WEBVTT

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[Brewster Kahle] Welcome. And welcome to the
celebration of the life and work of Aaron

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Swartz, a man who was a spark for many of
us. I would like to thank the staff of the

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Internet Archive, Lisa Ryan, the organizer,
Shannon Lee, Steve Walling, Karl Malamud and

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Cindy Cohn for helping pull this together.

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[applause]

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[Brewster] As you probably know, there are
memorials going on all over the world. Hackathons

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going on. There's an AaronSw IRC Chat for
those that are following the hackathons. And

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these proceedings are in the public domain.
This isn't the type of event we imagined for

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this space, but I can think of no better.

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To the organizer and coordinated for this
evening is Shannon Lee, and he will start

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our program. Thank you very much.

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[Shannon Lee] Thank you all for being here.
Aaron Swartz has left behind a challenging

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legacy. Tonight, we're going to talk about
Aaron and what he left behind, and what we

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can do to carry it forward. We're going to
have an array of speakers, beginning with

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Danny O'Brien and ending with Karl Malamud,
and after that we'll have an opportunity to

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share right here. I will see you at the end
of the speakers.

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[Danny O'Brien] So I first met Aaron in 2001,
when Aaron was, I guess, 14, and was already

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a leading light working with Tim Berners-Lee
on the project that we know as the Semantic

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Web, an incredibly ambitious idea to encode,
in machine-readable form, all of the world's

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knowledge.

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And of course being a journalist at the time,
I seized on this opportunity to sneak an explanation

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of the Semantic Web past my editor. It's almost
impossible to get any editor to understand

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the Semantic Web. But the idea of a 14-year-old
boy helping Tim Berners-Lee will always pass

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muster, even if they don't know who Tim Berners-Lee
is.

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The editor, of course, is in charge of titling
the article, and with that supreme lack of

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understand, he actually titled it, "A Teenager
in a Million," which of course was to miss

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the point entirely. The point was that Aaron's
age wasn't a particularly unique thing and

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Aaron himself wasn't the exceptional part
of this.

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The exceptional part of this was an institution
that allowed someone like Aaron to walk in

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through its door and, before anyone had noticed
where he came from or what age he was or what

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his background was, they allowed him to start
contributing good work and learning from his

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peers.

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An institution is not truly open until somebody
you could never even imagine exists walks

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through the door. When Tim Berners-Lee describes
these moments at Aaron's funeral a week ago,

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you could see, in a way that only Tim Berners-Lee
can convey, the sort of glee he had that at

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last the system was working. These open mailing
lists, this open discussion, this exchange

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of information was bringing new people into
building the web.

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He told me then, "I was worried about revealing
my age and I did my best to keep it a secret.

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Now, I let my words speak for themselves,"
and since then, so many words. Some written

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in machine-readable form in Python, in computers.
Some written in brimstone and sulfur for Congress-readable

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forms and all of it in plain text. All of
it in plain language for everyone to read.

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And if he could not read enough words himself,
his programs read and scraped and passed the

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rest. Aaron loved beautiful code. I think
the only time I really ever pained him was

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when I'd said some program that he'd written
and I'd looked at was unreadable. It turned

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out that it wasn't actually his code at all.
He'd written some code that had, in turn,

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written that code.

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[laughter]

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And yet I think it still hurt, that somehow
his own child had not inherited his own delicate

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sensitivities.

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Words fail me now, even though I have them
written down here. I mean, try as hard as

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Aaron did, I don't think you could ever encode
all of his experience in words, and I don't

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think that all of the relationships that he
built between so many different peers and

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so many new people coming in could be ever
expressed in any number of RDF triplets.

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I mean I can sort of try and convey the look
Aaron's face when he played with my daughter

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Erin, nine. There were some pictures downstairs
that you may have saw him. But you can't really

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convey that childish glee that most of us
lose long before we begin we begin work on

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the semantic web at least.

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And I can't really describe to you the pain
and frustration when Aaron so effectively

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demolished a defense I had of John Searle's
Chinese room argument, that I actually threw

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down my knife and fork and stormed out of
my own Christmas dinner.

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[laughter]

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Leaving, of course, the Turkey for Aaron to
fail to eat.

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[laughter]

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There was always a sort of pleasure and ease
in forgiving Aaron for those sort of arguments.

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And also, to watch him so easily forgive the
rest of us. And I don't think any archive

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can hold those moments. But if I can share
with you some code, if I can't share with

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you the code that made up Aaron, I can, I
hope, share with you the code that Aaron believed

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could make more Aarons.

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Aaron became Aaron because of his unfettered
access to information and the knowledge and

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sharing of his peers. He was very lucky in
that respect. He had an incredibly loving

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family who supported him who would pay for
him to fly out to meetings. He had a computer.

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He had all the privileges and benefits that
being a young man in the United States of

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America in the end of the 20th century have.

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But he also had something new. He had a new
advantage, which was that the gates of the

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construction of this technology that was beginning
to share information, was beginning to open

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up, and he was one of the first, yes the youngest,
but one of the first to take advantage of

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that and use his curiosity and his drive,
even at that age, to nip into there and beginning

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sharing almost immediately with his peers.

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And if anything bound together all of Aaron's
crusades, it was his belief that he was not

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alone in this. That he was not exceptional,
and he believed he was not unique, and that

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there were more than him out there with his
curiosity and talent.

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People say, when we talked about Aaron's work
of taking the content of academic papers or

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the content of the US legal system and opening
it up for anyone to use and see and crunch

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and peruse. You know, who really is this for?

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Who wants to know about the legal system,
can't in some way ask a friend or a contact

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to get access to PACER? Who really has a craving
for academic knowledge can't find somebody

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and sneak their way in to MIT or another institution
and just get that information, or work to

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access it?

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And those people forget, they forget that
if Aaron was a teenager in a million, that

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soon, very soon, as we continue the great
work that we're indulged in here, that there

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will be six billion people that we will connect
to the world information networks. And out

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of those six billion people there will 1.2
billion teenagers.

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And if my editors' statistics are correct-and
he never understood statistics either, then

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there will be 1,200 Aarons out there, there
are 1,200 Aarons out there right now who are

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as smart and engaged and as curious and as
driver as Aaron was. But they simply don't

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have access to that information. There is
no closed archives, no carefully guarded Ivory

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Tower, that can seat billions. But the open
society, the open and world wide web, the

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free culture that Aaron worked for, is for
all of those people.

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And if give them what they need, if we give
them the knowledge to feed their curiosity

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and the care we must never forget they, that
amazing sort of resource of future Aarons

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from Kabera, from Guangzhou or Asan. All of
those people will come, and they will build

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the kind of things that Aaron was dreaming
of.

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And so even though we've lost one Aaron, we
do have a potential, by continuing his work,

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to find so many more. Aaron told me back in
2001 that one of the things that the web teaches

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us is that everything is connected, hyperlinks,
and that we should all work together, standards.

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Too often school teaches us that everything
is separate, and that we should all work alone.

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I think one of the many, many tragedies of
the situation that we find ourselves in now

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is that, at least in some moment of Aaron's
life, his belief that he was not alone failed

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him, and for a few moments he believed himself
to be alone.

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And I'm sure, out there, there are many, many
14-year-old children who feel the same way.

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That they have that binding curiosity, that
fascination and that urge to change the world.

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And that worry for a moment that it's just
them. And there are no tools and no capabilities

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and no friends to help them continue in that
path.

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I don't think it's ever too soon to begin
working with the rest of the world, and I

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think we all need to stay together, and never,
ever again leave our friends too alone. A

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boy's will is the wind's will, and the thoughts
of youth are long, long thoughts.

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[applause]

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[silence]

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[Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman] The night before
Aaron died, he and I shared a grilled cheese

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sandwich. This was one of his favorite foods.
As probably many of you know, there weren't

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many of those favorite foods. It was a really
good grilled cheese sandwich. He was really

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happy about it.

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A week before he died, we woke up one morning,
and he said, "We really need to talk about

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Bayesian statistics." I said, "Right now?
It's Sunday morning. It's like 7: 00 AM. Can

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it wait?" He said, "No, it's really important."
We spent the next couple of hours working

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through a naughty Bayesian statistics he'd
already asked the Internet with no useful

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responses.

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I have the notes. We ended up with a naughty
double integral that neither of us could solve,

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but if anybody here wants to help me with
the solution, let me know.

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He was really excited the last couple of months.
He was working on a drug policy research with

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a friend of his, Matt Stoller, for GiveWell,
and he would read these articles, all the

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academic literature, talk to the experts.

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He got really into this one particular study
about an intervention that had been tried

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in Hawaii for alcoholism. Control tests indicated
that it got 90 percent of alcoholics dry in

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the first month, and he was so bubbling over
with excitement about all of it.

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We went to Burlington, Vermont over New Years.
He got the flu, but he came out and played

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Mafia one evening with the friends that we
rented a house with. I was really surprised,

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because he didn't like playing games at all,
but Ada, Danny's daughter, was there with

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us, and he really wanted to see what would
happen if Ada was the Mafia. [laughs] Unfortunately,

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nobody selected Ada as the Mafia, which Ada
was really annoyed about. [laughs]

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One of the things that I loved about Aaron
was the sheer number, and variety, and multitude

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of wonderful, fascinating people who animated
his life. I had the great privilege of sharing

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that life with him for the last 20 months,
but I know that I only met a small fraction

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of the people whose lives he touched.

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That's why I came out here today, because
I know that many of you were important to

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him, and I wanted to meet you, and I want
you the stories like the stories I just told,

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because I think it's really important that
his friends, his family, his colleagues, his

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admirers know that he had a lot to live for,
and that he had a lot of happy moments in

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those last few weeks and months.

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I'm also here with another message. Aaron's
death should radicalize us. The trial and

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the case hung over our entire relationship.
We started dating a few weeks before he was

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indicted, a couple of months after he had
been arrested.

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I met his parents for the first time at 12:
30 AM the night before the indictment, and

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spent five hours with him in the courthouse
the next day. They didn't know I existed before

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that, so that was an interesting first meeting.
[laughs] He hadn't told me what was going

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on when we first started dating.

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All I knew was that there was something bad
happening in his life, and that I was a good

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distraction from it. He called it the "bad
thing," and I had wild speculation about what

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it might be. My leading candidate theory at
one point was that he was having an affair

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with Elizabeth Warren and was going to ruin
her career.

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[laughter]

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He called me one night when I was at Frisbee
practice in DC, and he was in Boston. He said,

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"The bad thing might be in the news tomorrow.
Do you want to hear what it is from me, or

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do you want to read about it in the news?"
I said, "I want to hear from you."

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He said, "Well, I've been arrested for downloading
too many academic journal articles, and they're

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trying to make an example out of me," and
I said, "Well, that doesn't actually sound

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like a very big deal." [laughs] He paused
for a second and he said, "Yeah, I guess it's

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not like anybody has cancer." In the end,
it kind of was like that.

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The only time I was ever really worried about
him, before the last week, was when he was

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trying to decide whether to accept the plea
bargain. The whole thing was so hard and so

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stressful, and he felt he carried so much
of the weight of it on his own. He didn't

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want to involve any of his friends. He wanted
to protect people, but he wasn't very good

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at protecting himself.

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I went to Boston with him last month in December
for a hearing, and the judge granted another

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evidentiary hearing about whether evidence
should be admitted, and the trial was delayed

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for another couple of months.

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He came out of the courtroom, and I tried
to give him a hug, and he pushed me away.

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He said, "Not in front of Heymann. Not in
front of Steve Heymann, the prosecutor." He

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said, "I don't want to show him that. I don't
want to show him any vulnerability."

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I think Aaron made the wrong choice two weeks
ago. I think the odds were decent at the trial,

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and I think, even if he hadn't won, that life
still was worth living, but I think he woke

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up two years after this ordeal started, and
I think he just couldn't face another day

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of the stress, the uncertainty, the lack of
control over his own destiny.

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Aaron's death should radicalize us, and I
mean that specifically about us, about you,

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if you're here in this room or if you're watching
this online. Aaron died because of deep injustice

00:17:50.029 --> 00:17:58.003
in this world. Aaron loved to talk about the
"5 Whys" of the Toyota management system,

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so I'm going to ask why. Why did Aaron die?

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Aaron died in part because we live in a system
where the constitutional rights we've all

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come to believe in, through civic classes
and through watching "Law & Order," don't

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actually apply in the real world. There's
no right to a speedy trial. It had been two

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years since Aaron was arrested. We still didn't
have all the evidence that the government...the

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government still hadn't turned over all of
the evidence to us, that they were constitutionally

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required to do so.

