Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Internet Activists Plan Protest Over Aaron Swartz

The “hacktivist” group Anonymous) announced today it will hold a protest at the Justice Department on January 25 in memory of web pioneer and Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz.

Swartz, who was found dead in his apartment last week in an apparent suicide, was facing federal hacking charges for illegally downloading academic journal articles. After his death, the Department of Justice dropped all pending charges against Swartz.

In a statement, Swartz’s family and partner called his death “the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach.”

The Anonymous call to protest expressed similar outrage:

”As his body is laid to rest, his image will be burned in our minds with a fire flaming out of control for justice and an apology from the Department of Justice. Days after his death, the DOJ finally dropped Aaron’s charges, something that should’ve been done when no true crime was committed and only free public documents were downloaded.”

The Department of Justice has declined to comment on Swartz’s death, “We want to respect the family’s privacy at this time,” DOJ spokesperson Christina DiIorio-Sterling told NBC News in an article posted Monday afternoon.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.