Showing posts with label Aaron Swartz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aaron Swartz. Show all posts

The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

Source: filmbuff.com

General Info
Release Year: 2014
Runtime: 105 Minutes
Country: United States (US)

Festivals
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film 2014
Sundance Film Festival 2014
South by Southwest Film Festival 2014
Independent Film Festival of Boston 2014
Montclair Film Festival 2014
Seattle International Film Festival 2014
Nantucket Film Festival 2014
SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival 2014 .film-info Crew

Producer(s): Brian Knappenberger

 

Storyline
The story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz's help in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are all over the internet. But it was Swartz's groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive approach to information access that ensnared him in a two year legal nightmare. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26. Aaron's story touched a nerve with people far beyond the online communities in which he was a celebrity. This film is a personal story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to our civil liberties.

Director hopes Aaron Swartz film will lead to internet reforms, May 6, 2014

Source: RT.com



Filmmaker Brian Knappenberger is preparing to release a feature-length documentary on hacktivist Aaron Swartz. "The Internet's Own Boy" examines the life of Swartz and the pressures that resulted in his suicide after facing federal charges for downloading millions of academic articles from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer. Swartz has been credited with being an integral figure in the development of the internet during the last decade and a half, and is attributed with helping develop the web feed format RSS, the Creative Commons organization and the website Reddit. RT's Ameera David spoke with Knappenberger, who hopes his film with lead to reforms of the laws the government used to charge Swartz. -RT.com

The Day We Fight Back: Activism Sweeps the Internet With Global Action Against Mass Surveillance, February 11, 2014

Source: democracynow.org, thedaywefightback.org



Nearly a decade after the George W. Bush administration's warrantless spying program came to light, the issue of mass government surveillance has again sparked a global outcry with the disclosures of whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Leaks of National Security Agency files have exposed a mammoth spying apparatus that stretches across the planet, from phone records to text messages to social media and email, from the internal communications of climate summits to those of foreign missions and even individual heads of state.

Today privacy advocates are holding one of their biggest online actions so far with "The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance." Thousands of websites will speak in one voice, displaying a banner encouraging visitors to fight back by posting memes and changing their social media avatars to reflect their demands, as well as contacting their members of Congress to push through surveillance reform legislation.

The action is inspired in part by the late internet open-access activist Aaron Swartz, who helped set a precedent in January 2012 when more than 8,000 websites went dark for 12 hours in protest of a pair of controversial bills that were being debated in Congress: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). The bills died in committee in the wake of protests. We discuss today's global action with Rainey Reitman, activism director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. -democracynow.org



Aaron Swartz's partner speaks out on activist's persecution, February 28, 2013

Source: RT.com



A Justice Department representative revealed in a recent closed door hearing on the computer fraud prosecution of Aaron Swartz that the Internet activist was indeed targeted because of his politics. In 2008, Swartz and others laid out their views in a piece called the "Guerilla Open Access Manifesto," which according to the prosecutors, demonstrated his intent in downloading content on a larged scale. Swartz was indicted with felony charges for illegally accessing academic articles but died of an apparent suicide last month awaiting trial. Swartz's partner, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman of Sumofus.org, talks about the latest developments. -RT.com
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