Stanford CIS

Organized Labor Can Protect Workers by Supporting 'Aaron's Law'

By Jennifer Granick on

Right now, a battle is underway to reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a statute that can transform innocuous workplace behavior into a federal crime, simply because a computer is involved. The CFAA is a bludgeon that Big Business and the Department of Justice have willingly used against the American worker, and its time for that to stop.

This opportunity comes in the wake of heartbreak. Recently, a young man named Aaron Swartz took his own life while facing CFAA criminal charges for downloading academic journal articles. Aaron is quite rightfully being memorialized as a great information access and Internet freedom activist, but he was also so much more. Aaron didn't fight for these things for their own sakes: Aaron understood that information access and the freedom to connect are critical to a more democratic, economically just society. He co-founded the prominent Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which regularly works with labor and activists to fight for organizing rights, for better funding for education and social programs, and to support progressive candidates. (That includes having supported coauthor David Segal's candidacy for Congress in 2010, which was backed by SEIU, AFSCME, and the AFT, and is where he first met Aaron.)

Read the full Huffington Post article.