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Why does that happen? In part, it's because
the system is so clogged up with cases, and

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has so few human resources, it takes years
for practically anybody who actually wants

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to go to trial to find out whether they're
guilty from a jury of their peers.

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It takes them years because the system is
so clogged up, and so under-resourced, with

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drug cases and with the senseless overcrowding
of our criminal justice system. Prosecutors

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aren't used to going to trial. Last year,
only three percent of all federal charges

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were taken to trial. Most of the rest were
resolved in plea bargaining.

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Plea bargaining processes give prosecutors
enormous amounts of power. Imagine being totally

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innocent of any crime and not having the resources
that Aaron had at his disposal, and the networks,

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and the support. Many people feel they have
no choice but to accept a plea bargain. They

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can't afford lawyers for two years.

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You could say, in some sense, that Aaron's
death was caused by the war on drugs. He wasn't

00:19:31.087 --> 00:19:35.094
a victim directly, but he was a casualty at
that war, that's aimed, actually, at quite

00:19:35.094 --> 00:19:40.076
different people from Aaron.

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Aaron's death should radicalize us. He died
because of a prosecutor and a US attorney

00:19:46.008 --> 00:19:50.057
who had immense individual power over his
life, and were more interested in making a

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high-profile example out of Aaron than in
justice or in mercy.

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Why did they do it? In the case of the prosecutor,
Steve Heymann, the best theory I can offer

00:20:01.034 --> 00:20:05.067
is that he's simply a vindictive old man who
really doesn't like young, upstart whippersnappers,

00:20:05.067 --> 00:20:11.000
like Aaron, who are trying to save the world.
Heymann's the kind of guy who wants to claim

00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:16.075
a notch on his belt and high-five other prosecutors
at lunch, but we have to follow the "Whys."

00:20:16.075 --> 00:20:22.028
Why does this man have the power to ruin the
life of someone like Aaron? We can trace the

00:20:22.028 --> 00:20:26.095
problem to tough-on-crime initiatives that
have systematically transferred power from

00:20:26.095 --> 00:20:29.015
the hands of judges to prosecutors.

00:20:29.015 --> 00:20:33.074
We can trace it to punitive sentencing guidelines
and ambiguous overreaching laws, like the

00:20:33.074 --> 00:20:40.082
CFAA, that give prosecutors the power to charge
someone with decades in prison for a victimless

00:20:40.082 --> 00:20:46.006
crime. In the case of Carmen Ortiz, the US
attorney who's Heymann's boss, Aaron's case

00:20:46.006 --> 00:20:49.069
was a stepping stone to higher political ambitions.

00:20:49.069 --> 00:20:53.087
Ortiz wanted to be a judge, or a governor,
or a senator someday. She probably still wants

00:20:53.087 --> 00:21:00.013
to be. Unfortunately, in our society, one
of the well-trodden paths to elected office

00:21:00.013 --> 00:21:02.012
is through the prosecutor's office.

00:21:02.012 --> 00:21:07.053
That means that from mayors' offices to congress,
leaders are disproportionately people who've

00:21:07.053 --> 00:21:12.001
made their name in being tough on crime, the
people who've spent the bulk of their career

00:21:12.001 --> 00:21:18.029
trying to lock people up. They're people whose
job it is to be punitive and not just or merciful.

00:21:18.029 --> 00:21:22.028
That's how we end up with these kinds of laws
to begin with.

00:21:22.028 --> 00:21:26.008
They're people who embody a legal system that
locks up more than 25 percent of the prisoners

00:21:26.008 --> 00:21:31.011
in the world, and we have only three percent
of the world's population. Why do we vote

00:21:31.011 --> 00:21:37.007
for these people? Why do we provide them with
the incentives we do? Why do we, as a country,

00:21:37.007 --> 00:21:41.045
applaud and reward them, and build structures
around them, as they lock up more than one-third

00:21:41.045 --> 00:21:46.097
of the black men in our country?

00:21:46.097 --> 00:21:50.089
Aaron's death should radicalize us because
he's probably the first person that most people

00:21:50.089 --> 00:21:56.014
in this room have ever met who got swept up
by this system, but there are literally millions

00:21:56.014 --> 00:22:01.044
of others whose lives are destroyed in this
country, and Aaron would've been the last

00:22:01.044 --> 00:22:07.001
person who would want us to fetishize his
experiences or to treat him as exceptional.

00:22:07.001 --> 00:22:13.048
In response to Aaron's death, I and his family
are calling for five things. First, Steve

00:22:13.048 --> 00:22:16.086
Heymann and Carmen Ortiz must be held accountable.

00:22:16.086 --> 00:22:18.044
[applause]

00:22:18.044 --> 00:22:26.032
Second, MIT has lost its way, and it must
find it again. MIT could've saved Aaron with

00:22:26.032 --> 00:22:31.036
a single public statement, and it refused.

00:22:31.036 --> 00:22:32.044
[applause]

00:22:32.044 --> 00:22:37.039
Third, all academic research from all time
should be made openly accessible to anyone

00:22:37.039 --> 00:22:40.082
with an Internet connection.

00:22:40.082 --> 00:22:43.058
[applause]

00:22:43.058 --> 00:22:50.083
Fourth, we have to amend the Computer Fraud
and Abuse Act to prevent prosecutors from

00:22:50.083 --> 00:22:53.083
these kinds of overreaches.

00:22:53.083 --> 00:22:56.008
[applause]

00:22:56.008 --> 00:23:02.066
Fifth, we have to reform a criminal justice
system where we incarcerate millions of people,

00:23:02.066 --> 00:23:06.071
and prosecutors through the book at someone
like Aaron, but not a single banker has gone

00:23:06.071 --> 00:23:13.052
to prison since the financial crisis.

00:23:13.052 --> 00:23:19.013
[applause]

00:23:19.013 --> 00:23:24.042
Aaron's death should radicalize us, but Aaron's
life should also radicalize us in a very different

00:23:24.042 --> 00:23:32.002
way. One of Aaron's favorite shows was "Louie."
There's an episode, and I'm going to do my

00:23:32.002 --> 00:23:37.089
best Louie impression, which probably isn't
very good, the episode where Louie gives a

00:23:37.089 --> 00:23:39.013
little stand-up routine.

00:23:39.013 --> 00:23:47.026
"I drive an Infiniti. That's really evil.
There are people who just starved to death.

00:23:47.026 --> 00:23:52.051
That's all they ever did. There are people
who are born and go, 'I'm hungry.' Then they

00:23:52.051 --> 00:23:57.079
die, and that's all they ever got to do. Meanwhile,
I'm driving in my car having a great time,

00:23:57.079 --> 00:23:59.000
and I sleep like a baby."

00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:04.014
"It's totally my fault, because I could trade
my Infiniti in for any other car, and I'd

00:24:04.014 --> 00:24:09.039
get back like $20,000, and I could save hundreds
of people from dying of starvation with that

00:24:09.039 --> 00:24:18.025
money, and every day, I don't do it. Every
day, I make them die with my car."

00:24:18.025 --> 00:24:22.064
Aaron loved that routine, and he realized
something when we watched it together. He

00:24:22.064 --> 00:24:27.086
realized that Louie copied this bit right
out of Peter Singer. This is a Peter Singer

00:24:27.086 --> 00:24:33.032
essay as a comedy routine. Peter Singer was
one of the Aaron's favorite philosophers,

00:24:33.032 --> 00:24:36.061
and he's a really uncomfortable philosopher.
A lot of people don't like thinking about

00:24:36.061 --> 00:24:39.052
Peter Singer. Here's why.

00:24:39.052 --> 00:24:43.008
Let's say you knew you had the power to change
a law that would save innocent people's lives,

00:24:43.008 --> 00:24:48.014
maybe stopping a carcinogen from polluting
ground water near a town. Let's say you knew

00:24:48.014 --> 00:24:53.004
it would save 10 people's lives, and you chose
to do something else instead, something that

00:24:53.004 --> 00:24:59.038
didn't have much bearing or impact on the
world. Are you culpable? Peter Singer would

00:24:59.038 --> 00:25:01.063
say yes.

00:25:01.063 --> 00:25:05.046
Most of us studiously avoid answering that
question, because the truth is, we're faced

00:25:05.046 --> 00:25:09.098
with questions like, "Should we trade in our
Infiniti?" or, "Should we work on the carcinogen?"

00:25:09.098 --> 00:25:18.054
every day. It's really hard to live your life
thinking about that, but Aaron's life should

00:25:18.054 --> 00:25:19.082
radicalize us.

00:25:19.082 --> 00:25:26.069
Aaron lived a Singerian life more than anyone
else I've ever met. Aaron had money, we all

00:25:26.069 --> 00:25:31.042
know he could've had a lot more if he had
tried, but he lived out of backpacks and he

00:25:31.042 --> 00:25:32.066
stayed on people's couches.

00:25:32.066 --> 00:25:37.019
Sometimes, I'll admit, it went a little too
far, like the time we'd been dating for a

00:25:37.019 --> 00:25:41.016
few months, and we were meeting up in Boston,
and it was his responsibility to find us a

00:25:41.016 --> 00:25:46.081
place to stay. He thought that an air mattress
on his brother Noah's bathroom floor was perfectly

00:25:46.081 --> 00:25:51.014
sufficient, [laughs] but I respected him for
it.

00:25:51.014 --> 00:25:55.095
He didn't buy an Infiniti. He didn't get a
nice apartment. When he died, he left his

00:25:55.095 --> 00:26:02.045
estate primarily to GiveWell, probably the
most Singerian of all charities, but living

00:26:02.045 --> 00:26:07.008
a life of personal austerity and charity isn't
enough. Aaron felt responsible not just for

00:26:07.008 --> 00:26:11.061
the direct costs of his lifestyle, but for
the opportunity costs. He felt responsible

00:26:11.061 --> 00:26:15.062
for the carcinogens he wasn't stopping.

00:26:15.062 --> 00:26:20.047
Here in Silicon Valley, the idea of changing
the world is no mirage. You see examples all

00:26:20.047 --> 00:26:26.034
around you, every day, of people who changed
the world, and Aaron was one of those people,

00:26:26.034 --> 00:26:28.095
but the question is, how are they changing
the world?

00:26:28.095 --> 00:26:34.094
Facebook has changed the world, sure, but
is the world better off because of Facebook?

00:26:34.094 --> 00:26:38.075
Even more importantly, if you're deciding
whether to take a job at Facebook, is that

00:26:38.075 --> 00:26:41.039
the place in the world where you can do the
most good?

00:26:41.039 --> 00:26:48.005
Aaron wanted to do the most good. He wanted
to apply the Lean Startup framework to impact.

00:26:48.005 --> 00:26:54.007
He was learning and iterating. He thought
we all needed to think both bigger and smaller.

00:26:54.007 --> 00:26:59.041
He said to a few of my friends once, "The
revolution will be A/B tested."

00:26:59.041 --> 00:27:00.037
[laughter]

00:27:00.037 --> 00:27:07.091
That's what he was trying to do. I'm here
to ask the hard questions today. If you're

00:27:07.091 --> 00:27:12.048
not already working to change the criminal
justice system in the US, what are you working

00:27:12.048 --> 00:27:16.097
on? Is it more important than that? It might
be. There are more important things. There

00:27:16.097 --> 00:27:23.065
are places where you can have more impact,
but there are so many ways, so many things,

00:27:23.065 --> 00:27:30.041
that need to be changed about this world.
Which one of them are you working on?

00:27:30.041 --> 00:27:34.078
Aaron's death should radicalize us, and his
life should radicalize us. The fact is, we

00:27:34.078 --> 00:27:39.015
live in a world in which very few people we
know pay the ultimate price for their political

00:27:39.015 --> 00:27:44.091
beliefs. We live in a world in which very
few people we know even suffer serious life-altering

00:27:44.091 --> 00:27:49.058
consequences for their political beliefs,
but we live in a runaway global political

00:27:49.058 --> 00:27:52.067
economy that's taking people's lives every
day.

00:27:52.067 --> 00:27:58.042
Aaron wasn't trying to become a martyr when
he downloaded those JSTOR articles, but he

00:27:58.042 --> 00:28:02.089
was taking a risk on behalf of the billions
of people around the world who grew up without

00:28:02.089 --> 00:28:07.028
his privilege. More of us need to do that.

00:28:07.028 --> 00:28:16.072
There are so many ways to have impact, so
many ways to help people. Aaron had an exchange

00:28:16.072 --> 00:28:21.074
with David Segal, who runs Demand Progress,
the group that he founded, that many of you

00:28:21.074 --> 00:28:24.002
know from the SOPA fight.

