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Created March 22, 2013 22:30
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Aaron Swartz for the Citizens Medal
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accomplishments
SOPA/PIPA threatened First Amendment rights on the web and he was instrumental in its defeat.
His work with Wikipedia was material and instrumental in its early growth.
His work with archive.org gave birth to the Open Library, which offers public domain text to the world.
His foundational work on creativecommons.org gave rise to an outlet for creators to collaborate easily by expressing which, not all, rights they reserve.
His work on RSS, a web exchange format, gave rise to Podcasts and news reader software.
And this is the tip of the iceberg. And all before the young age of 26. See his wikipedia page for more if you are unconvinced.
Think what he might have done with his remaining years, what a remarkable man he was to have done so much for so many in so short a time.
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criteria
Aaron took on so many fights. People have focused on his work for Open Access and on his defeat of SOPA/PIPA, but his high goal was social justice. He forced difficult discussions, made real, positive change, and got his hands dirty in pursuit of that goal.
He paid a high price for it. The White House has not responded to two successful petitions to punish his prosecutors for clear overreach.
Facing years in prison for breaking a Term of Service while copying academic journal articles, knowing what felony charges meant for his causes and his ability to have a voice in them, he killed himself.
The law itself which allowed this miscarriage of justice, the CFAA is under scrutiny by our Representatives.
The outpouring of support from the web in general, but also including luminaries such as Brewster Kahle (archive.org), Carl Malamud (public.resource.org), and Tim Berners-Lee (the inventor of the web), shows how much influence his work had in his short life. What a terrible loss for the world, and for each of us who knew him.
I implore you to honor Aaron Swartz with the Citizens Medal.
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nominate him
http://www.whitehouse.gov/citizensmedal/submit-a-nomination
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