

You left Gitmo open, you kept domestic spying operations in place, you aggressively attacked whistle-blowers time and time again instead of punishing the crimes that they exposed. You expanded drone strikes. That’s not what we asked for, and it’s not what you promised. I don’t care what you did accomplish, these things are deplorable. And you don’t care. You hide behind the fact that these actions are ‘legal’, ignoring the reality that the laws were written and interpreted specifically to permit these actions without regard for their morality.

Let’s just take a look at what the justice system has been up to lately, shall we? Deric Lostutter (KYAnonymous) is facing ten years for allegedly hacking a football team’s website, while the football players he exposed got only a year or two for repeatedly raping an unconscious, underage girl. Barrett Brown is facing over a hundred years in jail for the dangerous crimes of sharing links that had been repeatedly published by major news organizations, shoving his laptop in the sink, and making an angry YouTube video at someone who threatened his mom. Ezekiel Gilbert is a free man, because judge and jury agreed with him that it’s okay to kill an escort if you thought $150 bought you her body and not just her company. These are not the decisions of a healthy or sane justice system, nor are they isolated incidents.

We don’t want perfect security, Mr. President. We don’t want it because it doesn’t exist; it is a pipe dream that has, throughout history, been used to deceive populations into voting away their freedom.

What we do want is /reasonable/ security. We want to know that punishment for criminal acts will be rational and proportional to the severity of a crime – rather than a factor of who we pissed off or how badly the prosecution wants us to plead out. We want to know that speaking out against injustice will not be punished while evil-doers are free to carry on their abuses. We want to know that our government will not rummage through our lives without probable cause, that our bridges won’t collapse from a lack of maintenance and that our water won’t catch fire out of the tap.

I live in Boston, Mr. President. I have a close friend that was at Copley Square. She suffered a concussion from the shockwave. I tell you this because you need to understand that I am not unaware of the reality of terrorist attacks. I am not sitting in some ivory tower unaffected by the threats of the real world. But the fact is, no amount of spying on your citizens (and the Internet at large) will ever prevent every bad thing from happening. And even if it could, it’s not what we believe in. We know that freedom is risky, but the cost of freedom isn’t sending our young men and women to die in the desert somewhere; it’s knowing that some people will be pissed off at us from time to time and they might attempt to attack us, and some people might die. Yeah, it sucks. Abandoning everything the Bill of Rights stands for is orders of magnitude worse. Frankly, I believe that operating within the standards set forth in the Bill of Rights will greatly diminish the number of people who feel motivated to kill us. You’re a constitutional scholar, Mr. President. I’m sure you’ve taken notice of the fact that the word ‘Citizen’ does not appear in the protections granted in the first ten amendments (making the citizen/non-citizen distinction with respect to drone strikes entirely moot). You and I both wish to see our nation return to the status as a ‘Light on a Hill’; I’m of the belief that strictly adhering to the values set forth by the founding fathers would be a great first step.

We all have to die of something. I’d rather get blown up in a free society than die of cancer in a civilization where it is impossible to cast an informed vote.

I wanted to use an image of the word LIAR, but was told it would be too much.

Here it is:

January 16, 2013

STATEMENT OF UNITED STATES ATTORNEY CARMEN M. ORTIZ
REGARDING THE DEATH OF AARON SWARTZ

As a parent and a sister, I can only imagine the pain felt by the family and friends of Aaron Swartz, and I want to extend my heartfelt sympathy to everyone who knew and loved this young man. I know that there is little I can say to abate the anger felt by those who believe that this office’s prosecution of Mr. Swartz was unwarranted and somehow led to the tragic result of him taking his own life.

I must, however, make clear that this office’s conduct was appropriate in bringing and handling this case. The career prosecutors handling this matter took on the difficult task of enforcing a law they had taken an oath to uphold, and did so reasonably. The prosecutors recognized that there was no evidence against Mr. Swartz indicating that he committed his acts for personal financial gain, and they recognized that his conduct – while a violation of the law – did not warrant the severe punishments authorized by Congress and called for by the Sentencing Guidelines in appropriate cases. That is why in the discussions with his counsel about a resolution of the case this office sought an appropriate sentence that matched the alleged conduct – a sentence that we would recommend to the judge of six months in a low security setting. While at the same time, his defense counsel would have been free to recommend a sentence of probation. Ultimately, any sentence imposed would have been up to the judge. At no time did this office ever seek – or ever tell Mr. Swartz’s attorneys that it intended to seek – maximum penalties under the law.

As federal prosecutors, our mission includes protecting the use of computers and the Internet by enforcing the law as fairly and responsibly as possible. We strive to do our best to fulfill this mission every day.

Please comment, so she isn’t the only one with a say on this page.

I (Gregg Housh) was given this data anonymously.  I did not conduct this survey, although I have verified that the survey happened, and that the data is trustworthy.  Below you will find an explanation from the person who did the survey, and then the data itself. Below the divider anytime “I” is used, it is referring to the author of the survey and not me.

