Archive
Dissenters of the System and Their Untimely Deaths
SANTA ANA, Calif. — Jan. 15, 2013
The digital age has produced a generation of young innovators who challenged the growing concentration of power over information, privacy, and access to knowledge. Among them were Ilya Zhitomirskiy and Aaron Swartz—two gifted technologists whose work sought to empower internet users and expand access to information. Both died by suicide at a young age, leaving behind projects and ideas that continue to influence debates over privacy, freedom, and the future of the internet.
Many people may not recognize the name Ilya Zhitomirskiy, but the young programmer was one of the co-founders of Diaspora, an ambitious open-source social networking project designed as an alternative to Facebook.
At a time when concerns about digital privacy were rapidly growing, Diaspora promised users greater control over their personal information through a decentralized network. The project emerged in response to widespread criticism of social media companies and the increasing collection of user data by corporations and government agencies.
For years, users have expressed concerns that personal data has become a commodity—collected, analyzed, bought, sold, and shared for commercial and governmental purposes. Critics argue that social media platforms have transformed privacy into a product rather than a right.
Facebook, in particular, became a focal point of these concerns. Privacy advocates pointed to the company’s data collection practices and its cooperation with government requests for user information. The passage of the Patriot Act following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks further intensified debates about surveillance, privacy, and government access to digital communications.
Diaspora sought to offer a different model. Its founders envisioned a social network where users—not corporations—would retain control over their personal data.
Zhitomirskiy was born Oct. 12, 1989, in Moscow, Russia. He later immigrated to the United States and became an American software developer and entrepreneur. He was best known for co-founding Diaspora, the decentralized social networking platform that attracted international attention as a privacy-focused alternative to Facebook.
Tragically, Zhitomirskiy died in November 2011 at the age of 22, just days before the public launch of Diaspora. His death shocked the technology community.
“Shocked and deeply sad for the world that my friend @zhitomirskiy, co-founder of Diaspora, is dead. The world needed his voice,” Mozilla developer Aza Raskin wrote at the time.
The loss of Zhitomirskiy was followed by another tragedy that deeply affected advocates of open information and internet freedom.
Aaron Swartz was a brilliant computer programmer, writer, and internet activist whose contributions helped shape the modern web. A child prodigy, he contributed to the development of RSS web syndication technology and later became a prominent advocate for open access to information.
Swartz believed that publicly funded research should be freely accessible rather than locked behind expensive academic journals. His efforts to challenge barriers to knowledge made him a respected figure among digital rights advocates.
In 2011, federal prosecutors charged Swartz with multiple computer-related offenses after he downloaded millions of academic articles from the JSTOR database through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology network. If convicted on all counts, he faced the possibility of decades in prison and substantial financial penalties.
Supporters argued that the prosecution was excessive and intended to make an example of him. Critics of the case contend that the government’s aggressive legal strategy contributed significantly to the immense pressure he experienced.
On Jan. 11, 2013, Aaron Swartz died by suicide at the age of 26.
His death sparked international debate about prosecutorial discretion, digital rights, academic publishing, and the criminal justice system’s treatment of nonviolent computer-related offenses.
The deaths of Ilya Zhitomirskiy and Aaron Swartz have raised difficult questions about the pressures faced by young innovators who challenge established systems and institutions.
Diaspora’s mission to protect user privacy and Swartz’s campaign for open access to information reflected a broader struggle over who controls knowledge and personal data in the digital age.
As debates over privacy, surveillance, intellectual property, and access to information continue, the contributions of both men remain part of an ongoing conversation about the future of the internet and the freedoms it was once expected to protect.
National Security Letters
Posted on June 11, 2013 by Akashma Online News
National Security Letters
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Defending Your Rights in the Digital World
Of all the dangerous government surveillance powers that were expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act the National Security Letter (NSL) power under 18 U.S.C. § 2709 as expanded by PATRIOT Section 505 is one of the most frightening and invasive. These letters served on communications service providers like phone companies and ISPs allow the FBI to secretly demand data about ordinary American citizens’ private communications and Internet activity without any meaningful oversight or prior judicial review. Recipients of NSLs are subject to a gag order that forbids them from ever revealing the letters’ existence to their coworkers to their friends or even to their family members much less the public.
The FBI’s systemic abuse of this power has been documented both by a Department Of Justice investigation and in documents obtained by Electronic Frontier Foundation through a Freedom of Information Act request.
EFF has fought for years to spread awareness of National Security Letters and add accountability and oversight to the process.
In 2007 EFF filed Freedom of Information Act litigation seeking documentation of National Security Letter misuse by the FBI. Thousands of pages of documents were released over a period of four years leading to repeated revelations of government abuses of power. An EFF report based on these documents led to tough questions for the FBI before Congress. The documents also helped prompt the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lied to Congress.
In 2008 EFF defended the Internet Archive from an inappropriate National Security Letter. Because NSLs come with a gag order most recipients are unable to ever reveal their existence. However with the help of EFF and the ACLU the Internet
Archive fought back and won the right to speak publicly about the letter. As a result it’s become one of the few well-documented and publicly-known cases of NSL use.
And in 2013, EFF won a landmark decision in the Northern District of California in which Judge Susan Illston declared one of the statutes unconstitutional in its entirety. EFF’s petition, brought on behalf of an unidentified telephone service provider, challenged both the underlying authority to obtain customer records as well as the concurrent gag provision that prevented the recipient from disclosing even that it had receiving an NSL.
EFF has been fighting in Congress for legislative reform of National Security Letters since 2005. In 2009 many hoped that President Obama having run for office promising to reform Bush-era surveillance abuses would work with Congress to curb NSL abuse. Unfortunately the Obama Administration has instead continued to block reform and has even sought to expand NSL powers.
Akashma Online News 