WHAT REMAINS OF OUR DREAMS

Jan 09. 2019 in France

A reflexion on the meaning of power, activism and resistance in a world which only pretends to be free.

Aaron Swartz was an Internet prodigy with an accute political sense. He was a strong defensor of digital freedom and a pilar of the free access movement. He was a symbol for activists and the man to take down for US authorities: Internet needed to remain a tool to control the masses; Aaron needed to be stopped.

On January 6th 2011, he was biking through the MIT campus when he was chased down by a police car. Arrested, he was threathened of  thirty-five years in jail, a million dollar fine and the ban to use a computer. His crime? To have downloaded 4.8millions academic articles from a publisher database through MIT servers.

He hanged himself a few months before his trial, on January 11th 2013. He was 26 years old.

The web went mad. The ministry of Justice’s, the MIT websites were hacked. His face was painted on the walls of Brooklyn and put on t-shirts and mugs. His words, his fights inspired a lot. His suicide touched many. Five years later, he is still an inspiration. And his ideas have never been as important.

Contact / Publisher:  erodriguez@editionsdesequateurs.fr