00:28:24.002 --> 00:28:29.027
Aaron loved recounting this conversation.
David called him one night, and said to Aaron,

00:28:29.027 --> 00:28:35.051
"Remember that year when we defeated SOPA,
got indefinite detention ruled unconstitutional,

00:28:35.051 --> 00:28:41.001
and got both political parties to incorporate
Internet freedom into their platforms at the

00:28:41.001 --> 00:28:46.037
conventions?" That was Aaron, David Segal,
and a couple other people. They did all that

00:28:46.037 --> 00:28:48.058
in one year.

00:28:48.058 --> 00:28:52.039
Everybody here is capable of that kind of
change. There are so many places in our world

00:28:52.039 --> 00:28:57.054
where that kind of change can happen, just
from having somebody there, somebody paying

00:28:57.054 --> 00:29:01.005
attention, somebody pushing.

00:29:01.005 --> 00:29:06.085
If you're a programmer or technologist, like
many of you in the audience today, you have

00:29:06.085 --> 00:29:12.013
special powers and special responsibilities.
I went to a talk once that Aaron gave, where

00:29:12.013 --> 00:29:17.037
he spoke to maybe a couple dozen people, like
the people in this room, to programmers who

00:29:17.037 --> 00:29:23.081
he was trying to convince to work in politics.
He told them, "You can do magic."

00:29:23.081 --> 00:29:28.083
Aaron really could do magic, and I'm dedicated
to making sure that his magic doesn't end

00:29:28.083 --> 00:29:44.025
with his death. I hope you'll join me.

00:29:44.025 --> 00:29:46.077
[applause]

00:29:46.077 --> 00:30:03.047
[Lisa Rein] I first met Aaron online on various
W3C mailing lists for XML and RDF. He kind

00:30:03.047 --> 00:30:11.038
of came out of nowhere at the end of 2001,
as far as I could tell. Aaron's comments were

00:30:11.038 --> 00:30:15.071
thoughtful and informative, and it became
clear pretty quickly that he had a better

00:30:15.071 --> 00:30:20.048
understanding of markup languages and data
modeling than a lot of others on the list,

00:30:20.048 --> 00:30:23.047
even some of the veterans.

00:30:23.047 --> 00:30:29.003
Aaron had a talent for simplifying things
and getting to the heart of everyone's concerns.

00:30:29.003 --> 00:30:35.029
He was also rather politically disarming because
he was, well, a kid, a kid with no ulterior

00:30:35.029 --> 00:30:42.019
motives except wanting to be included and
taken seriously, as seriously as others.

00:30:42.019 --> 00:30:48.025
In April 2002, during the very early stages
of the Creative Commons, I let Aaron know

00:30:48.025 --> 00:30:53.076
that we were having a technical meeting at
Harvard that I wanted him to attend. That

00:30:53.076 --> 00:31:01.049
was it. I really wanted to include him in
the whole project almost as equally as I was

00:31:01.049 --> 00:31:09.087
involved in the project. I told him this was
happening for real, and with him included.

00:31:09.087 --> 00:31:16.062
It was then that he let me know that he was
only 14 years old, and that I needed to give

00:31:16.062 --> 00:31:20.082
his mother a call so he could figure things
out.

00:31:20.082 --> 00:31:22.009
[laughter]

00:31:22.009 --> 00:31:28.098
When I first insisted that Aaron attend this
meeting, everybody, even Lawrence Lessig,

00:31:28.098 --> 00:31:35.006
at first thought that was really weird. "Do
you need Aaron to do your job?" was a pretty

00:31:35.006 --> 00:31:42.054
popular question, and the answer was clearly,
"Yes." I needed Aaron to make sure that our

00:31:42.054 --> 00:31:48.023
licensing markup was the absolute best that
it could be.

00:31:48.023 --> 00:31:52.006
People were usually skeptical about Aaron
and his abilities when they first found out

00:31:52.006 --> 00:31:58.003
he was only 14. But once they spoke to him
for even a little while, he would always win

00:31:58.003 --> 00:32:06.085
them over. I knew if Lessig met him in person
that that would be that, and it was. Aaron

00:32:06.085 --> 00:32:12.057
was growing up to become quite the technological
statesman.

00:32:12.057 --> 00:32:17.085
So my strategy, in the spring of 2002, was
to introduce Aaron to as many people as I

00:32:17.085 --> 00:32:25.038
could, and to introduce him to the right people.
This included people from the EFF and the

00:32:25.038 --> 00:32:31.093
Internet Archive, mainly, and also included
going to cool events like South By Southwest.

00:32:31.093 --> 00:32:38.041
In 2003, when he tried to get his own room
in the cool hotel, right across from the venue,

00:32:38.041 --> 00:32:45.001
but ended up getting a room in the janky hotel
down the road with me, where I could be his

00:32:45.001 --> 00:32:47.084
official adult supervision.

00:32:47.084 --> 00:32:49.027
[laughter]

00:32:49.027 --> 00:32:54.085
In October 2002, Aaron flew out to Washington,
DC, to camp out in front of the Supreme Court

00:32:54.085 --> 00:33:00.012
with me and about eight other people. This
was the night before Lawrence Lessig's oral

00:33:00.012 --> 00:33:10.009
argument in Eldred v. Ashcroft. This is the
Eldred shirt from that. We were rather surprised

00:33:10.009 --> 00:33:15.008
that Aaron convinced his mother to let him
go. But there he was, staying in the same

00:33:15.008 --> 00:33:17.087
bed and breakfast where I was staying.

00:33:17.087 --> 00:33:23.000
I told them he was sort of like my little
brother, and that wasn't very far from the

00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:32.064
truth. He was a little brother that I ended
up [crying] looking up to. EFF staff technologist

00:33:32.064 --> 00:33:39.056
Seth Schoen took over as Aaron's chaperone
pretty quickly during that trip to Washington,

00:33:39.056 --> 00:33:40.008
DC.

00:33:40.008 --> 00:33:46.005
There was a moment at about one AM when Aaron
asked if he could walk around the block with

00:33:46.005 --> 00:33:53.006
Seth. I thought they were kidding at first.
Were they serious? Were they crazy? But then

00:33:53.006 --> 00:33:58.075
I realized it was one of those right-of-passage
moments. Plus I realized he wouldn't be by

00:33:58.075 --> 00:34:02.033
himself, he was with Seth.

00:34:02.033 --> 00:34:07.081
I think at that moment I passed on the torch
to Seth as Aaron's west coast guardian. But

00:34:07.081 --> 00:34:14.004
we always stayed in touch. His birthday was
two days before mine, and he would remember

00:34:14.004 --> 00:34:19.079
my birthday almost every year, and would send
me a nice little email wishing me a good next

00:34:19.079 --> 00:34:30.097
year. Thank you.

00:34:30.097 --> 00:34:42.051
[Seth Schoen] As Lisa was just recounting,
I met Aaron at the Supreme Court in October

00:34:42.051 --> 00:34:49.007
of 2002, and we had gone to hear the oral
argument in Eldred v. Ashcroft. Most of us

00:34:49.007 --> 00:34:53.679
non-lawyers had to spend the night sleeping
in the street in line in front of the court

00:34:53.679 --> 00:34:55.048
in order to get a ticket.

00:34:55.048 --> 00:34:59.067
The line for the oral argument starts the
night before. But even though Aaron was a

00:34:59.067 --> 00:35:06.005
teenager, he was Larry Lessig's personal guest
at the argument. So since he had a ticket,

00:35:06.005 --> 00:35:10.021
he had the luxury of spending the night in
a hotel, which his parents apparently really

00:35:10.021 --> 00:35:12.004
appreciated.

00:35:12.004 --> 00:35:16.048
But Aaron decided to spend most of the night
and most of the morning before the argument

00:35:16.048 --> 00:35:22.051
hanging out with us at the encampment in front
of the court. In part to show solidarity with

00:35:22.051 --> 00:35:28.046
the people who hadn't received a ticket, and
in part for the thrill of meeting actual,

00:35:28.046 --> 00:35:31.000
grown-up copyright activists.

00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:32.076
[laughter]

00:35:32.076 --> 00:35:37.089
Aaron was truly star struck to meet people
he thought of as legendary copyright reform

00:35:37.089 --> 00:35:43.054
activists. But within a decade, Aaron himself
would be among the most effective grassroots

00:35:43.054 --> 00:35:47.051
copyright activists in the whole world.

00:35:47.051 --> 00:35:52.091
At that moment he was the little kid markup
and metadata expert that Larry Lessig admired

00:35:52.091 --> 00:35:58.099
enough to give him a front row Supreme Court
seat. And Aaron spent the evening with us

00:35:58.099 --> 00:36:03.043
as we ordered pizza, which he could actually
eat, for delivery to the sidewalk outside

00:36:03.043 --> 00:36:08.005
the Supreme Court, which was apparently not
a very unusual request for pizzerias in DC.

00:36:08.005 --> 00:36:09.051
[laughter]

00:36:09.051 --> 00:36:15.086
And all of us gossiped about copyright law
for a couple of hours. I saw Aaron again in

00:36:15.086 --> 00:36:24.082
December. My friends Leonard and Sumana found
a picture, he's visiting my house, and I come,

00:36:24.082 --> 00:36:29.006
like some people here, from a book family
and I have a lot of books and we spent about

00:36:29.006 --> 00:36:35.006
three hours with Leonard and Sumana and Aaron
and I just sitting on my bed sort of manually

00:36:35.006 --> 00:36:38.014
following hyperlinks between books.

00:36:38.014 --> 00:36:38.055
[laughter]

00:36:38.055 --> 00:36:45.072
"Oh, that book! Oh, well that's a reference
to that book." Aaron was there because Larry

00:36:45.072 --> 00:36:51.031
Lessig was unveiling his Creative Commons
project in San Francisco. And Lessig had invited

00:36:51.031 --> 00:36:57.004
Aaron, clad in a T-shirt, probably the youngest
person in the entire hall, up on stage to

00:36:57.004 --> 00:37:03.011
talk about metadata. It was very awkward.
Aaron was trying to describe why it was useful

00:37:03.011 --> 00:37:07.049
to be able to represent bibliographic information
in a machine-readable format.

00:37:07.049 --> 00:37:11.001
And in fact Aaron was always trying to describe
why it was useful to be able to represent

00:37:11.001 --> 00:37:14.001
bibliographic information in a machine-readable
format.

00:37:14.001 --> 00:37:15.001
[laughter]

00:37:15.001 --> 00:37:19.004
The audience had had a few drinks, I think,
and wasn't as focused as it might have been,

00:37:19.004 --> 00:37:23.015
and didn't really care to envision this beautiful
feature in which search engines would make

00:37:23.015 --> 00:37:28.028
it easy for everyone to find works they could
legally reuse and build upon. Which they now

00:37:28.028 --> 00:37:31.049
can, thanks to Aaron's work.

00:37:31.049 --> 00:37:36.061
But the audience didn't seem to get it. Lessig
was very gracious and he basically said to

00:37:36.061 --> 00:37:42.055
the crowd, "See, our project is going to succeed
and it's going to succeed because we have

00:37:42.055 --> 00:37:48.057
this genius creating our infrastructure."
Aaron reminded me how frustrating it is to

00:37:48.057 --> 00:37:52.069
be curious about things that other people
don't understand. Or that other people regard

00:37:52.069 --> 00:37:54.099
as trivial or bizarre.

00:37:54.099 --> 00:38:00.006
He wrote a blog post about a theory that one's
degree of nearsightedness is affected by blood

00:38:00.006 --> 00:38:05.054
oxygen levels, and that it might be possible
to use eye exercise to systematically reduce

00:38:05.054 --> 00:38:06.012
nearsightedness.

00:38:06.012 --> 00:38:11.037
"Aaron," he wrote, "was already experimenting
on himself to see if it would work, and he

00:38:11.037 --> 00:38:17.047
said he wished he could meet a girl who wouldn't
laugh at this project." Later, Aaron met Seth

00:38:17.047 --> 00:38:23.052
Roberts, a researcher who advocates self-experimentation
as a way of generating potentially-useful

00:38:23.052 --> 00:38:25.049
wild ideas about health.

00:38:25.049 --> 00:38:30.019
Roberts and Aaron got along extremely well.
I think that Roberts, like many other people,

00:38:30.019 --> 00:38:36.035
felt that Aaron naturally generated potentially
useful wild ideas about absolutely everything.

00:38:36.035 --> 00:38:42.054
I visited Aaron in his dorm at Stanford a
few years later. I was thrilled that he had

00:38:42.054 --> 00:38:45.022
the opportunity to study at such a great university.

