This may be one of those rare moments which I agree with Rep. Darrell Issa on something: The access to information is a human right.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
WASHINGTON -- One of the staunchest Republicans in Congress, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), attended a Capitol Hill memorial on Monday for progressive activist Aaron Swartz, praising the fallen Internet icon's political courage and saying he has common ground with much of Swartz's legacy.Now here's Issa on Aaron Swartz and how knowledge applies to the world:"He and I probably would have found ourselves at odds with lots of decisions, but never with the question of whether information was in fact a human right," Issa said at the memorial.
Swartz, who was one of the earliest minds behind Reddit, took his own life in January after fighting federal hacking charges for two years. He had long been an advocate for both an open Internet and the democratization of knowledge. Prosecutors pursued him for downloading millions of academic journal articles from the online database JSTOR, but Swartz had devoted much of his activist energy to liberating information. At age 14, he helped develop the Creative Commons license, an alternative to copyright that allows works to be shared freely, so long as they are not used for profit. The license is used heavily by Flickr and many other websites. Later, Swartz downloaded public court documents from the PACER system in an effort to make them available outside of the expensive service. The move drew the attention of the FBI, which ultimately decided not to press charges as the documents, were, in fact, public.
Issa told a crowd of hundreds Monday night that Swartz's life's work resonates with him on a personal level."Ultimately, knowledge belongs to all the people of the world," said Issa.
Issa, who has a long history of partisan aggression towards Democrats on Capitol Hill, was one of only a handful of Republicans to attend the memorial for Swartz. Issa was also the first congressional Republican to oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill that Internet freedom activists ultimately stymied -- with Swartz playing a leading role in the fight. Issa has continued to embrace Internet freedom causes, though he has said he opposes one of its core policies, net neutrality.