Hi,
Today we mark the anniversary of the passing of our co-founder Aaron
Swartz, who took his own life nine years ago while, unbelievably, under
indictment for allegedly having downloaded too many academic articles from
the JSTOR cataloging service — to which he had a subscription — using the
open network at MIT.
Aaron was a tremendous activist and technologist, who fought for economic
justice and for speech and human rights. You can read more about him and
his work [ [link removed] ]here.
Each year we use this date to take a beat and reflect upon our work, and
hope that Aaron would be proud of what we've accomplished. Over the last
year or so we have helped push back against outsized corporate power,
sought to compel the adoption of policies that would help reclaim the
promise of the early internet, sought to achieve an end to the "endless"
wars, and more. Some of that is discussed in more detail below.
But Demand Progress wasn't Aaron's only important project at the time of
his passing — far from it. I asked Trevor Timm, the executive director of
the [ [link removed] ]Freedom of the Press Foundation — which stewards another of Aaron's
projects, now called SecureDrop — to provide us with an update. The
SecureDrop system enables the work of investigative journalists who are
challenging corporate and government power throughout the world. Here's
what Trevor had to say:
"I will always be honored that Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) was
entrusted with the last project Aaron was working on before he
tragically passed away: an open-source whistleblower submission system
that could better protect journalists and their sources from
surveillance and other digital security threats.
In 2012, with the late James Dolan and reporter Kevin Poulsen, Aaron
built a prototype, which was then called DeadDrop. In the fall of 2013,
FPF officially took over the GitHub repo and poured all of our resources
into making it into a viable tool for news outlets.
We renamed it SecureDrop, but the spirit of everything Aaron built
remains. At the time, one news outlet was trying it out. Today, over 70
major news outlets from around the world use SecureDrop, including the
New York Times, Washington Post, ProPublica, and Associated Press.
SecureDrop is available in 20 languages and at least a dozen FPF
staffers work on improving the system daily, and on training and
supporting the news organizations that use it. We could not be more
proud to carry on Aaron's legacy."
Journalism and the media ecosystem are under threat across the globe,
through corporate concentration, a collapse in revenues, and authoritarian
crackdowns — including the United States's prosecution of Wikileaks
founder Julian Assange for using tools similar to SecureDrop. Aaron would
be thrilled to know that his efforts are helping to enable the work of
those serious journalists who remain on the beat.
And we also hope he'd take pride in the work Demand Progress has
accomplished over the last year or so, some of which we outline below.
-David and the Demand Progress team.
P.S. [ [link removed] ]If you would like to support our work as we carry these fights
into 2022, please click here.
—
We have fought for an Open Internet by:
* Ushering along legislation to constrain the power of the large tech
monopolies.
* Ensuring that allies were installed at important agencies like the
Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission.
* Identifying and leveraging opportunities to forward net neutrality,
privacy regulations, and other rules that will shape the Internet so
it better-enables speech and democracy.
We have advocated for progressive governance by:
* Organizing to elevate progressive decision makers to highest echelons
of the Biden administration — and to keep corporatists out of posts
that are in charge of regulating Wall Street and large corporations
and that govern economic policy.
* Training hundreds of progressives who want to work in government, more
than 100 of whom have found such jobs in the executive branch and
Congress.
We have fought for progressive foreign and national security policy by:
* Pushing for the installation of progressives in relevant posts in the
administration — and against those who by default turn to militarism.
* Urging an end to the war in Afghanistan, and to U.S. support for the
Saudi-led war in Yemen.
* Advocating for the U.S. to play a meaningful role in global pandemic
relief by expanding access to vaccines and ensuring poorer countries
are able to finance health and economic responses.
* Opposing secret law and mass government surveillance — and
exploitation of the events of January 6th to empower the national
security apparatus.
We have pushed for better, and more transparent, governance by:
* Helping to advance efforts to increase diversity of Congressional
staff.
* Making sure Congress uses tools like remote deliberations so the
government can function during the pandemic.
* Providing oversight of the Capitol Police, and seeking accountability
for those who perpetrated January 6th while advocating for a publicly
accessible Congress.
* Advocating for legislation to improve public access to a variety of
government records, from legal opinions, to Congressional reports, to
improving FOIA.
* Helping create an office that enables the work of government and
corporate whistleblowers.
Thank you for taking a moment to remember Aaron with us, to consider his
legacy, and to learn more about the work we carry forth in his name.
[ [link removed] ]DONATE
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