00:38:45.022 --> 00:38:50.073
But Aaron was alienated from Stanford. He
had few friends, and the students around him

00:38:50.073 --> 00:38:56.008
weren't curious about the things he was curious
about. This wasn't the way his Stanford adventure

00:38:56.008 --> 00:39:01.057
was supposed to pan out. I helped him pack
for his flight to Boston for his interview

00:39:01.057 --> 00:39:07.053
with Paul Graham, who was starting a fund
to invest in young people just like Aaron.

00:39:07.053 --> 00:39:15.011
It want well. Aaron dropped out of Stanford
and moved to Boston. In 2006, just after Condé

00:39:15.011 --> 00:39:19.007
Nast acquired reddit and just before they
fired Aaron, Aaron and I were at a hacker

00:39:19.007 --> 00:39:26.034
conference together in Berlin. To Larry Lessig's
chagrin, Aaron and Lessig had, at that time,

00:39:26.034 --> 00:39:30.085
fallen out of touch. Perhaps neither of them
were deeply involved in the day-to-day work

00:39:30.085 --> 00:39:34.022
of Creative Commons, which had brought them
together.

00:39:34.022 --> 00:39:38.014
Aaron had gone off to work in the startup
world while simultaneously deepening his study

00:39:38.014 --> 00:39:44.009
of left-wind politics, macroeconomics, and
sociology. Lessig and Aaron were both planning

00:39:44.009 --> 00:39:49.074
to tell America, as matter of some urgency,
what had gone wrong with the American project,

00:39:49.074 --> 00:39:52.018
but they had slightly different diagnoses.

00:39:52.018 --> 00:39:57.061
Our friend and I took Aaron out to Wannsee,
where Lessig was spending a year at the American

00:39:57.061 --> 00:40:04.012
Academy in Berlin. Lessig looked extraordinarily
proud to see Aaron. Their meeting had, for

00:40:04.012 --> 00:40:08.071
me, the sense of an extraordinarily poignant
reunion, as if they hadn't seen each other

00:40:08.071 --> 00:40:13.001
in 20 years. Of course they had actually seen
each other a few months before.

00:40:13.001 --> 00:40:17.083
But my friend and I left the two of them alone
for an hour or so, and I remember as we walked

00:40:17.083 --> 00:40:24.005
away, seeing Lessig and Aaron leaning a wall
at the Wannsee train station, talking animatedly

00:40:24.005 --> 00:40:29.003
to each other. It reminded me of the scene
at the climax of the German film "Goodbye

00:40:29.003 --> 00:40:34.083
Lenin!" where we can see but not hear the
actors talking about incredibly urgent matters,

00:40:34.083 --> 00:40:39.031
and we have to imagine for ourselves what
they must be saying to each other.

00:40:39.031 --> 00:40:43.043
And I thought, Lessig is so proud-his protégé
is all grown up and he's come back to show

00:40:43.043 --> 00:40:51.038
his respect for his teacher. Aaron was a free
speech absolutist's, free speech absolutist,

00:40:51.038 --> 00:40:57.022
an idealist's idealist, an activist's activist,
and, I must say, a libertarian socialist's

00:40:57.022 --> 00:40:59.019
libertarian socialist.

00:40:59.019 --> 00:41:00.619
[laughter]

00:41:00.619 --> 00:41:07.002
His credo was that bits are not a bug, that
come hell or high water we should celebrate,

00:41:07.002 --> 00:41:11.032
and not fear, people's ability to communicate
to each other whatever they might choose to

00:41:11.032 --> 00:41:16.027
communicate, and the infrastructure that supports
that ability.

00:41:16.027 --> 00:41:21.061
Aaron came of age a long time after the end
of the cypherpunk movement. But he always

00:41:21.061 --> 00:41:23.038
seemed like a cypherpunk movement. But he
always seemed like a cypherpunk and lived

00:41:23.038 --> 00:41:27.018
up to the notion that cypherpunks write code.

00:41:27.018 --> 00:41:32.013
He channeled all sorts of different idealisms
of supposedly bygone eras. You would have

00:41:32.013 --> 00:41:37.074
thought he was too young to know about those
idealisms. And he did it in a way that mixed

00:41:37.074 --> 00:41:43.035
intelligence, creativity, and humor. In the
long run, Aaron felt that he was going to

00:41:43.035 --> 00:41:47.008
fix the world, mainly by clearly explaining
it to people.

00:41:47.008 --> 00:41:48.083
[laughter]

00:41:48.083 --> 00:41:54.052
I believe Aaron grew up to be exactly the
person that he would have been most astonished

00:41:54.052 --> 00:41:59.036
and excited to meet in the line in front of
the Supreme Court. I've never known anyone

00:41:59.036 --> 00:42:04.048
else like him.

00:42:04.048 --> 00:42:18.076
[Peter Eckersley] So I know we have all been
spending a lot of time thinking about Aaron

00:42:18.076 --> 00:42:24.052
and his life and what kind of person he was
and what he did. And I know many of you in

00:42:24.052 --> 00:42:30.068
the room knew him, knew him well. Others probably
never got to meet him in person, saw him on

00:42:30.068 --> 00:42:38.035
a mailing list or read his blog posts. And
then now, trying to figure out what we've

00:42:38.035 --> 00:42:40.063
lost, who we've lost.

00:42:40.063 --> 00:42:46.013
And for me, you know I was lucky enough, I
got to live with Aaron for a while, and we

00:42:46.013 --> 00:42:51.007
got to be good friends and work on things
together. But I found I was always trying

00:42:51.007 --> 00:42:57.086
to figure out exactly who he was and what
he was up to. Because he was such a complicated

00:42:57.086 --> 00:43:06.073
and contradictory human being, and he'd get
you in these ways that you weren't expecting.

00:43:06.073 --> 00:43:11.077
Some of this was simple, obvious stuff. You
know, I, look-he and I had met before, but

00:43:11.077 --> 00:43:17.075
we moved to San Francisco at the same time.
I came here to work for the EFF. He was just

00:43:17.075 --> 00:43:22.074
in the process of selling reddit and going
to Condé Nast and going through the messy

00:43:22.074 --> 00:43:28.084
divorce that he had with the other cofounders.
And so I sent him an email and said, "Hey,

00:43:28.084 --> 00:43:35.005
I'm setting up a sharehouse. Like, do you
want a place to live?" And he said yes.

00:43:35.005 --> 00:43:39.089
And so we had this rambling Victorian in this
apartment building. And I said, "Oh, we've

00:43:39.089 --> 00:43:43.081
got all these open rooms we need to fill."
And he's like, "Oh, there's this tiny little

00:43:43.081 --> 00:43:51.078
one in the corner, I'll take that." This room
was the size of a-you know, it was a closet,

00:43:51.078 --> 00:43:54.008
basically. We were pretty sure he was the
wealthiest person in the building. He'd just

00:43:54.008 --> 00:44:00.064
sold reddit, but he wanted this tiny little
thing.

00:44:00.064 --> 00:44:08.081
And getting to know him was weird, like...I'd,
I knew him, I knew his blog, I had met him

00:44:08.081 --> 00:44:17.003
before. But living with him, the first experience,
he was so shy. Like, he'd just be there, and

00:44:17.003 --> 00:44:24.085
like, in his own little world, struggling
to talk to people, until the conversation

00:44:24.085 --> 00:44:31.008
took the right turn. You'd say the right thing
to him, and he would come alive, and he would

00:44:31.008 --> 00:44:33.079
come so alive.

00:44:33.079 --> 00:44:39.001
I remember Danny mentioned the Chinese room
argument, but I remember the day that somehow

00:44:39.001 --> 00:44:45.004
I prodded him about that. And then for the
next week, you know, like we were going at

00:44:45.004 --> 00:44:49.099
it. Like, I think he was totally wrong about
the Chinese room argument, actually. I still

00:44:49.099 --> 00:44:50.061
do.

00:44:50.061 --> 00:44:51.024
[laughter]

00:44:51.024 --> 00:44:57.006
His position was crazy. He defended a crazy
position very well, and I had to argue him

00:44:57.006 --> 00:45:03.095
into so many weird corners to get anywhere.
I remember another scene, we had a film crew

00:45:03.095 --> 00:45:07.066
who showed up and stayed in our house and
filmed this thing, "Steal This Film." You

00:45:07.066 --> 00:45:10.029
can go and see it on the Internet. You can
see Aaron in it.

00:45:10.029 --> 00:45:15.059
They were a documentary crew talking about
copyright and trying to film these takes in

00:45:15.059 --> 00:45:18.009
the middle of the night. You know, our cramped
little living room, and everyone was kind

00:45:18.009 --> 00:45:24.096
of drunk and there was chaos and I remember
some of us were struggling to say anything

00:45:24.096 --> 00:45:30.052
coherent to a camera. But someone pointed
a camera at Aaron and he caught fire.

00:45:30.052 --> 00:45:39.119
Like, he just...he taught me how to, like,
speak to a room or speak to a television or

00:45:39.119 --> 00:45:45.019
whatever it was. He just had a message that
he'd simplified out of the ether and could

00:45:45.019 --> 00:45:52.076
deliver. And that was the same skill he turned
to politics and to so much else that he did

00:45:52.076 --> 00:45:59.015
in his intellectual life, and it was beautiful
to watch.

00:45:59.015 --> 00:46:05.038
And he paired that with this...you know, honestly,
he had a flare for self-promotion. There wouldn't

00:46:05.038 --> 00:46:10.119
be hundreds of people in this room and hundreds
of people in all the rooms for all the memorials

00:46:10.119 --> 00:46:14.066
that he's had in different cities, and millions
of people reading about him, if he didn't

00:46:14.066 --> 00:46:20.007
have some little talent at getting the things
he was doing out to the world in a way that

00:46:20.007 --> 00:46:27.004
people would notice. People noticed his 16-year-old
self. His 14-year-old self.

00:46:27.004 --> 00:46:33.001
But he wasn't just a giant ego who kind of
was out there promoting himself because he

00:46:33.001 --> 00:46:40.028
thought he was awesome. He actually...The
one thing he failed to care about, often,

00:46:40.028 --> 00:46:48.019
was taking care of himself. And I remember,
like, living with him and trying to get him

00:46:48.019 --> 00:46:52.007
to eat and...He wouldn't...

00:46:52.007 --> 00:46:57.008
He had medical things that he was struggling
with, and I said, "Aaron, you know, like,

00:46:57.008 --> 00:47:01.016
how does this work, like let's talk about
it. Surely you've read the research on this

00:47:01.016 --> 00:47:05.061
condition. Like, we can go through what's
been tried...And he said, "No, I haven't read

00:47:05.061 --> 00:47:06.084
any of it." Like, "I don't know anything about
it."

00:47:06.084 --> 00:47:11.035
And I said, "Aaron! You devour books! Like,
I can see you devouring books, you've read

00:47:11.035 --> 00:47:19.038
five this week. Like, you have a stack of
academic journal articles by your bed. We're

00:47:19.038 --> 00:47:23.057
talking about half of them. Why haven't you
read anything about this condition that is

00:47:23.057 --> 00:47:28.007
making your own life harder?" And he just
said, "Well, I don't think I'm that important.

00:47:28.007 --> 00:47:34.051
The world's important," like...

00:47:34.051 --> 00:47:46.088
Watching that happen was hard. You struggle
to take care of him. He also had these days

00:47:46.088 --> 00:47:51.023
that were down. I mean, I guess it was a down
day in the end that got him. In between the

00:47:51.023 --> 00:47:54.048
days when he was doing amazing amounts of
stuff. You all know how much he did.

00:47:54.048 --> 00:48:00.609
He was too young to possible have done a third
of the things he managed, and who knows what

00:48:00.609 --> 00:48:05.063
he would have achieved with another 50 years.
But in-between those days, there'd be days

00:48:05.063 --> 00:48:12.075
when he was just blue. I remember I caught
him on one of those and said, "Aaron, this

00:48:12.075 --> 00:48:16.109
is amazing stuff. We can go and do it right
now."

00:48:16.109 --> 00:48:22.067
And he just said, "No, the code, it's all
terrible, it's ugly, it's broken." I'm like,

00:48:22.067 --> 00:48:29.055
"OK, let's do some science." And he'd say,
"No, the data doesn't work, it sucks, it's

00:48:29.055 --> 00:48:37.018
too hard." And I said, "Surely, there must
be something that you'd be doing. That really

00:48:37.018 --> 00:48:45.071
would feel right." And he stopped for a while
and said, "Yes, actually. Typography."

00:48:45.071 --> 00:48:47.001
[laughter]

00:48:47.001 --> 00:49:00.004
I could do typography. Anyway, so he was contradictory.
You never knew exactly what to make of him.

