Justice System "Overreach" Blamed In Suicide Of Open-Access Technology Activist

Aaron Swartz faced an imminent trial for having downloaded some four million articles from a not-for-profit scholarly archive, and a possible penalty of 35 years in prison and a $1-million fine, which some call disproportionate to his actions

This weekend, the Internet world mourned one of its heroes: Aaron Swartz, 26, a prodigy, programmer and well-known Internet activist, who hanged himself in his New York apartment on Friday. Swartz was to face an imminent trial for having downloaded some 4 million articles from JSTOR, a not-for-profit scholarly archive hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He faced extraordinarily severe charges — see here and here — carrying a possible penalty of 35 years in prison, and more than US$1 million in fines. Swartz is reported to have suffered from serious depression, but some — including his immediate family — have explicitly alleged that the pending charges contributed to his suicide. (Btw; serious depression is more common than one might think; see ‘Global survey reveals impact of disability‘ though few commit suicide.)...