yes!!! been postig same around > On 06 Dec 2015, at 11:41, Annie Abrahams <bram....@gmail.com> wrote: > > to read > for those of you who are not an nettime > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: nettime's anonymous source <nett...@kein.org <mailto:nett...@kein.org>> > Date: Sun, Dec 6, 2015 at 10:27 AM > Subject: <nettime> Aaron Schwarz and Wikileaks > To: nettim...@mx.kein.org <mailto:nettim...@mx.kein.org> > > > > http://www.aaronswartzday.org/jacobappelbaum-2015/ > <http://www.aaronswartzday.org/jacobappelbaum-2015/> > > > Lisa: Ladies and Gentlemen, Jacob Appelbaum. > > Jacob: First of all, thank you so very much for having me tonight. It’s > actually really difficult that I can’t be there in person, and I wish > that I could be. And, when Lisa asked me to speak tonight, I actually > didn’t feel that I had something to say until I sat down and wrote a > text. So, I’m just going to read you a text, and as a result I’m going > to cover my camera because there’s nothing worse than watching someone > read. So, as you can see there, it’s just a bright white light, and now > I’m going to read you this text, and I hope that you can still hear me. > > [Crowd chanting “We want Jake!”] > > Jacob: (Laughing) > > Lisa Rein: Jacob, come back on camera, please. Don’t do it, Jake. > > Jacob: I’m sorry. It has to be this way. That’s how it has to be, I’m > sorry, but here we go. > > Lisa: It’s okay. No, no, no! > > Jacob: You can’t fucking be serious. [laughing] Terrible. > > Lisa: Jacob, please. Thank you. (Jesus Christ.) > > Jacob: Look, I want to see all of you, too, but we don’t get what we > want so I’m going to read you this text now. > > The first time that I heard Aaron Swartz speak in person was at the > Creative Commons release party in San Francisco. > > Lisa: Jacob, we’re going to turn it [the podium laptop] around. > > Jacob: I was working the door as a security guard, if you can believe > that. I think it was in December of 2002. Meeting people in that > seemingly weird world mutated life in a good way. Over the years, we > crossed paths many times, be it discussions relating to CodeCon, to age > limits, or free software, or the Creative Commons, or about crypto, or > any other topic. Aaron was an insightful, hilarious, and awesome person. > > Aaron and I worked on a few different overlapping projects and I very > much respected him. Some of the topics that came up were light, but some > were very heavy and very serious. The topic of WikiLeaks was important > to both of us. In November of 2009, long before I was public about my > work with WikiLeaks, I introduced Aaron to someone at WikiLeaks who > shall remain unnamed. If we had a secure and easy way to communicate, if > some sort of communication system had existed that had reduced or > eliminated metadata, I probably could’ve done so without a trace. But we > didn’t. You’re not the first to know, the FBI and the NSA already know. > > Less than a year later, Aaron sent me an email that made it clear how he > felt. That email in its entirety was straightforward and its lack of > encryption was intentional. On July 10, 2010, he wrote, “Just FYI, let > me know if there’s anything, ever, I can do to help WikiLeaks.” Did that > email cast Aaron as an enemy of the state? Did Aaron worry? > > 2010 was an extremely rough year. The US government against everyone. > The investigation of everyone associated with WikiLeaks stepped up. So > many people in Boston were targeted that it was effectively impossible > to find a lawyer without a conflict. Everyone was scared. A cold wave > passed over everything, and it was followed by hardened hearts from many. > > In February of 2011, a few of us were at a party in Boston hosted by > danah boyd. Aaron and I walked a third person home. A third person who > still wishes to remain unknown. The sense of paranoia was overwhelming, > but prudent. The overbearing feeling of coming oppression was crushing > for all three of us. All of us said that our days were numbered in some > sense. Grand juries, looming indictments, threats, political > blacklisting. None of us felt free to speak to one another about > anything. One of those people, as I said, still wishes to remain > unnamed. We walked through the city without crossing certain areas, > because Aaron was worried about being near the properties that MIT owned. > > When Aaron took his life, I remember being told by someone in San > Francisco, and I didn’t understand. I literally did not understand who > they meant or who it could be. It seemed impossible for me to connect > the words that were coming out of their mouth with my memories. > > Shortly after Aaron was found, WikiLeaks disclosed three facts: > > - Aaron assisted WikiLeaks. > - Aaron communicated with Julian and others during 2010 and 2011. > - And Aaron may have even been a source. > > I do not believe that these issues are unrelated to Aaron’s persecution, > and it is clear that the heavy-handed U.S. prosecution pushed Aaron to > take his own life. How sad that he was abandoned by so many in his time > of need. Is it really the case that there was no link? Is it really the > case that the U.S. prosecutors went after Aaron so harshly because of a > couple of Python scripts and some PDFs? No, clearly not. > > I wish that Aaron had lived, as we all do. This was the year that > brought us the summer of Snowden, and yet it felt like ten years of > grief in a single one. It was the last time I spent any time in the > U.S., and even now it feels like a distant memory, mostly bad memories. > Especially the memory of learning about Aaron. > > Only a few months later, in 2013, there was a New Year’s Eve toast with > many of us who were being investigated, harassed, and targeted for our > work, our associations with WikiLeaks, and for our political beliefs. It > was me that stupidly, stupidly said, “We made it.” But I know it was > Roger, and I remember it well, when he said, “Not all of us.” And he > wasn’t speaking only about Aaron, but him too. And it was heartbreaking > to remember, and it was telling of how to cope. How some try to forget, > and we do forget, and that it is important to remember. Especially right > then and especially right there. Just as it is here, and just as it is > right now. > > When we learned more details about the U.S. prosecutors, we learned that > they considered Aaron a dangerous radical for unspecified reasons. One > of the primary reasons is probably the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto. > This is a good document, and, as many others, I respect it and I admire > it. The