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It would help if defendants could speak more freely about their finances without provoking the ire of a judge. This places advocates for free information in a b

It would help if defendants could speak more freely about their finances without provoking the ire of a judge. This places advocates for free information in a bind. If you need to mount an expensive legal defense because you applied the principle that information should be free and, in consequence, find yourself in legal trouble (I'm speaking generally to avoid argument on inessential points) do you 1. apply the principle that information wants to be free to yourself and expose your finances, possibly provoking a judge; or 2. selectively apply the principle and in your own special case, not disclose your finances, although information wants to be free. Until there is reform in this direction, activists for the information-wants-to-be-free principle either have to reconsider, or else understand that their ability to fund their legal defense may be compromised as well the principle they acted upon. Of course, a push for common sense and proportion from the judiciary might obviate this.

ChristianMarks 14y ago
Some rejoinders to myself: 1. Personal information isn't the kind of information Swartz was attempting to liberate. It was publicly funded academic research behind paywalls. There is no principle of symmetry to appeal to. (If I am incorrect and the intent was that "information wants to be free," then symmetry holds: one cannot consistently be free with the information of others and prefer the exiguous disclosure of one's own.) 2. The government has systematically violated the laws it was accusing Swartz of violating many times over. (An inadmissible legal argument, I understand, but historically valid.) 3. His assets may have been frozen. 4. The disproportionate legal action against Swartz is an indication of the government's cyberspace vulnerability. It is also an indication of the imprecision of the law as it is written.

ChristianMarks 14y ago

Some rejoinders to myself: 1. Personal information isn't the kind of information Swartz was attempting to liberate. It was publicly funded academic research behind paywalls. There is no principle of symmetry to appeal to. (If I am incorrect and the intent was that "information wants to be free," then symmetry holds: one cannot consistently be free with the information of others and prefer the exiguous disclosure of one's own.) 2. The government has systematically violated the laws it was accusing Swartz of violating many times over. (An inadmissible legal argument, I understand, but historically valid.) 3. His assets may have been frozen. 4. The disproportionate legal action against Swartz is an indication of the government's cyberspace vulnerability. It is also an indication of the imprecision of the law as it is written.