Legal Case Strained Troubled Web Activist

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324581504578238692048200404-lMyQjAxMTAzMDEwMzExNDMyWj.html?mod=wsj_valetbottom_email#articleTabs%3Darticle

By SPENCER E. ANTE, ANJALI ATHAVALEY and JOE PALAZZOLO
The Wall Street Journal
January 13, 2013

Just days before he hanged himself, Internet activist Aaron Swartz's hopes for 
a deal with federal prosecutors fell apart.

Two years ago, the advocate for free information online, who was known to have 
suffered from depression, allegedly used the computer network at the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology to download nearly five million articles 
from a fee-charging database of academic journals. To some in the Internet 
community, it was a Robin Hood-like stunt.

Prosecutors disagreed and threatened to put him in prison for more than three 
decades.

Mr. Swartz's lawyer, Elliot Peters, first discussed a possible plea bargain 
with Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann last fall. In an interview Sunday, 
he said he was told at the time that Mr. Swartz would need to plead guilty to 
every count, and the government would insist on prison time.

Mr. Peters said he spoke to Mr. Heymann again last Wednesday in another attempt 
to find a compromise. The prosecutor, he said, didn't budge

[...]


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