VOA慢速英語(yǔ):Were the Charges Against Aaron Swartz Too Extreme?

[ti:Were the Charges Against Aaron Swartz Too Extreme?] [ar:] [al:TECHNOLOGY REPORT] [00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, [00:02.12]this is the TECHNOLOGY REPORT in Special English. [00:06.61]Have you ever had an RSS news feed [00:10.24]sent to your mobile phone or computer? [00:13.19]If so, you have Aaron Swartz to thank. [00:17.27]He helped develop that Internet publishing technology [00:20.55]when he was only 14. [00:23.29]He also helped develop what came to be known [00:26.68]as the social news website Reddit. [00:29.88]The 26-year-old Internet activist was found dead [00:34.37]in his Brooklyn, New York apartment on January 11. [00:38.99]His death was ruled a suicide. [00:42.38]Aaron Swartz believed that information is knowledge. [00:46.87]He believed the Internet should be used [00:49.70]to make that knowledge available to everyone. [00:53.24]This belief is what eventually got him in trouble with the law. [00:57.92]He was to face a federal trial in April. [01:02.01]He was accused of using computers [01:05.04]at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [01:08.33]to download millions of scholarly documents from JSTOR. [01:13.86]The online service charges fees [01:16.75]to use its huge collection of research publications. [01:21.03]Aaron Swarts could have faced 35 years in prison [01:26.34]and as much as $1 million in fines. [01:30.42]Some people have called the charges extreme. [01:34.56]Renee Hutchins is a law professor at the University of Maryland. [01:39.80]"It is questionable whether or not the prosecution in this case [01:43.38]had a solid criminal case against Aaron Swartz. [01:46.72]Basically what he is accused of doing [01:48.90]is violating a user agreement with JSTOR." [01:51.43]Professor Hutchins says Mister Swartz had legal accounts [01:56.12]with JSTOR and with MIT, through Harvard University. [02:01.90]"It is a really close question whether or not Aaron Swartz [02:07.63]use of his Harvard account through the MIT network to JSTOR [02:13.46]to download more than he should have legitimately was a criminal offense." [02:19.74]A Court of Appeals ruled that his actions [02:22.38]violated user agreements and could be considered criminal. [02:27.41]However, Professor Hutchins notes that a more recent ruling [02:32.14]by the Ninth Circuit Court disagreed. [02:35.53]"Unknowingly we may all be violating the terms of those agreements [02:39.17]every single day, in multiple ways. [02:41.16]And what the Ninth Circuit said is that's really [02:43.70]not the business of federal criminal statue; [02:45.89]that that's not what they were going for." [02:47.64]Aaron Swartz' family accused the United States Attorney's office [02:52.86]of fighting a crime that had, in their words, "no victims." [02:57.60]And they criticized MIT for refusing to "stand up for Aaron." [03:03.62]MIT has called for its own investigation of its involvement in the case. [03:09.90]More than 40,000 people have signed a petition [03:14.13]at the White House website for citizen opinions. [03:17.28]It calls for the District Attorney in the case to be removed from office. [03:23.35]The District Attorney has said the office [03:26.24]acted appropriately in its handling of the case.

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