The Internet's Own Boy

The Internet's Own Boy is a documentary film about American activist Aaron Swartz, and the events that led to his suicide in 2013. The film was written and directed by Brian Knappenberger.

Quinn Norton

• I was very unused to being in a room with large men, well-armed, who are continually telling me I'm lying, and that I must have done something. I told them that this thing that they were prosecuting wasn't a crime. I told them that they were on the wrong side of history; I used that phrase: I said, "You're on the wrong side of history." And they looked bored. They didn't even look angry, just bored. And it began to occur to me that we weren't having the same conversation.
  • Commenting on her proffer interview with prosecutors representing the federal government in United States v. Swartz

• I'm still angry. You can try your best with these people to do the right thing, and they will turn everything against you, and they will hurt you with anything they can. And, in that moment, I regret that I said what I did; but, my much larger regret is that we have settled for this; that we are okay with this; that we are okay with a justice system that tries to game people into little traps so they can ruin their lives.

Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman

• Aaron believed that … you literally ought to be asking yourself all of the time, "What is the most important thing I can be working on right now?" And if you're not working on that, why aren't you?

External links

• Encyclopedic article on The Internet's Own Boy on Wikipedia