Aaron Swartz at a Creative Commons event, via Wikimedia Commons
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Now, the US government, via the Secret Service, can argue that they were simply doing their job (investigating fraud) with the Swartz case. They can also argue that Swartz's breaking of the law was no way to protest copyright protections. Well, that flies in the face of centuries, possibly even millennia, of civil disobedience. What the US government is failing to do—and, of course, this isn't the Secret Service's job—is address the issue of whether or not academic papers, which advance knowledge, should be so tightly controlled by private corporations charging exorbitant prices for a paper."There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture."
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