JSTOR and the death of Aaron Swartz
I am too unhappy, and too angry, to have much to say about last night's news. (By which I mean that I have altogether too much to say, but suspect that those who had the privilege of actually knowing him are busy saying all of it better than I could.)
But for anyone who might be wondering about the background for the U.S. Attorney's apparent vendetta against him, here's a useful link about JSTOR and the state of academic publishing, scholarship, and access to scholarship. (That link goes directly to a thread about JSTOR and academic publishing; the parent article and threads give more general background about the case.)
There's already a petition, obviously drafted in grief and haste, up at the White House site asking for the dismissal of Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney responsible for the prosecution (which, by the way, neither JSTOR nor MIT supported*). I can't imagine that it will have any effect on her tenure in office, no matter how many signatures it might gather, but it would be good to see the signatures pile up as a matter of public record.
And for those of us who are Massachusetts voters, there are names we need to remember arising out of this. Carmen Ortiz has been mentioned as a likely candidate for higher office down the road: although she rejected the idea a few weeks ago her name had been floated as a potential replacement for John Kerry, and it keeps coming up in discussions of possible Democratic candidates for governor. Unless there's something here we don't know, her handling of Aaron's case demonstrates a streak of authoritarianism, and a willingness to use the judicial system for political purposes, that is incompatible with qualification for any such office. And the same is true for any political ambitions that any of the senior prosecutors on the case might ever prove to have.
*The prosecution, I mean, not the petition. I gather MIT waffled a little at first, but came down on the right side in the end.
This entry was crossposted from Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment here or there, with openID or whatever works for you.
But for anyone who might be wondering about the background for the U.S. Attorney's apparent vendetta against him, here's a useful link about JSTOR and the state of academic publishing, scholarship, and access to scholarship. (That link goes directly to a thread about JSTOR and academic publishing; the parent article and threads give more general background about the case.)
There's already a petition, obviously drafted in grief and haste, up at the White House site asking for the dismissal of Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney responsible for the prosecution (which, by the way, neither JSTOR nor MIT supported*). I can't imagine that it will have any effect on her tenure in office, no matter how many signatures it might gather, but it would be good to see the signatures pile up as a matter of public record.
And for those of us who are Massachusetts voters, there are names we need to remember arising out of this. Carmen Ortiz has been mentioned as a likely candidate for higher office down the road: although she rejected the idea a few weeks ago her name had been floated as a potential replacement for John Kerry, and it keeps coming up in discussions of possible Democratic candidates for governor. Unless there's something here we don't know, her handling of Aaron's case demonstrates a streak of authoritarianism, and a willingness to use the judicial system for political purposes, that is incompatible with qualification for any such office. And the same is true for any political ambitions that any of the senior prosecutors on the case might ever prove to have.
*The prosecution, I mean, not the petition. I gather MIT waffled a little at first, but came down on the right side in the end.
This entry was crossposted from Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment here or there, with openID or whatever works for you.