It’s 5:58 and I just finished watching The Internet’s Own Boy by Brian Knappenberger. I have some dried tears and some fresh ones running down my cheeks because the subject of this important movie — Aaron Swartz — would have been proud today.
Today an ambitious campaign lead by Lawrence Lessig called Mayday reached an incredible funding goal of five million US Dollars which will be matched by another five million US Dollars.
The goal of this fundraising is to create a “SuperPAC” to end all SuperPAC. A PAC is a Political Action Committee which allows US candidates to elections to pool money in order to finance their campaigns. There is enormous abuse and corruption in campaign finance in the United States of America. This matters to the entire world because the entire world is virtually led by the United States of America — its last remaining super power, and the one nation with the greatest stranglehold on the Internet.
The entire unfortunate end of Aaron Swartz’ life was dedicated to doing the most good he could possibly do. For him this meant allowing the public to access publicly funded research currently locked away in the proprietary grips of for-profit publishers who benefit handsomely from access tolls to invaluable public domain research. Swartz also played a huge role in deafeating the greatest threat to freedom of speech and the Internet ever — the so-called SOPA US bill.
Lawrence Lessig was a friend of Aaron Swartz’s. He’s featured in the movie The Internet’s Own Boy quite a bit. It’s humbling to think that despite Aaron having committed suicide a little over a year ago, Lessig has already been working so hard to uphold his legacy. And I’m sure many others have as well.
If you care about justice, freedom, and you believe the Internet is a tool for good, I urge you to watch The Internet’s Own Boy.
If you are an American Citizen or permanent resident, I kindly urge you to take a second and donate to the Mayday campaign.