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"Today Rep. Zoe Lofgren announced that she will award Internet activist Aaron Swartz, posthumously, the\u00A0James Madison Freedom of Information Award.\r\n\r\nAaron Swartz's early demise by suicide, which followed intense prosecution of his online work, sparked a storm of criticism; his family and former partner have been vocally active in placing partial blame for Aaron's death on those who sought to ensure that even with a plea deal, time in prison would be required.\r\n\r\nThe laws that allowed for such prosecution are being examined for potential reform. The same Rep. Lofgren is working on a bill known simply as 'Aaron's Law,' that reforms the\u00A0Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a piece of legislation that is far too broad in its scope.\r\n\r\nHere is how Rep. Lofgren described the latest draft of her proposed bill, to the Reddit community:\r\nLike the first draft, this revised draft explicitly excludes breaches of terms of service or user agreements as violations of the CFAA and wire fraud statute. This revised draft also makes clear that changing one\u2019s MAC or IP address is not in itself a violation of the CFAA or wire fraud statute.\r\n\r\nIn addition, this draft limits the scope of CFAA by defining \u201Caccess without authorization\u201D as the circumvention of technological access barriers. Taken together, the changes in this draft should prevent the kind of abusive prosecution directed at Aaron Swartz and would help protect other Internet users from outsized liability for everyday activity.\r\nIt recently became known that, as reported in the Huffington Post, &amp;quot;congressional staffers left [a briefing with the Department of Justice] with the impression that prosecutors believed they needed to convict Swartz of a felony that would put him in jail for a short sentence in order to justify bringing the charges in the first place.&amp;quot; TNW viewed this as disgraceful.\r\n\r\nAaron was hit with felony allegations following his downloading of academic papers from the JSTOR server. He was accused of having intention to distribute them.\r\n\r\nThe\u00A0James Madison Freedom of Information Award, as its title suggests, is awarded to a figure who has worked to expand free speech. Interestingly, Rep. Lofgren was herself\u00A0awarded\u00A0the honor last year. Aaron's family will accept the award this Friday in Washington DC.\r\n\r\nTop Image Credit:\u00A0Doc Searls"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/03/13/late-internet-activist-aaron-swartz-to-receive-the-james-madison-freedom-of-information-award-on-friday/>