00:49:00.004 --> 00:49:04.369
He was brilliant and sometimes and infuriating
and wrong. Like, the Chinese room argument.

00:49:04.369 --> 00:49:04.071
[laughter]

00:49:04.071 --> 00:49:12.005
But then sometimes...I guess I'm talking about
paradoxes in Aaron. Sometimes he was infuriating

00:49:12.005 --> 00:49:18.035
and wrong and brilliant at the same time.
And I have one story about a paradox. He and

00:49:18.035 --> 00:49:21.021
I were talking about moral philosophy, ethical
philosophy.

00:49:21.021 --> 00:49:26.009
We were both interested in these ideas, the
[inaudible 00: 49:23] ideas of...actually,

00:49:26.009 --> 00:49:31.001
we have a responsibility to find the thing
that we can do that makes the most difference

00:49:31.001 --> 00:49:35.041
to the universe, to the world, and makes it
better, whatever that means.

00:49:35.041 --> 00:49:43.042
But I had just read a paper about a paradox
showing that actually, if you write down all

00:49:43.042 --> 00:49:48.073
of our most compelling intuitions about what
it is for the world to be good, so that we

00:49:48.073 --> 00:49:52.071
can know how to make it better. You write
them all down, you can actually mathematically

00:49:52.071 --> 00:49:59.092
prove it's a recent result, 10 years old by
a Swedish philosopher. Our deepest intuitions

00:49:59.092 --> 00:50:04.039
about this are flatly contradictory. It's
a 'paradox. There is actually no completely

00:50:04.039 --> 00:50:10.049
coherent definition of what makes the world
better.

00:50:10.049 --> 00:50:13.067
And Aaron just looked at me and said, "That's
completely wrong." Like, "Actually, no, it's

00:50:13.067 --> 00:50:18.096
this, this and this." And I said, "Aaron,
you're arguing with a mathematical theorem.

00:50:18.096 --> 00:50:24.096
I have a proof of it right here. You're not
pointing out any flaws in the logic in this

00:50:24.096 --> 00:50:26.109
paper."

00:50:26.109 --> 00:50:32.859
And he said, "No, no, it's like..." Then I
stopped and I stared at him for a while and

00:50:32.859 --> 00:50:39.072
I said, "I'm not sure you're right, but actually
maybe we can find a way out of this theorem."

00:50:39.072 --> 00:50:44.015
It's not an impossibility theorem, it's not
a paradox.

00:50:44.015 --> 00:50:49.031
Actually, maybe it's more like an uncertainty
theorem. We can rehabilitate it as a kind

00:50:49.031 --> 00:50:53.052
of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle for
morality. You can't be completely sure about

00:50:53.052 --> 00:50:58.077
what's right. But you can actually pin the
amount of uncertainty down to minimum and

00:50:58.077 --> 00:51:03.018
still get the right answers to obvious moral
dilemmas.

00:51:03.018 --> 00:51:07.041
So he and I actually sat down and wrote a
paper about this which we still haven't published.

00:51:07.041 --> 00:51:12.065
I now actually have a...this is a thing I
promised to Aaron's ghost. I'm going to finish

00:51:12.065 --> 00:51:20.047
that paper and maybe people will read it.
But he was paradoxical and yet he got so much

00:51:20.047 --> 00:51:24.053
done, did so many amazing things at the same
time.

00:51:24.053 --> 00:51:34.002
There's a lot more I want to say and there
are a lot of things that we all need to do.

00:51:34.002 --> 00:51:40.041
Because Aaron's loss reminded us or pointed
out that they needed to be done. Some of them

00:51:40.041 --> 00:51:47.052
are things that matter a lot to this community
here in this room. We need to free the literature,

00:51:47.052 --> 00:51:50.097
the scientific literature, that Aaron died
trying to free.

00:51:50.097 --> 00:51:59.069
And we also need to figure out what we can
do to fix the insane criminal justice system

00:51:59.069 --> 00:52:03.369
in the United States.

00:52:03.369 --> 00:52:06.059
[applause]

00:52:06.059 --> 00:52:17.083
But I've said enough for tonight, and there
other people who will take up these threads.

00:52:17.083 --> 00:52:34.083
[Tim O'Reilly] I've been asked how I as a
publisher who has an online service that puts

00:52:34.083 --> 00:52:43.068
content behind a paywall could possibly be
a support of Aaron Schwartz, this guy who

00:52:43.068 --> 00:52:53.095
downloads content from services like that.
And my answer is that we're trying to invent

00:52:53.095 --> 00:53:04.017
the future, and the future does not look like
the past. And the future is uncovered by struggle

00:53:04.017 --> 00:53:13.619
to figure out what works and what doesn't
work. And the people who figure that out are

00:53:13.619 --> 00:53:16.008
people to whom we owe an enormous debt.

00:53:16.008 --> 00:53:23.053
I was trying to think of, you know, past experiences
with Aaron. When I first met him, he came

00:53:23.053 --> 00:53:31.017
to our Foo Camp and our Etech Conferences.
But what I decided to share with you is a

00:53:31.017 --> 00:53:39.038
poem that I read as part of a talk that I
gave at our Etech Conference in 2008. And

00:53:39.038 --> 00:53:46.006
I checked, and just to refresh memory, Aaron
was there.

00:53:46.006 --> 00:53:52.619
The poem was part of a talk entitled, "Why
I Love Hackers." And I started out with a

00:53:52.619 --> 00:53:59.045
picture of some berries, some poisonous ones
and some ones that were good to eat. And I

00:53:59.045 --> 00:54:04.082
said, "Somewhere way back in time, somebody
had the courage to figure out which of these

00:54:04.082 --> 00:54:14.007
things were good to eat." And I talked about
people wanting to fly, and how it was this

00:54:14.007 --> 00:54:21.859
crazy dream, and eventually, we figured it
out, and lots of other stories from the history

00:54:21.859 --> 00:54:23.005
of hacking.

00:54:23.005 --> 00:54:29.043
And then I ended with a poem, which seems
singularly appropriate for Aaron because it's

00:54:29.043 --> 00:54:36.007
about both the courage to try to do what hasn't
been done, to change the world, but also how

00:54:36.007 --> 00:54:41.072
hard that is, and the challenge of it. It's
a poem called "The Man Watching," by Rainer

00:54:41.072 --> 00:54:44.089
Maria Rilke, in translation by Robert Bly.

00:54:44.089 --> 00:54:51.076
He said, "I can tell by the way the trees
beat, after so many dull days on my worried

00:54:51.076 --> 00:54:58.023
window panes, that a storm is coming, and
I hear the far-off fields say things. I can't

00:54:58.023 --> 00:55:01.091
bear without a friend. I can't love without
a sister."

00:55:01.091 --> 00:55:09.095
"The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives
on across the woods and across time, and the

00:55:09.095 --> 00:55:16.064
world looks as if it had no age. The landscape,
like a line in the psalm book, is seriousness

00:55:16.064 --> 00:55:18.009
and weight and eternity."

00:55:18.009 --> 00:55:27.014
"What we choose to fight is so tiny. What
fights us is so great. If only we would let

00:55:27.014 --> 00:55:33.073
ourselves be dominated, as things do, by some
immense storm. We would become strong too,

00:55:33.073 --> 00:55:35.003
and not need names."

00:55:35.003 --> 00:55:43.003
"When we win, it's with small things, and
the triumph itself makes us small. What is

00:55:43.003 --> 00:55:50.004
extraordinary and eternal does not want to
be bent by us. I mean, the angel who appeared

00:55:50.004 --> 00:55:55.055
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament. When
the wrestler's sinews grew long like metal

00:55:55.055 --> 00:55:59.096
strings, he felt them under his fingers like
chords of deep music."

00:55:59.096 --> 00:56:07.043
"Whoever was beaten by this angel, who often
simply declined the fight, went away proud,

00:56:07.043 --> 00:56:13.016
and strengthened, and great from that harsh
hand, that needed him as if to change his

00:56:13.016 --> 00:56:21.349
shape. Winning does not tempt that man. This
is how he grows, by being defeated, decisively,

00:56:21.349 --> 00:56:26.007
by constantly greater beings."

00:56:26.007 --> 00:56:32.019
I don't know whether Aaron was defeated or
victorious, but we are certainly shaped by

00:56:32.019 --> 00:56:38.034
the hand of the things that he wrestled with.

00:56:38.034 --> 00:56:41.002
[applause]

00:56:41.002 --> 00:56:56.001
[Molly Shaffer Van Houweling] I didn't know
Aaron quite as well as many who have been

00:56:56.001 --> 00:57:01.024
so generous in sharing their memories. But
as a member of the board of directors of Creative

00:57:01.024 --> 00:57:08.066
Commons, I am honored to be here to convey
CC's grief, our gratitude, and our commitment

00:57:08.066 --> 00:57:13.046
to continuing to work toward the world of
openness and sharing that Aaron worked to

00:57:13.046 --> 00:57:16.076
architect for all of us.

00:57:16.076 --> 00:57:20.093
Many of you recently helped us celebrate the
tenth birth of Creative Commons, commemorating

00:57:20.093 --> 00:57:27.021
the launch in December, 2002 of our first
suite of open content licenses at the party

00:57:27.021 --> 00:57:32.599
that Seth described. But of course there was
a gestation period before the birth of CC

00:57:32.599 --> 00:57:38.005
and that's when I met Aaron thanks to Lisa.
I think he was 15 when I met him, but appeared

00:57:38.005 --> 00:57:42.005
to be about 11.

00:57:42.005 --> 00:57:48.002
As most of you know, Creative Commons is a
steward of a set of public content licenses.

00:57:48.002 --> 00:57:54.007
They have licensed deeds and legal code and
RDF metadata that is designed to make the

00:57:54.007 --> 00:58:02.099
license human-readable and lawyer-readable
and machine-readable. That's the beauty of

00:58:02.099 --> 00:58:03.082
the CC vision.

00:58:03.082 --> 00:58:08.068
But it's also a challenge. It's a challenge
to find any one person who can really wrap

00:58:08.068 --> 00:58:16.044
their heads around and talk about this idea.
A person who understands humans and lawyers

00:58:16.044 --> 00:58:24.067
and machines. So when Lisa and I first described
CC at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference

00:58:24.067 --> 00:58:29.022
in May, 2002, we needed some help.

00:58:29.022 --> 00:58:38.002
Speaking for myself, I was human and I was
a lawyer, but I didn't read or speak machine.

00:58:38.002 --> 00:58:45.072
So the idea of explaining what CC would have
to do with HTML, XML, RDF, and the W3C terrified

00:58:45.072 --> 00:58:52.014
me. So I gave a presentation in which I said
some boring things about law and some vague

00:58:52.014 --> 00:58:59.018
things about metadata. Lisa gave a demonstration
that I think was more exciting. But when the

00:58:59.018 --> 00:59:05.096
complicated questions from the audience started,
we handed the mic down to little Aaron.

00:59:05.096 --> 00:59:13.039
With some trepidation...I'd just met the kid-but
it was an act from me of pure desperation.

00:59:13.039 --> 00:59:22.000
I couldn't answer those questions about RDF,
and I figured, well, at least he's adorable.

00:59:22.000 --> 00:59:25.065
[laughter]

00:59:25.065 --> 00:59:32.066
Of course, I found Aaron's notes on the presentation
still online this afternoon. They read almost

00:59:32.066 --> 00:59:38.078
like poetry. "We did the Creative Commons
intro in the morning. Lisa forgot the VGA

00:59:38.078 --> 00:59:44.029
dongle for her iBook, so I donated mine instead.
Whole thing seemed to go over pretty well.

00:59:44.029 --> 00:59:47.025
I answered a couple of questions at the end."

00:59:47.025 --> 00:59:53.022
I think Aaron answered all of the questions,
and I was wrong to be nervous about it. Of

00:59:53.022 --> 01:00:00.046
course he could answer the questions and delight
the audience, not with his adorableness, not

01:00:00.046 --> 01:00:07.869
only that, with his vision and with his ability
to communicate it to all of us.

01:00:07.869 --> 01:00:13.094
We were finally hearing from someone who could
explain to humans, and even to lawyers, how

01:00:13.094 --> 01:00:22.079
to harness the power of machines to overcome
unnecessary limits on sharing. Aaron's vision,

01:00:22.079 --> 01:00:29.029
more powerful than I could explain or even
comprehend, how to harness the power of machines

01:00:29.029 --> 01:00:34.018
to overcome unnecessary limits on sharing.

01:00:34.018 --> 01:00:39.078
It was a vision Aaron pursued for CC, but
far beyond CC as well, as many of you can

01:00:39.078 --> 01:00:48.041
attest better than I, but Aaron was not a
machine, and he was not a lawyer. He was a

01:00:48.041 --> 01:00:57.005
human, and tragically mortal, but his vision
was not. The answers he gave to our questions

01:00:57.005 --> 01:00:59.022
were not.