Guerilla Open Access Manifesto is not as radical as the U.S. > prosecutors might consider it. But their fear is telling, so let us say > it out loud: We should honor it and we should extend it. > > Let’s not only liberate the documents of the world, let us act in > solidarity to liberate all of humanity. Let us create infrastructure > that resists mass surveillance. Let us enable people to leak documents. > And let us also work to infiltrate those organizations that betrayed us. > There is a division of labor, and we all bring different skills to the > table. Let us all use them in service of a better world, in service of > justice. > > We must have total transparency about the investigation into Aaron. Why > was the Department of Justice grinding their axe with Aaron? Was it > really because of JSTOR and the past anger about PACER? That is absurd > and unbelievable. It is disproportionate and it is unjust. > > One concrete thing that needs to happen is for the FOIA case to be > properly resolved. We must find a way to speed up the processing about > FOIAs regarding Aaron. Rather than hundreds of documents at a time, we > should have all 85,000 at once, and not mediated by MIT, who is > partially responsible for the outcome we have today. > > And we must not drop the pressure. If you are invited to MIT, I > encourage you to decline and to explain that you do so because of MIT’s > treatment of Aaron Swartz. But not just Aaron, but those like Star > Simpson and Bunnie, who MIT would’ve left to be like Aaron, if the cards > had played a little differently. > > Here are some things you can do to support the legacy and spirit of > Aaron. We can support the development of some of Aaron’s projects like > SecureDrop. Kevin, Garrett, Micah, and others are carrying that torch. > We can work with them. They’re still with us today. You can come and > work with many people at the Tor Project on Tor Browser and Tor > Messenger, and other software to be of use to disseminate and to push > out information, important information to people that might have > otherwise not happened without that software. And you can come and help > us make free software for freedom, just as Aaron did. > > And there are other projects that need assistance. OnionShare, Let’s > Encrypt, GlobalLeaks, Pawn[?], Subgraph, Signal, the Transparency > Toolkit, and many more. > > But it isn’t just software. There are so many things that can be done. > You can write to prisoners of conscience of Aaron’s generation, of my > generation, of your generation. Do Jeremy Hammond, Barret Brown, and > Chelsea Manning have to die before we work to correct the injustices > that they face daily? We can and we should free them. > > Here are some things to support each other during the hard times, those > with us now and those sure to come in the future. We should support > WikiLeaks, an organization under attack for publishing information in > the public interest. We should support the EFF. They support people who > are at the edge. We should support the ACLU. When others called Edward > Snowden a traitor, the ACLU gave him legal support. We should support > the Courage Foundation. They are the ones that helped Edward Snowden to > seek and to receive asylum and do the same with others that are directly > under threat today and those under threat tomorrow. And we should > support the Library Freedom Project. They work to educate, to deploy, > and to resist, by deploying alternatives in public spaces for everyone > today. And together, we are already building, deploying, supporting, and > using infrastructure which is not merely a matter of protest, but is an > act of resistance in itself, by being a practical alternative. > > And there is a legal lesson that we actually must learn in a very hard > way, as many communities have learned it already, and it is one where > the lawyers in the audience who represent me are already cringing from > what I’ve said, but they’ll cringe harder next. We must resist grand > juries. We must not bow down. We must band together. And together we can > refuse to be isolated. We must resist it every step of the way, never > giving them anything, ever, at all, when they wish to persecute us for > our political beliefs. And if you feel there is no other choice, drag it > out and make it public. > > Consider that the core of Aaron’s legacy is not simply about information > or about writing software. It is about justice, about fairness, through > transparency, through accountability, through consideration. So then let > us consider our empire and most of all we must consider our complicity. > It is up to us to act and to change things, to fight for the user, but > also to consider the world in which he lives. To think as technologists, > but to think far beyond only the technology and into our common humanity. > > How is this lesson applied to gender and racial inequality? Aaron wasn’t > a bigot; he was thoughtful. He was not a homophobic person; he was > accepting. He wasn’t a racist; he was unprejudiced. Aaron was kind and > compassionate. He fought for free speech. He worked and he supported > your anonymity directly with actions, and he worked to free our > culture’s knowledge. We must be forward-thinking, not just about winning > one or two battles. Not just about one or two legal cases. Rather in a > broader sense, towards a movement of movements. The Internet is a > terrain of struggle and it will help shape all of the other terrains of > struggles to come, and Aaron, Aaron helped to shape that terrain for us, > so that we could shape it for others. > > Part of what Aaron carried was an understanding that it wasn’t just that > something needed to be done. He carried with him the idea that very > specific things needed to happen, and for very good reasons, to benefit > all of those alive and all of those yet to live. He cared deeply about > free software, and he cared deeply about the free culture movement. He > worked to advance many other issues. Let us carry on that work, whatever > the cost, wherever they may take us. > > Aaron was headstrong and hilarious. He was young. Today, he would’ve > been 29. Use your time wisely. May you have more time than him, and may > you use it as wisely as he did. > > Good night. > > > > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > <http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l> > # archive: http://www.nettime.org <http://www.nettime.org/> contact: > nett...@kein.org <mailto:nett...@kein.org> > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
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