Aaron Swartz, computer activist & reddit co-owner has committed suicide

26-year-old computer activist, co-owner of reddit and co-author of the widely-used RSS 1.0 specification, Aaron H. Swartz, committed suicide in New York City on Friday.

This is according to a comment by Michael Wolf, Swartz's uncle, to The Tech.

Confirmation was received from Swartz's attorney, Elliot R. Peters by email: “The tragic and heartbreaking information you received is, regrettably, true.”

At the age of 14, Swartz co-authored the now widely-used RSS 1.0 specification. 

26-year-old Swartz is famous for allegedly downloading documents from the JSTOR online journal archive with the intent to distribute them and was indicted in July 2011. Swartz reportedly pleaded not guilty to this and was released on US$100,000 unsecured bail.  If charged he would have faced a potential prison term of 35 years and a fine up to US$1 million.

After this, he moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he obtained employment with the Avaaz Foundation, which is a non-profit “global web movement to bring people-powered politics to decision-making everywhere.” 

Swartz is one of three co-owners of the popular social news site reddit, and also completed a fellowship at Harvard’s Ethics Center Lab on Institutional Corruption.

In 2010, Swartz founded DemandProgress.org, which "works to win progressive policy changes for ordinary people through organizing, and grassroots lobbying. In particular, we tend to focus on issues of civil liberties, civil rights, and government reform." The group was active recently with a campaign against the Internet censorship bills SOPA/PIPA, and now has over a million members.

Swartz also developed the website theinfo.org which provides free access to public records. He has also been widely cited for his landmark analysis of Wikipedia, Who Writes Wikipedia? Swartz further worked with web inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, at MIT, where he helped develop and popularize standards for sharing data on the Web. 

CNET reports that a friend of Swartz, Cory Doctorow, said today that Swartz had battled depression for several years. 

"To the world: we have all lost someone today who had more work to do, and who made the world a better place when he did it," Doctorow wrote.

Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/341136

Protest in Barakaldo, Spain over suicide of evicted woman

Bilbao - 53-year-old Amaia Egaña was to be evicted from her home in Barakaldo, Bilbao, Spain. Rather than face homelessness, she jumped to her death from her balcony.

Egaña jumped from her fourth floor balcony just as the bailiffs prepared to evict her, after she failed to keep her mortgage payments up to date. This is the second suicide in less than three weeks over impending evictions.

According to the organizers, 8,000 people took to the street on Friday in Barakaldo, a suburb of Bilbao in the Basque region of Spain. Chants and banners stated condemnation of the suicide of Egaña and protested any further foreclosures. Demonstrators shouted slogans such as ''No eviction unanswered,'' ''Banker, remember – we have rope'', "it is not a suicide, it's a homicide," and "we must stop financial terrorism".

Organizers of the Stop Eviction march have called for immediate action by Madrid to end foreclosures and they blamed the suicide on Spain's economic hardship. According to estimates, more than 400,000 families have lost their homes since the start of the financial crisis in Spain.

Immediately following the tragedy, a Barakaldo judge, Juan Carlos Mediavilla said that it is "necessary to amend current mortgage legislation" to prevent the recurrence of such events.

On Thursday this week, the EU Court of Justice criticized the mortgage law in Spain, which governs evictions, and called for a halt to the repossession of property. The court states that the legislation is incompatible with European consumer protection standards. In Spain, not only can someone be evicted for non-payment of their mortgage, but they also remain liable to repay whatever value is left on the mortgage after the repossession.

Two similar events have occurred recently including 53-year-old José Miguel Domingo, who was found dead in Granada on October 25, immediately after bailiffs appeared on his doorstep. The following day yet another 53-year-old jumped from his apartment window ahead of an eviction in Burjassot, but survived the fall.

Spanish news agency, EFE reports that on Monday, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will be meeting with the opposition PSOE party in an effort to halt evictions. The PSOE hope to introduce a new law where evictions would be halted if a family only owns one home. "We ask the government and banks to halt all housing evictions until we have a new law," Socialist Elena Valenciano said.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/336545#ixzz2BoSuVc2I