The so-called "Aaron's Law," named after the late activist Aaron Swartz, is back before US Congress having been reintroduced on Wednesday in both houses. Silicon Valley rep Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and tech-savvy senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) have put the legislation on the table a second time after it was effectively ignored last …

Six months after the suicide of internet activist Aaron Swartz, MIT has released a 182-page report into the university's involvement in his arrest and prosecution, and has determined that it did nothing wrong. Swartz, who at 14 coauthored the RSS standard, subsequently cofounded Creative Commons and the Reddit online community …

The Internet Society has announced the latest inductees into the Internet Hall of Fame, and is including a posthumous entry for internet activist Aaron Swartz. The Internet Hall of Fame was founded last year, and this second round adds 32 appointees in three categories: Pioneers, Innovators, and Connectors. The new inductees …

A US judge has ordered that documents from the criminal hacking case against internet activist Aaron Swartz should be unsealed, after they've been redacted by MIT and JSTOR. Swartz took his own life in January just ahead of the trial over the theft of academic articles from online reference library JSTOR using a computer at …

Prosecutors associated with the case against the late Aaron Swartz have received "harassing and threatening communications", including postcards of disembodied heads pictured next to guillotines. Government lawyers have detailed the harassment in a court filing urging the court to keep details of the case redacted to protect …

CommentIn the wake of the tragic suicide of Aaron Swartz, there have been many calls to reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act used to prosecute him. Work is currently afoot for "Aarons Law" legislation, which simplifies and brings a measure of sense to the law, but now the House Judiciary Committee has begun circulating an update …

The legal team acting for now-deceased internet activist Aaron Swartz has filed an official complaint with the Department of Justice alleging two counts of professional misconduct by Assistant US Attorney Stephen Heymann in his handling of the case. Heymann knowingly suppressed evidence that could have been used to dismiss the …

As part of its ongoing campaign following the suicide of RSS inventor and activist Aaron Swartz, Anonymous has published the names and login details of what it says are 4,000 US banking executives. The information was first posted on a site under the Alabama .gov domain (the Alabama Criminal Justice Center), with a mirror …

The Anonymous hacking collective attacked a US Justice Department website over the weekend to protest against the prosecution of Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz. The hacktivists followed up the initial assault on Ussc.gov, the US Sentencing Commission's website, by planting an easter egg in the form of retro video game …

The aggressive prosecution of computer crimes won't be changed in light of the suicide of internet activist Aaron Swartz, a spokeswoman for Boston US Attorney Carmen Ortiz has said. "Absolutely not," Ortiz told the Boston Herald. "We thought the case was reasonably handled and we would not have done things differently. We're …

This was the week when Aaron Swartz's suicide called into question the blanket severity of maximum sentences faced by those accused of crimes under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Angry supporters of Swartz partially blamed the pressure he was under as the subject of 13 different counts that could have resulted in over 30 …

US attorney Carmen Ortiz, who led the fraud case against Aaron Swartz until his suicide last week, has defended her prosecution of the internet prodigy. Swartz, 26, took his life on Friday at his home in New York in the midst of a lengthy court battle that could have put him behind bars for decades. He was charged with …

A new online petition has called for the firing of US attorney Carmen Ortiz for pursuing Aaron Swartz with charges that could have put him in prison for at least three decades. Meanwhile, Democrat congresswoman Zoe Lofgren has drawn up a new bill called "Aaron's Law" to amend the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act used to …

Hactivist collective Anonymous briefly took over some of MIT's websites earlier this morning to protest against the role computer crime laws may have played in the death of Aaron Swartz. Reddit co-founder and internet activist Swartz was found hanged in his apartment in New York on Friday, having taken his own life at the age …

CommentAaron Swartz's death has sent shockwaves through the internet community, but among the mourning and tributes there's a growing undercurrent of anger that an enormously gifted young man may have been hounded to his death. Aaron Swartz Swartz speaking against SOPA/PIPA last year Swartz, who helped write the RSS standard at …