Less than a week after Aaron Swartz was indicted in July 2011 for downloading about four million articles from JSTOR on the MIT network, I conducted a survey of MIT professors on their opinions about Aaron Swartz’s alleged actions and access to academic documents. This survey asked the following three questions. All three questions were optional.

1. On a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is strongly do not identify with and 5 is strongly identify with, how strongly do you identify with the alleged actions of Aaron Swartz?
2. On a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is strongly not supporting and 5 is strongly supporting, to what degree do you support paywalls limiting access to academic journals and other educational documents?
3. Do you have any other ideas or comments on the Aaron Swartz case, open access to journals, or other related topics?

I did not provide any promises about anonymity or privacy, but I also did not say the data would be released. In light of Aaron’s recent death, I have decided to remove any identifying information and release the data. I only received thirty-five responses and the sample is not representative, but it provides some interesting information on the positions of MIT professors at the time.

There is another reason I feel that I should release this data. Aaron knew about this survey. In late October 2012, Aaron emailed me and asked if I could send him the data. I did not send it to him. Instead, I responded asking which parts he was interested in because I did not want to compromise the privacy of the participants. I did not hear back and did not follow up after that. I should have.

Below, you can find the data for download, a table with the data, and graphs. Please feel free to redistribute and use this. I have also provided a copy of this data to Hal Abelson, the person conducting the internal investigation of MIT’s involvement in the case.

I have chosen to release this data anonymously because this is not about me and I do not see a compelling reason to release this under my name. I would appreciate it if people could respect that, even if you know who I am. You can contact me at mitswartzsurvey@lavabit.com if necessary.

Table Columns:

Column 1: On a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is strongly do not identify with and 5 is strongly identify with, how strongly do you identify with the alleged actions of Aaron Swartz?
Column 1 Mean: 2
Column 1 Median: 2

Column 2: On a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is strongly not supporting and 5 is strongly supporting, to what degree do you support paywalls limiting access to academic journals and other educational documents?
Column 2 Mean: 2.667
Column 2 Median: 3

Question 3: Do you have any other ideas or comments on the Aaron Swartz case, open access to journals, or other related topics?

Data for download:

• CSV numerical data
• CSV all data
• ODS data

*I also received emails from sixteen people about this survey, some in place of responses. Most of these said the recipient did not feel it was appropriate to respond (for a variety of reasons), did not have enough information to respond, did not have time to respond, or had just responded. Only a few of the emails contained an opinion on the situation. For those, I think the professors may have had a higher expectation of privacy in email (and the comments contained more identifying details), so I will not release the emails without explicit permission.

post image by Nietnagel

Aaron Swartz was an amazing man, a genius, and more importantly someone who fought for what was right.

The last few days have been a horribly sad and hectic time. I am sure it has been the same for you. I wanted to write this letter to you right after we all found out about Aaron’s death, but I thought that waiting until I had cooled down would be a wise decision. Cooling down period over, it is time to speak my mind.

What you have done should be considered murder in this country. Nothing about your prosecution of Aaron Swartz was just. I have to wonder how many other people in a similar position to his you have put in prison. How many people who do not deserve prison time are currently sitting in a cell wondering why you did this to them? The world would be a far better place with less people like you in positions of power. Everything about your process and methods in this case, and seemingly in every other one you have ever been attached to, is horrible. Your tactics reek of coercion. The law, this country, and by extension the entire world would be better off without you around.

I would love for you turn yourselves in to the authorities, to resign from your posts and accept the just punishments for your crimes not only against Aaron but against all of us who are devastated by his loss. But the system has been so poisoned by generations of terrible people such as yourselves that there is no chance of justice for you through the system.

If only someone would go after you for your real crimes as harshly as you went after Aaron for his imagined ones, I can only guess that you would end up with the death penalty. Knowing that you won’t actually kill yourselves over this how about something else? Maybe you could take a long hard look at the laws you abuse and realize just how bad they are. The laws pertaining to computer crime in this country are broken, and have been for many years. The only way to begin any road to redemption is through legislative change. Use the power you so readily weild against the public to sway the law makers and get us the change we need.

For everyone else, we should use this event to fix a lot of the problems that led us here. Marcia Hofmann’s article title “How To Honor Aaron Swartz”[1] is one of the best pieces written on this topic. Everyone should read that and talk to their representatives. Everyone should sign the petition to remove Carmen Ortiz from office[2]. The next thing I think everyone interested in this should read is Lawrence Lessig’s article “Prosecutor As Bully”[3]. Last but definitely not least is something we should all be aware of called Jury Nullifcation[4][5].

Links:
[1] – How To Honor Aaron Swartz
[2] – Petition
[3] – Prosecutor As Bully
[4] – http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
[5] – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

Image by Dave King