James Delahunty
13 Jan 2014 19:32
Civil and digital rights activists are targeting February 11 as 'the day we fight back' against widespread state surveillance, using the life, work and words of Aaron Swartz as motivation.
It's over a year now since Aaron Swartz took his own life while being prosecuted for the alleged theft of millions of documents from MIT and JSTOR. The 26 year old had given a considerable amount of his time to digital rights and confronting government attempts to infringe too heavily on the free and open Internet.
Swartz gained a lot of respect from his efforts against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was shelved after a global protest against its proposed measures to tackle Internet piracy. His life and work are now the subject of an upcoming documentary called, "The Internet's Own Boy."
Now, just after the anniversary of his untimely death, Internet activists are fired up to make the next month count, and culminate it with an Internet-wide protest on February 11 similar to the protests that shocked the U.S. congress into turning against the controversial SOPA act. This time the target is on the NSA and its activities.
For more information, check out thedaywefightback.org
Here is a video, posted by Luminant Media, using Swartz own words and footage from the upcoming documentary in order to spread information about the plans for February 11. It's definitely worth a watch!