01:00:59.022 --> 01:01:05.001
He shared them, and so we still have them,
and the people in this room are dedicated

01:01:05.001 --> 01:01:11.034
to sharing them forward, and to making the
machines for sharing them forward work better

01:01:11.034 --> 01:01:18.081
and better, and to making the law for sharing
them forward work better and better.

01:01:18.081 --> 01:01:24.004
I want to end with something else that Aaron
shared. It's just a casual email to a W3C

01:01:24.004 --> 01:01:31.034
list from August 2002. To me, it captures
his brilliance, his gift for communicating,

01:01:31.034 --> 01:01:35.051
his vision of sharing, and his generous spirit.

01:01:35.051 --> 01:01:43.109
"Hi there. If you haven't already heard, Creative
Commons is a new nonprofit organization working

01:01:43.109 --> 01:01:47.047
to make it easier for copyright holders to
share their work by dedicating to the public

01:01:47.047 --> 01:01:52.609
domain, or licensing it to the public on generous
terms. As part of that effort, we've been

01:01:52.609 --> 01:01:57.369
working hard to develop our licenses and metadata
strategy over the past few months."

01:01:57.369 --> 01:02:02.033
"When we launch our site, we want to not only
give our users licenses, but also a sample

01:02:02.033 --> 01:02:06.095
of RDF that they can add to their web page.
We're hoping that by spreading these chunks

01:02:06.095 --> 01:02:11.589
of RDF around the web, we'll provide a useful
base that interesting projects and applications

01:02:11.589 --> 01:02:15.007
can exploit. For more information, please
check out our website."

01:02:15.007 --> 01:02:20.068
"We'd appreciate your comments, thoughts,
and code. Please send them to the cc-metadata

01:02:20.068 --> 01:02:27.038
mailing list. We'll be monitoring the list
and responding to your questions. Thanks.

01:02:27.038 --> 01:02:28.025
Aaron."

01:02:28.025 --> 01:02:35.066
"We'll be monitoring the list and responding
to your questions." I hope that, somehow,

01:02:35.066 --> 01:02:40.089
Aaron is monitoring this list.

01:02:40.089 --> 01:02:43.026
[applause]

01:02:43.026 --> 01:02:49.007
I hope we return to his words and his vision
to help answer our questions, and that we

01:02:49.007 --> 01:03:01.007
share those answers with our fellow humans.
To Aaron, thank you. Thank you for sharing.

01:03:01.007 --> 01:03:05.096
[applause]

01:03:05.096 --> 01:03:17.869
[Alex Stamos] Unlike a lot of the people here,
I didn't know Aaron. I never met him, didn't

01:03:17.869 --> 01:03:22.094
speak to him on the phone, never even got
to exchange emails with him, which, ironically,

01:03:22.094 --> 01:03:25.006
is why I'm here.

01:03:25.006 --> 01:03:29.001
The fact that I didn't know him is the reason
why I was going to be the person that was

01:03:29.001 --> 01:03:36.001
put forth to objectively explain to the jury
of what Aaron did, and I think I was able

01:03:36.001 --> 01:03:41.064
to hold onto that objectivity until the last
week and a half, and per Teran's comments,

01:03:41.064 --> 01:03:45.067
I've perhaps become much more radical than
I was before, which you can tell, because

01:03:45.067 --> 01:03:49.053
I'm wearing my radical tie today.

01:03:49.053 --> 01:03:52.066
[laughter]

01:03:52.066 --> 01:03:57.058
What we were going to do is...I was objectively
going to go in front of that jury, and explain

01:03:57.058 --> 01:04:02.093
to them that these horrible hacking crimes
that Aaron was accused of is functionally

01:04:02.093 --> 01:04:08.051
the same as putting in the incorrect email
address to an airport WiFi, or going down

01:04:08.051 --> 01:04:12.052
the street to Starbucks to change your IP
address.

01:04:12.052 --> 01:04:18.023
Dan Purcell was going to get up there and
grill MIT and JSTOR witnesses, and talk to

01:04:18.023 --> 01:04:22.005
them about how this kind of thing happens
dozens and dozens of times a year at MIT,

01:04:22.005 --> 01:04:28.119
and yet Aaron is the first person to ever
have the Secret Service get involved. That

01:04:28.119 --> 01:04:31.074
JSTOR witness was going to talk about how,
"Oh, there wasn't really any damage. We were

01:04:31.074 --> 01:04:36.021
a little ticked off, but this isn't a big
deal for us, and we don't want this to happen."

01:04:36.021 --> 01:04:41.098
Then Elliot Peters was going to get up and
give this fiery defense attorney speech, pounding

01:04:41.098 --> 01:04:47.078
the table, and pointing to Boston Harbor,
and invoking the American Revolution, and

01:04:47.078 --> 01:04:53.002
the spirit of freedom, and how Aaron lives
up to the greatest ideals in our founding

01:04:53.002 --> 01:04:54.082
documents.

01:04:54.082 --> 01:04:59.028
Then Aaron's future was going to be in the
hands of 12 normal people, I mean, normal

01:04:59.028 --> 01:05:04.038
people who couldn't get out of jury duty,
but hopefully people who, I think, would have

01:05:04.038 --> 01:05:12.013
had the sense to understand that there is
a huge chasm between the way Aaron was being

01:05:12.013 --> 01:05:17.001
portrayed by the government and the young
man who was sitting there at that table.

01:05:17.001 --> 01:05:21.066
I had faith in them, and we're not going to
get that chance to do all those things, and

01:05:21.066 --> 01:05:27.031
we can't help Aaron anymore, but I think we,
and by "we," I mean everybody who is listening

01:05:27.031 --> 01:05:32.599
to this, we can help the next Aaron, and we
didn't have to wait very long for the next

01:05:32.599 --> 01:05:33.065
Aaron.

01:05:33.065 --> 01:05:39.066
The next Aaron is the Chinese-American man
who is accused of stealing source code from

01:05:39.066 --> 01:05:45.046
a hedge fund, and is being prosecuted under
the Espionage Act. The next Aaron is the Canadian

01:05:45.046 --> 01:05:51.024
student who was expelled from his university
for pointing out security flaws to the university

01:05:51.024 --> 01:05:54.043
in their software that exposed his personal
information.

01:05:54.043 --> 01:05:59.000
The next Aaron is going to be that young lady
whose DEFCON speech is interrupted by the

01:05:59.000 --> 01:06:07.119
clink of handcuffs, or that grandfather who
is mystified by the demand for $50,000 to

01:06:07.119 --> 01:06:11.077
pay for copyright violations, because his
next door neighbor uses open WiFi to do a

01:06:11.077 --> 01:06:16.072
little BitTorrent. Those are the next Aarons,
and those are the people we can help.

01:06:16.072 --> 01:06:20.098
One of the reasons, I think we really to need
help them is, while I think all of us feel

01:06:20.098 --> 01:06:29.044
gratified about the outpouring of love and
care, and the feeling of momentum that has

01:06:29.044 --> 01:06:31.869
come out of the last week and a half.

01:06:31.869 --> 01:06:38.002
We also have to be really aware that we want,
that when people face the same kind of odds

01:06:38.002 --> 01:06:44.869
that Aaron faced, many of them without Aaron's
resources, that we want them not to think

01:06:44.869 --> 01:06:49.096
Aaron's final moments of weakness and doubt
to be the kind of thing that they need to

01:06:49.096 --> 01:06:52.089
do to bring about change.

01:06:52.089 --> 01:06:54.021
There are two things we need to do for that.
One...

01:06:54.021 --> 01:06:54.025
[applause]

01:06:54.025 --> 01:07:04.081
One, we need to give those people as much
as much support as Aaron was able to give.

01:07:04.081 --> 01:07:12.098
Those people don't know Larry Lessig. They
don't hang out with MIT professors, yet they

01:07:12.098 --> 01:07:16.005
need the kind of support that Aaron was able
to muster.

01:07:16.005 --> 01:07:20.064
One of the things I realized through this
whole thing is we never considered computer

01:07:20.064 --> 01:07:27.007
science to be the kind of thing that is a
profession that changes lives, and something

01:07:27.007 --> 01:07:31.099
this has demonstrated is that being able to
make an argument of whether a MAC address

01:07:31.099 --> 01:07:37.031
is just something that you use to keep collisions
from happening on a network, it is not equivalent

01:07:37.031 --> 01:07:39.078
to the serial number on a gun.

01:07:39.078 --> 01:07:44.089
Making that argument is the kind of thing
that can mean spending decades in prison.

01:07:44.089 --> 01:07:49.093
There are other professions that are life-changing,
medicine and law, and in those professions,

01:07:49.093 --> 01:07:54.052
people have an idea about equal access and
helping people, and that doesn't happen in

01:07:54.052 --> 01:07:56.065
reality, but at least they try.

01:07:56.065 --> 01:07:59.071
There's an idea that everybody has a defense
lawyer. There's an idea that you can go and

01:07:59.071 --> 01:08:03.094
get treated by a doctor, and they have an
ethical obligation to you. I think those of

01:08:03.094 --> 01:08:09.022
us in the computer world need to see, via
Aaron's tragedy, that we have the same kind

01:08:09.022 --> 01:08:11.031
of obligation.

01:08:11.031 --> 01:08:13.021
[applause]

01:08:13.021 --> 01:08:20.002
The second thing we all need to do is when
we are up here speaking, or we're commenting

01:08:20.002 --> 01:08:27.369
on Reddit, or Hacker News, or talking to people
about Aaron, while we talk about the positive

01:08:27.369 --> 01:08:33.679
change that is going to come out of his death,
we have to make it clear that all of those

01:08:33.679 --> 01:08:38.279
positive things pale in comparison to what
he would've done had he lived.

01:08:38.279 --> 01:08:39.019
[applause]

01:08:39.019 --> 01:08:44.619
That's an important part of the message, because
we don't want those young people to think

01:08:44.619 --> 01:08:51.179
that their only way out is to sacrifice themselves,
that they deserve to live too, and that they

01:08:51.179 --> 01:08:58.309
have people who are standing behind them.
Thank you.

01:08:58.309 --> 01:09:00.369
[applause]

01:09:00.369 --> 01:09:13.609
[Cindy Cohn] Good evening. Thank you everybody.
We're all starting with how we met Aaron.

01:09:13.609 --> 01:09:18.119
I think I met Aaron before this, but my first
real memory of him is on the steps of the

01:09:18.119 --> 01:09:24.569
United States Supreme Court on the night before
the Eldred argument in 2002. I remember thinking,

01:09:24.569 --> 01:09:28.509
"Does your mother know you're here?"

01:09:28.509 --> 01:09:33.759
I recently found his account of that night,
and it reminded me of how very young he was,

01:09:33.759 --> 01:09:39.279
how excited he was to be at the court, and
yet, his understanding of the nuances of the

01:09:39.279 --> 01:09:46.429
Copyright Term Extension Act were better than
mine at that time. I also realized that by

01:09:46.429 --> 01:09:51.949
having our first...or least, the first I'd
met, really, Fanboy, that we were building

01:09:51.949 --> 01:09:55.082
a movement.

01:09:55.082 --> 01:10:01.003
Since the early morning of January 12th, when
I learned that Aaron had passed away, I feel

01:10:01.003 --> 01:10:07.289
like I've had a little Aaron on my shoulder,
reminding me that we are still part of a movement,

01:10:07.289 --> 01:10:12.999
and demanding that we push forward, push further,
and that the tragedy of his death be parts

01:10:12.999 --> 01:10:17.019
of the roots of something good and something
better.

01:10:17.019 --> 01:10:24.239
I don't think Aaron named his organization
Demand Progress by accident. At EFF, we feel

01:10:24.239 --> 01:10:28.809
this intensely, and I think we feel it in
two directions. First, we feel the need to

01:10:28.809 --> 01:10:34.055
continue his work, opening access to publicly
funded and public domain information for all

01:10:34.055 --> 01:10:38.719
people, so that you don't have to be in an
ivory tower to learn.

01:10:38.719 --> 01:10:40.239
[applause]

01:10:40.239 --> 01:10:48.989
The second, though, is the one that I've spent
most of my time on for the last few weeks,

01:10:48.989 --> 01:10:54.001
and that was number four on Taren's list,
which is trying to fix the Computer Fraud

01:10:54.001 --> 01:10:56.086
and Abuse Act.

