Remember Aaron Swartz

Aaron, I didn’t know you until today, but I have signed some of your petitions and visited the creative commons.

I recognize you as a champion of free thought, speech and expression, and I want to thank you for your work to keep the internet a free meeting place of ideas and information.

I can’t tell you how important your work was and continues to be. If I had a dollar for every academic journal article that I couldn’t access due to online fees paid to the publisher, I would probably have about 5k in my savings right now.

I just wish I had known about the unfair and politically motivated legal struggle that you were going through so that I could have been actively supportive of your cause.

I am, like the rest of the world, tremendously saddened that you are no longer with us to personally continue this struggle, but now that I know of your work I am forever connected to your activism, and thus your memeory, and for that I am forever grateful to you.