United States v. Aaron Swartz
| United States v. Aaron Swartz | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts | |
| Full case name | United States of America v. Aaron Swartz |
| Citations | 1:11-cr-10260 |
| Judge sitting | Nathaniel M. Gorton |
| Prosecutor(s) |
Carmen Ortiz Stephen Heymann |
| Defendant(s) | Aaron Swartz |
In United States of America v. Aaron Swartz, Aaron Swartz, an American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist, was prosecuted for many violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (CFAA), after downloading a great many academic journal articles through the MIT computer network from a source (JSTOR) for which he had an account as a Harvard research fellow. Facing trial and the possibility of imprisonment, Swartz committed suicide, and the case was consequently dismissed.
On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested by MIT police on state breaking-and-entering charges, in connection with the systematic downloading of academic journal articles from JSTOR. Federal prosecutors eventually charged him with two counts of wire fraud and 11 violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, charges carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines plus 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution and supervised release.
On January 11, 2013, two years after his initial arrest, Swartz was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment, where he had hanged himself.
JSTOR is a digital repository that archives − and disseminates online − manuscripts, GIS systems, scanned plant specimens and content from academic journal articles. Swartz was a research fellow at Harvard University, which provided him with a JSTOR account. Visitors to MIT’s "open campus" were authorized to access JSTOR through its network.
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