01:10:56.086 --> 01:11:00.829
EFF has a draft of some modest fixes that
would reduce the ability of prosecutors to

01:11:00.829 --> 01:11:07.039
use the CFAA, and similar computer laws, to
ratchet up threats on people like Aaron. It's

01:11:07.039 --> 01:11:10.034
on our website. It's on Reddit.

01:11:10.034 --> 01:11:13.929
Representative Zoe Lofgren, as many of you
know, had led the way, and remains willing

01:11:13.929 --> 01:11:21.599
to help, but we have to create the space for
real change, not not-real change, and that

01:11:21.599 --> 01:11:26.269
remains to be done. Her initial proposals
are not sufficient.

01:11:26.269 --> 01:11:32.026
We have a lot of work to do to get this where
it will be, but we need to ensure that what

01:11:32.026 --> 01:11:36.789
happened to Aaron never happens to another
bright, idealistic, geeky kid who wants to

01:11:36.789 --> 01:11:41.015
make the world a better place, and if we can't
do it in Congress, then we need to do it in

01:11:41.015 --> 01:11:48.709
the courts, but we need your help. In fact,
we need the help of everyone you all know.

01:11:48.709 --> 01:11:52.539
We need to marshal the same sort of support
for this fight that we were able to marshal

01:11:52.539 --> 01:11:58.909
with SOPA about SOPA and PIPA, and maybe even
more, since this involves not just Hollywood,

01:11:58.909 --> 01:12:06.329
but federal power, and we won't have Aaron.

01:12:06.329 --> 01:12:11.032
I was hesitant to make this bold pitch at
Aaron's memorial, but honestly, I don't think

01:12:11.032 --> 01:12:16.044
Aaron would've forgiven me if I didn't. We
can't help Aaron directly anymore, but we

01:12:16.044 --> 01:12:21.449
can help the next Aaron, and the one after
that, and all of us who would be the beneficiaries

01:12:21.449 --> 01:12:26.789
of what those next Aarons will create for
us, and the knowledge that they will make

01:12:26.789 --> 01:12:32.209
available to all the rest of us and all the
people around the world.

01:12:32.209 --> 01:12:38.849
I think we built the movement that I first
saw by seeing the little fanboy, Aaron Swartz,

01:12:38.849 --> 01:12:45.719
in 2002, so now, let's use it.

01:12:45.719 --> 01:12:49.619
[applause]

01:12:49.619 --> 01:13:06.034
[Brewster Kahle] Wow. I learned from Aaron
what living an open source life was like.

01:13:06.034 --> 01:13:15.059
I think he really live that way. He floated
and helped others. He gave everything away.

01:13:15.059 --> 01:13:23.026
He really wasn't tied to an institution. He
really was not a company man in any sense.

01:13:23.026 --> 01:13:31.389
He was really quite pure in his motivations,
and it made him incredibly effective of cutting

01:13:31.389 --> 01:13:39.007
through a lot of the stuff that most of us
deal with, an open source life. He was able

01:13:39.007 --> 01:13:46.078
to keep his self-interests at bay, which is
kind of remarkable for a lot of us, but he

01:13:46.078 --> 01:13:54.909
was able to do it, and he was able to communicate
well with an open smile and a kind heart.

01:13:54.909 --> 01:14:03.539
He had a way of spending time, and his energy,
on things that mattered, and he had a genius

01:14:03.539 --> 01:14:10.026
at finding things that mattered to millions
of people. There are lots of things to work

01:14:10.026 --> 01:14:14.479
on, but the things that he worked on were
incredibly effective.

01:14:14.479 --> 01:14:25.239
We first met, I think, in 2002, at the Eldred
Supreme Court case in Washington, DC, when

01:14:25.239 --> 01:14:29.849
we drove a bookmobile across, celebrating
the public domain by giving away books that

01:14:29.849 --> 01:14:36.005
kids made, and also, then, at the Creative
Commons launch.

01:14:36.005 --> 01:14:41.038
I really got to know Aaron when he said, "I'd
really like to help make the Open Library

01:14:41.038 --> 01:14:49.003
website with the Internet Archive, to go and
give books, and integrate books into the Internet

01:14:49.003 --> 01:14:56.349
itself." He said, "I've got this cool technology
called Infogami. It made possible to make

01:14:56.349 --> 01:15:00.969
Reddit happen. Let's use it again for this
other thing."

01:15:00.969 --> 01:15:06.489
It was wonderful to work with him, but it
was really unlike working with anybody else

01:15:06.489 --> 01:15:13.042
I've ever met. You certainly couldn't tell
him what to do. He just did what was the right

01:15:13.042 --> 01:15:19.699
thing to do, and he was right, certainly,
a lot more often than I was.

01:15:19.699 --> 01:15:26.032
We worked together in other areas when he
was a champion of open access, especially

01:15:26.032 --> 01:15:32.044
of the public domain, bringing public access
to the public domain. Most people think that's

01:15:32.044 --> 01:15:37.539
kind of an obvious thing. "Isn't the public
thing mean that it's publicly accessible?"

01:15:37.539 --> 01:15:39.769
Of course, all of us are like, "No."

01:15:39.769 --> 01:15:47.032
It's sort of like there are these national
parks with moats, and walls, and guns, and

01:15:47.032 --> 01:15:53.065
turrets pointing out in case somebody might
want to come near the public domain, and Aaron

01:15:53.065 --> 01:15:59.889
didn't think this was right, and he spent
a lot of time and effort freeing these materials.

01:15:59.889 --> 01:16:05.289
One of the first ones that we were actively
working together on was freeing government

01:16:05.289 --> 01:16:10.889
court cases, so that anybody could see this
without having to have special privilege or

01:16:10.889 --> 01:16:15.449
money, and also, to make it so you could data
mine it, and go and look at these things in

01:16:15.449 --> 01:16:17.749
a very different way.

01:16:17.749 --> 01:16:26.079
He freed and liberated a lot of court cases
from the PACER system, and uploaded them in-bulk

01:16:26.079 --> 01:16:31.429
to the Internet Archive, so that people could
have access to these. There are now four million

01:16:31.429 --> 01:16:37.659
documents from 800,000 cases that have been
used by six million people because of the

01:16:37.659 --> 01:16:43.008
project that Aaron Swartz and others helped
start.

01:16:43.008 --> 01:16:46.044
[applause]

01:16:46.044 --> 01:16:53.429
It was an interesting project because it went
over many different organizations, each playing

01:16:53.429 --> 01:17:02.309
a role, and all cooperating in a very non-corporate
way. It was a very Aaron style way of making

01:17:02.309 --> 01:17:07.088
things happen, and the idea of making court
documents and legal documents available more

01:17:07.088 --> 01:17:14.159
easily struck a chord with me, because in
college, I was trying to figure out how I

01:17:14.159 --> 01:17:17.199
was going to try to get out of the draft.

01:17:17.199 --> 01:17:26.449
My college didn't have a legal collection,
and the only way I could try to get to legal

01:17:26.449 --> 01:17:35.349
court documents was to get an ID from my professor
and break into the Harvard Law Library to

01:17:35.349 --> 01:17:38.078
go and read court documents.

01:17:38.078 --> 01:17:40.979
[applause]

01:17:40.979 --> 01:17:49.011
That sucked. It really makes no sense, and
Aaron not only saw that it doesn't make sense,

01:17:49.011 --> 01:17:57.519
he decided he was going to try to help solve
this, not just for himself, but for everyone.

01:17:57.519 --> 01:18:01.053
Then there were other public domain collections,
like the Google Books collection.

01:18:01.053 --> 01:18:07.789
Google Books was a library project to go and
digitize lots and lots of books. A lot of

01:18:07.789 --> 01:18:14.003
them were public domain. Google would make
them available from their website, but really,

01:18:14.003 --> 01:18:19.239
really painfully. It would make it so that
if you wanted one book, you could get one

01:18:19.239 --> 01:18:25.659
book. If you wanted 100 books, they'd turn
off your IP address forever.

01:18:25.659 --> 01:18:32.001
This is no way to have public access to the
public domain. The Internet Archive started

01:18:32.001 --> 01:18:42.057
getting these uploads of Google Books, going
faster, and faster, and faster. It was like,

01:18:42.057 --> 01:18:48.599
"Well, where are these coming from?" Well,
it turns out, it's Aaron.

01:18:48.599 --> 01:18:52.092
He and a bunch of friends figured out that
they could go and get a bunch of computers

01:18:52.092 --> 01:19:01.119
to go slowly enough to just clock through
tons of Google Books and upload them to the

01:19:01.119 --> 01:19:05.579
Internet Archive. Interestingly, Google never
got upset about it. The libraries, on the

01:19:05.579 --> 01:19:11.179
other hand, grumbled. Anyway, they'll get
over it.

01:19:11.179 --> 01:19:12.051
[laughter]

01:19:12.051 --> 01:19:19.389
When this started happening, we said, "OK,
what's going on? Should we be concerned?"

01:19:19.389 --> 01:19:24.719
"No, it's public domain. We just made sure
that we got the cataloging data right, and

01:19:24.719 --> 01:19:28.036
we linked back to Google, so that if you're
on the book, you can go back to the original

01:19:28.036 --> 01:19:37.479
page and see..." It all worked well, but there
was Aaron doing it again, bringing public

01:19:37.479 --> 01:19:39.619
access to the public domain.

01:19:39.619 --> 01:19:48.639
What is crushing to me is that Aaron got ensnared
by the Federal Government for doing something

01:19:48.639 --> 01:19:56.084
that the Internet Archive actively encourages
others to do for our collections, and we think

01:19:56.084 --> 01:20:04.199
all libraries should encourage, which is bulk
downloading to support data mining and other

01:20:04.199 --> 01:20:12.709
research using computers. This is just the
way the world works.

01:20:12.709 --> 01:20:16.026
[applause]

01:20:16.026 --> 01:20:22.429
The first step is, for a computer to read
and analyze materials, to download a set of

01:20:22.429 --> 01:20:32.005
documents. When Aaron did this from one library,
JSTOR, they strongly objected, and demanded

01:20:32.005 --> 01:20:39.038
that MIT find and stop that user, which then
led US prosecutors to pull out their worst

01:20:39.038 --> 01:20:40.709
techniques.

01:20:40.709 --> 01:20:50.309
Did anybody stop to ask if bulk downloading
is a crime? I say, "No." Bulk downloading

01:20:50.309 --> 01:21:01.055
is not in itself a crime. Let's stop this
practice of discouraging bulk downloading

01:21:01.055 --> 01:21:06.949
because there are encouraging projects that
are learning amazing new things by having

01:21:06.949 --> 01:21:14.084
computers be part of the research process.
Let's not stop this, and discourage young

01:21:14.084 --> 01:21:22.059
people from coming up with new and different
ways to make access, to learn things from

01:21:22.059 --> 01:21:25.079
our libraries.

01:21:25.079 --> 01:21:34.709
What resulted, in this case, was tragic and
not necessary. Really, what we want is computers

01:21:34.709 --> 01:21:43.479
to be able to read. Aaron knew this, we were
all building this, and he got ensnared anyway.

01:21:43.479 --> 01:21:47.082
Let's let our computers read.

01:21:47.082 --> 01:21:53.659
Because of this tragedy, JSTOR, I talked to
this morning, and the Internet Archive have

01:21:53.659 --> 01:22:00.459
agreed to meet to discuss the broad issue
of data mining and web crawling. I hope that

01:22:00.459 --> 01:22:06.689
we really make progress. At least there are
reasons to be positive.

01:22:06.689 --> 01:22:16.011
This assault on Aaron would disillusion, discourage,
and depress a principled young man, and if

01:22:16.011 --> 01:22:24.239
there ever was a principled young man, it
was Aaron Swartz. We miss you, and we will

01:22:24.239 --> 01:22:29.709
carry on your important work.

01:22:29.709 --> 01:22:33.389
[applause]

01:22:33.389 --> 01:22:46.599
[Carl Malamud] Do not. Do not think for a
moment. Do not think for a moment, that Aaron's

01:22:46.599 --> 01:22:52.059
work on JSTOR was a random act of a lone hacker,
some kind of crazy, spur-of-the-moment bulk

01:22:52.059 --> 01:22:59.039
download. JSTOR had long come in for withering
criticism from the net.

01:22:59.039 --> 01:23:04.084
Larry Lessig called JSTOR a moral outrage
in a talk, and I suppose I have to confess

01:23:04.084 --> 01:23:12.219
he was quoting me, and we weren't the only
ones fanning those flames. Sequestering knowledge

01:23:12.219 --> 01:23:18.719
behind pay walls, making scientific journals,
only available to a few kids fortunate enough

01:23:18.719 --> 01:23:25.329
to be at fancy universities, and charging
$20 an article for the remaining 99 percent

01:23:25.329 --> 01:23:28.009
of us, was a festering wound.

