The whole story of what led Swartz down the path that cost him his life is long and full of tragic twists and turns. But given the obvious significance of the JSTOR episode, it's worth answering the narrower question of what got Swartz so interested in freeing up journals at the very moment he'd supposedly disowned the cause.
Free Download Police Force: An Inside Story
Finally, in September of 2010, only a few days before he began the JSTOR download, Swartz turned up at a Google-sponsored conference on Internet Freedom in Budapest. Though he co-led a session called "Online free expression and enforcing ethics & accountability for corporations & governments," he did not seem especially moved by the conference's formal proceedings. But one night he went out to dinner with a group of activists, including many who were involved in the journal campaign. They spoke about the outrageous sum of money it would take to free up JSTOR for public consumption.
The problem is national: no police department in the country is known to be completely free of misconduct. Yet it must be fought locally: the nation's 19,000 law enforcement agencies are essentially independent. While some federal statutes specify criminal penalties for willful violations of civil rights and conspiracies to violate civil rights, the United States Department of Justice has been insufficiently aggressive in prosecuting cases of police abuse. There are shortcomings, too, in federal law itself, which does not permit "pattern and practice" lawsuits. The battle against police abuse must, therefore, be fought primarily on the local level.
Police policies should be subject to public review and debate instead of being viewed as the sole province of police insiders. Open policy-making not only allows police officials to benefit from community input, but it also provides an opportunity for police officials to explain to the public why certain tactics or procedures may be necessary. This kind of communication can help anticipate problems and avert crises before they occur.
Each of the 50 states has a freedom of information act or an open records law. Virtually all such laws were enacted post-Watergate, in the mid-1970s. Under these laws, community groups can request and obtain access to police reports, investigations, policies and tape recordings regarding a controversial incident, such as a beating, shooting, or false arrest. If the police refuse to disclose information to representatives of your community, that refusal in itself should become the focus of organizing and public attention. Ultimately, your community can sue to compel disclosure, unless the records you seek are specifically exempted.
The project also publishes wallet-size cards in English, Spanish and Chinese that inform citizens about what to do or say in encounters with the police. These cards have been widely distributed in the community. (One card-holder reported that he pulled out his card when confronted by a police officer, only to have the officer reach into his wallet and pull out his own copy of the same card!) The ACLU National Office has created a similar card, with a national scope. (You can download a copy to print out below.)
The video tells in real time the brutal story of how heavily armed officers failed to immediately launch a cohesive and aggressive response to stop the shooter and save more children if possible. And it reinforces the trauma of those parents, friends and bystanders who were outside the school and pleaded with police to do something, and for those survivors who quietly called 911 from inside the classroom to beg for help. 2ff7e9595c
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