Chris Bourg, Director of MIT Libraries, has a lot of nerve to make this statement in the article: “Ubiquitous access to open digital content has long been an i

Chris Bourg, Director of MIT Libraries, has a lot of nerve to make this statement in the article: “Ubiquitous access to open digital content has long been an important goal for MIT and MIT Libraries. Learning and research depend on it.” Maybe Bourg should recall back in 2012 how his library aided and abetted the Secret Service's plan to have Aaron Swartz inappropriately charged under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. As many readers of hacker news will recall, rather than serve time in a federal penitentiary for his brave act of civil disobedience, Swartz sadly chose in January 2013 to take his own life instead. Swartz then became a martyr for the cause of "ubiquitous open access to digital content" ... rather than just "ubiquitous access to [already] open digital content." As a result, he would have been a much better spokesperson for the cause of "ubiquitous access" than a phony like Chris Bourg. Swartz is today rightly regarded as one of the heroes of the 21st century civil rights movement. Bourg, on the other hand, is just another overpaid university administrator who collects a large (and largely undeserved) salary that has helped put millions of American college students into several trillion dollars worth of student debt ... which several presidential candidates now want taxpayers to bail out! Bourg should also check in with MIT police to find out how often they are called into the library (post Swartz' arrest) to threaten members of the general public with arrest for the crime of using his library computer terminals "for more than hour." Thankfully, those of us who are not on the academic dole now have libgen and scihub for our "learning and research."