01:23:28.009 --> 01:23:34.051
It offended many people. It embarrassed many
who wrote those articles, that their work

01:23:34.051 --> 01:23:42.005
had become somebody's profit margin, a members-only
country club of knowledge. Many of us helped

01:23:42.005 --> 01:23:49.009
fan those flames, and many of us feel guilty
today for fanning those flames, but JSTOR

01:23:49.009 --> 01:23:51.061
was just one of many battles.

01:23:51.061 --> 01:23:56.004
They tried to paint Aaron as some kind of
lone wolf hacker, a young terrorist who went

01:23:56.004 --> 01:24:05.479
on a crazy IP killing spree that caused $92
million in damages, but Aaron wasn't a lone

01:24:05.479 --> 01:24:11.489
wolf. He was part of an army, and I had the
honor of serving with him for a decade. You've

01:24:11.489 --> 01:24:19.179
heard many things about his remarkable life,
but I want to focus tonight on just one.

01:24:19.179 --> 01:24:25.005
Aaron was part of an army of citizens that
believes democracy only works when a citizenry

01:24:25.005 --> 01:24:30.061
are informed, and we know about our rights
and our obligations, an army that believes

01:24:30.061 --> 01:24:36.829
we must make justice and knowledge available
to all, not just the well-born, or those that

01:24:36.829 --> 01:24:42.061
have grabbed the reins of power, so that we
may govern ourselves more wisely.

01:24:42.061 --> 01:24:49.008
He was part of an army of citizens that rejects
kings and generals and believes in rough consensus

01:24:49.008 --> 01:24:54.065
and running code.

01:24:54.065 --> 01:24:58.059
[applause]

01:24:58.059 --> 01:25:05.349
We worked together on a dozen government databases.
When we worked o something, the decisions

01:25:05.349 --> 01:25:11.088
weren't rash. Our work often took months,
sometimes years, sometimes a decade, and Aaron

01:25:11.088 --> 01:25:19.076
Swartz did not get his proper serving of decades.
We looked at and poked at the US copyright

01:25:19.076 --> 01:25:27.015
database for a long time. It was a system
so old it was still running [inaudible 01:

01:25:27.015 --> 01:25:28.139
25:25] .

01:25:28.139 --> 01:25:29.139
[laughter]

01:25:29.139 --> 01:25:35.084
The government had, believe it or not, asserted
copyright on the copyright database. Now how

01:25:35.084 --> 01:25:42.699
you copyright a database that is specifically
called out in the United States Constitution

01:25:42.699 --> 01:25:49.269
is beyond me. But we knew we were playing
with fire by violating their terms of use.

01:25:49.269 --> 01:25:55.007
So we were careful. We grabbed that data and
it was used to feed the Open Library here

01:25:55.007 --> 01:26:00.065
at the Internet Archive, and it was used to
feed Google Books, and we got a letter from

01:26:00.065 --> 01:26:06.269
the Copyright Office waving copyright on that
copyright database.

01:26:06.269 --> 01:26:11.209
But before we did that, we had to talk to
many lawyers and worry about the government

01:26:11.209 --> 01:26:16.019
hauling us in for malicious, pre-meditated
bulk downloading.

01:26:16.019 --> 01:26:17.007
[laughter]

01:26:17.007 --> 01:26:22.699
These were not random acts of aggression.
We worked on databases to make them better,

01:26:22.699 --> 01:26:29.209
to make our democracy work better, to help
our government. We were not criminals. When

01:26:29.209 --> 01:26:36.499
we brought in 20 million pages of US District
Court documents from behind their eight-cent-per-page

01:26:36.499 --> 01:26:43.289
PACER paywall, we found those public filings
infested with privacy violations.

01:26:43.289 --> 01:26:49.739
Names of minor children, names of informants,
medical records, mental health records, financial

01:26:49.739 --> 01:26:56.749
records, and tens of thousands of Social Security
numbers. We were whistleblowers, and we sent

01:26:56.749 --> 01:27:03.013
our results to the chief judges of 31 District
Courts. And those judges were shocked and

01:27:03.013 --> 01:27:07.729
dismayed, and then redacted those documents,
and they yelled at the lawyers that filed

01:27:07.729 --> 01:27:12.038
them, and the Judicial Conference changed
their privacy rules.

01:27:12.038 --> 01:27:12.088
[applause]

01:27:12.088 --> 01:27:19.028
But you know what the bureaucrats did? You
know what the bureaucrats did who ran the

01:27:19.028 --> 01:27:24.051
Administrative Office of the United States
Courts? To them, weren't citizens that made

01:27:24.051 --> 01:27:32.005
public data better. We were thieves that took
$1.6 million of their property. So they called

01:27:32.005 --> 01:27:38.084
the FBI. They said they were hacked by criminals,
an organized gang that was imperiling their

01:27:38.084 --> 01:27:47.019
$120 million per year revenue stream selling
public government documents.

01:27:47.019 --> 01:27:53.269
The FBI sat outside Aaron's house. They called
him up, and tried to sucker him into meeting

01:27:53.269 --> 01:27:59.469
them without his lawyer. The FBI sat two armed
agents down in an interrogation room with

01:27:59.469 --> 01:28:03.289
me to get to the bottom of this alleged conspiracy.

01:28:03.289 --> 01:28:10.034
But we weren't criminals! We were only citizens.
We did nothing wrong. They found nothing wrong.

01:28:10.034 --> 01:28:16.013
We did our duty as citizens and the government
investigation had nothing to show for it but

01:28:16.013 --> 01:28:19.499
a waste of a whole lot of time and money.

01:28:19.499 --> 01:28:26.849
If you want a chilling effect, sit somebody
down with a couple FBI agents for a while

01:28:26.849 --> 01:28:33.309
and see how quickly their blood runs cold.
There are people who face danger every day

01:28:33.309 --> 01:28:39.063
to protect us, police officers, and firefighters,
and emergency workers, and I am grateful and

01:28:39.063 --> 01:28:45.034
amazed by what they do, but the work that
people like Aaron and I did, slinging DVDs

01:28:45.034 --> 01:28:51.092
and running shell scripts on public materials,
should not be a dangerous profession.

01:28:51.092 --> 01:28:59.079
We weren't criminals, but there were crimes
committed, crimes against the very idea of

01:28:59.079 --> 01:29:06.209
justice. When the US attorney told Aaron he
had to plead guilty to 13 felonies for attempting

01:29:06.209 --> 01:29:13.329
to propagate knowledge before she'd even consider
a deal, that was an abuse of power, a misuse

01:29:13.329 --> 01:29:15.199
of the criminal justice system.

01:29:15.199 --> 01:29:15.989
[applause]

01:29:15.989 --> 01:29:25.369
That was a crime against justice, and that
US attorney does not act alone. She is part

01:29:25.369 --> 01:29:32.659
of a posse intent on protecting property,
not people. All over the United States, those

01:29:32.659 --> 01:29:38.849
without access to means don't have access
to justice, and face these abuses of power

01:29:38.849 --> 01:29:40.001
every day.

01:29:40.001 --> 01:29:47.034
It was a crime against learning when a nonprofit
corporation like JSTOR charged with advancing

01:29:47.034 --> 01:29:54.929
knowledge, turned a download, that caused
no harm and no damage, into a $92 million

01:29:54.929 --> 01:30:00.849
federal case, and the JSTOR corporate monopoly
on knowledge is not alone.

01:30:00.849 --> 01:30:07.539
All over the United States, corporations have
staked their fences on the field of education,

01:30:07.539 --> 01:30:13.699
for-profited colleges that steal from our
veterans, nonprofit standard bodies that ration

01:30:13.699 --> 01:30:20.003
public safety codes while paying million dollar
salaries, multinational conglomerates that

01:30:20.003 --> 01:30:26.051
measure the work of scientific papers and
legal materials by their gross margins.

01:30:26.051 --> 01:30:27.769
[applause]

01:30:27.769 --> 01:30:35.539
In the JSTOR case, was the overly aggressive
posture of the department of justice, prosecutors,

01:30:35.539 --> 01:30:41.026
and law enforcement officials revenge, because
they were embarrassed that, in their view

01:30:41.026 --> 01:30:45.439
at least, we somehow got away with something
in the PACER incident?

01:30:45.439 --> 01:30:51.459
Was the merciless JSTOR prosecution the revenge
of embarrassed bureaucrats because they looked

01:30:51.459 --> 01:30:57.489
stupid in the "New York Times," because the
United States Senate called them on the carpet?

01:30:57.489 --> 01:31:02.709
We will probably never know the answer to
that question, but it sure looks like they

01:31:02.709 --> 01:31:09.869
destroyed a young man's life in a petty abuse
of power. This was not a criminal matter.

01:31:09.869 --> 01:31:12.038
Aaron was not a criminal.

01:31:12.038 --> 01:31:17.709
If you think you own something, and I think
that thing is public, I'm more than happy

01:31:17.709 --> 01:31:22.349
to meet you in a court of law, and if you're
right, I'll take my lumps if I've wronged

01:31:22.349 --> 01:31:28.559
you, but when we turn armed agents of the
law on citizens trying to increase access

01:31:28.559 --> 01:31:34.729
to knowledge, we've broken the rule of law.
We've desecrated the temple of justice. Aaron

01:31:34.729 --> 01:31:37.053
Swartz was not a criminal.

01:31:37.053 --> 01:31:38.909
[applause]

01:31:38.909 --> 01:31:50.009
Aaron Swartz was a citizen, and he was a brave
soldier in a war which continues today, a

01:31:50.009 --> 01:31:56.329
war in which corrupt and venal profiteers
try to steal, and horde, and starve our public

01:31:56.329 --> 01:31:59.007
domain for their own private gain.

01:31:59.007 --> 01:32:04.309
When people try to restrict access to the
law, or they try to collect tolls on the road

01:32:04.309 --> 01:32:10.619
to knowledge, or deny education to those without
means, those people are the ones who should

01:32:10.619 --> 01:32:19.719
not face a stern gaze of an outraged public
prosecutor. What the Department of Justice

01:32:19.719 --> 01:32:24.579
put Aaron through for trying to make our world
better is the same thing they can put you

01:32:24.579 --> 01:32:25.479
through.

01:32:25.479 --> 01:32:31.004
Our army isn't one lone wolf. It is thousands
of citizens, many of you in this room, who

01:32:31.004 --> 01:32:37.189
are fighting for justice and knowledge. I
say we are an army, and I use the word with

01:32:37.189 --> 01:32:42.789
cause, because we face people who want to
imprison us for downloading a database to

01:32:42.789 --> 01:32:48.032
take a closer look. We face people who believe
they can tell us what we can read and what

01:32:48.032 --> 01:32:49.739
we can say.

01:32:49.739 --> 01:32:57.189
But when I see our army, I see an army that
creates instead of destroys. I see the army

01:32:57.189 --> 01:33:02.939
of Mahatma Gandhi walking peacefully to the
sea to make salt for the people. I see the

01:33:02.939 --> 01:33:09.059
army of Martin Luther King walking peacefully
but with determination to Washington to demand

01:33:09.059 --> 01:33:15.239
their rights. Because change does not roll
in on the wheels of inevitability, it comes

01:33:15.239 --> 01:33:20.309
through continuous struggle.

01:33:20.309 --> 01:33:23.789
[applause]

01:33:23.789 --> 01:33:31.209
When I see our army, I see an army that creates
new opportunities for the poor. An army that

01:33:31.209 --> 01:33:36.889
makes our society more just and more fair.
An army that makes knowledge universal. When

01:33:36.889 --> 01:33:43.889
I see our army, I see the people who have
created the Wikipedia and the Internet Archive,

01:33:43.889 --> 01:33:49.829
the people who coded GNU and Apache and BIND
and Linux, I see the people who made the EFF

01:33:49.829 --> 01:33:55.057
and the Creative Commons. I see the people
who created our Internet as a gift to the

01:33:55.057 --> 01:33:57.119
world.

01:33:57.119 --> 01:34:03.409
When I see our army, I see Aaron Schwartz,
and my heart is broken. We've truly lost one

01:34:03.409 --> 01:34:10.005
of our better angels. I wish we could change
the past, but we cannot. But we can change

01:34:10.005 --> 01:34:16.289
the future and we must. We must do so for
Aaron. We must do so for ourselves. We must

01:34:16.289 --> 01:34:22.369
do so to make our world a better place, a
more humane place, a place where justice works

01:34:22.369 --> 01:34:26.053
and access to knowledge becomes a human right.
Thank you.

01:34:26.053 --> 99:59:59.999
[applause]