the david had mentioned that david dot com welcome to the show hide and the one
who is live underneath it can only the everyone's liking
from the i love it when i wake up in the morning and brocco bomber is president
face book page and the we survive bush he'll survive obama face book page
tragic story over the weekend about reddit co-founder and sorts committing
suicide
in the middle of this controversial trial over some documents that were
i don't even really want to use the term stolen because even that is really kind
of up for debate but will get to that
uh... sorts committed suicide in new york city
used facing a possible because sentence of
a decades in jail potentially in a million dollar fine over
the i guess alleged theft of
of journal articles with the intent to post them online
is the best way to say dat hang themself
um... is brooklyn apartment
just weeks before the trial is set to start according to police
his body was found by his girlfriend who call the versions these services are in
just incredibly tragic situation twenty six years old
co-founder of the internet website read it
where the david ackman show has been featured a a couple of times and we've
got a ton of traffic from that it's a place we look at
uh... i would say daily just to see what stranding and in news stories in
different areas right
he it was also the
executive director of demand progress which photos of what fit the pope and
policy changes
for civil liberties civil civil rights uh... government reform etcetera
and he was an advocate of making information
freely available online
he cooperated with creative commons unwanted information to cooperate with
creative commons that he was charged with
allegedly stealing more than four million academic journals from j store
which is an archive of scientific journals
an academic papers and this was through and open connection at m_i_t_ so he
faced thirteen felony charges
breaching site terms intending to share downloaded files
computer fraud wire fraud
obtaining information for protected computer on and on and on
he uh... many say that the lawsuit itself was completely unfounded now why
because at the time that
sports obtained these journal articles he was undertaking a fellowship
at harvard staffers center for ethics
and this
qualified him as many say
for guest access
to j store through the m_i_t_ connection so the it's it's actually up for debate
whether the entire thing was essentially just a witch hunt
or whether they're religion amid charges here now let me take even further
uh... the incredible thing is that sports had already essentially settled
this
directly
um... uh... did this was unbelievable heidi macgregor
who is the vice president of marketing and communication said that j store with
content once they got the documents back here's a quote from her she said
we stop the downloading activity
mister schwartz was identified
we secured from him the content that was taken
and received confirmation that it was not
and would not be used copied transferred or distributed essentially this was a
done deal according to that the the the organization but that the matter
the u_s_ attorney's office said that they were going to go on and investigate
and they were threatening sorts the decades in prison hefty fines and and he
continued even though
that individual the victim essentially
said that they had already settled the situation his family is blaming the u_s_
attorney's office for his death
aaron's death is not simply a personal tragedy if the product of a criminal
justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach decisions
made by officials in the attorney's office and at m_i_t_
contributed
to his death
i think that's a from what i can tell so far probably inaccurate statement
but the plaintiff attorney max can release said that there may not even a
bit of violation of the law forget about whether it was settled in
saying
it is by no means cleared of sorts actually violated the computer fraud and
abuse act
um... recently the fourth circuit joined the ninth circuit enough in alleging
that violating the terms of service does not constitute a crime in other words
even though he did violate the terms of service
at that particular website
that does not mean that it is
a crime now i want to pose uh... uh... i wanna contrast this contrast how
parents sorts was prosecuted here
with how the legal system dell
with corporate america
after the two thousand eight financial crisis
essentially no prosecutions of top corporate figures
and uh... this is an individual who was trying to disseminate knowledge
literally by making journal articles available online against the terms of
service of the website i understand but
apparently not a crime
and that
to the u_s_ attorney's office seems the constitute a greater crime
then it bringing down the united states economy
this doesn't make any sense to me this
really i understand this is one case
it one tragic suicide one individual
and we're talking about it because he was one of the co-founders of read it
compare and contrast ladies and gentlemen
the vastly different
uh... judicial philosophy is and moral philosophy is that this represents
this just sounds really like uh... like a paranoid government trying to make an
example of someone
which i do you think
i don't know if you call it a which ends and she was just one person but
certainly
uh... making an example of one person
every can we say that is on
i don't know uh... it seems like what he does take awhile to find out what really
happened here but uh... we may be jumping the gun a little prematurely
into concluding that
uh... you know he was sword of the he felt that uh... tax and threatened to
the point where uh... uh... he would want commits suicide for that purpose
alone i mean presumably if if the evidence was that scant there he was
actually committing any serious crimes uh... his lawyer would have to hold on
that on the cert certainly uh... it there may be other factors your mental
health factors that would explain this very i don't know what works in if there
is no sorrow was going on here that this situation alone with these documents is
not
what led him to commit suicide and and it is that that we would be completely
baseless to say that at any person
being prosecuted like this would have committed suicide that's that's not what
we're saying
what we're saying is that this does bring to light
and issue
that really makes this question uh... judicial priorities in this country