Aaron Swartz’s suicide is very sad (“A short life absorbed in a complex cyber world,” Page A1, Jan. 15); his family needs much comfort and support. However, the Globe should not make him into a media martyr on account of taking his own life.
Young people who feel strongly about a cause should not be encouraged to take their lives to draw attention to their cause. Had Swartz accepted the much-reduced plea deal offered to him by US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, he could have served his cause better.
Comments
The writer deeply misunderstands the suicide of Mr. Swartz. It seems very clear that it was a despairing response to relentless prosecutorial overreach. When the full power of the State is brought down on a young, idealistic man, fired by an extraordinary intellect and deeply held moral beliefs, this can be the result. Mr. Swartz was not a mafia don who sees jail time as part of his lifestyle or job description. He was not a Buddhist monk acting on a religious belief to call attention to injustice in 1960s Vietnam. This was a brilliant but sensitive kid who was to be deprived of his freedom and cast into prison system inhabited by violent men and sexual predators. For what? Giving unauthorized access to scientific papers! Prosecutors can become enamored of their own power and their own rectitude, losing sight of their own humanity. Was this kid just a notch on some DA's career belt? That is my assumption until shown otherwise.
I believe that he never even gave unauthorized access to these papers--only downloaded them, and I think it's not even clear that he was not authorized to access them. It does seem that prosecutors in this case overreached and that a careful review of what happened is more than in order.