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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has launched an internal probe of the events leading up to the suicide of internet activist Aaron Swartz, who was facing federal charges for allegedly hacking into the school's journal archives.

Furor over Swartz' death has reached the White House in the form of a petition asking for the removal of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz who pressed the case against Swartz.

“Prosecutors destroy a life.” That could be a headline in every newspaper every day in a land where the answer to every problem (and many nonproblems) is police and prisons. When 26-year-old Internet prodigy and freedom of information activist Aaron Swartz committed suicide on January 11, the tragedy was the direct result of US attorneys deciding to throw criminal charges at him for violating a website’s “terms of services” while accessing publicly subsidized academic research.

Internet freedom fighter, Aaron Swartz, commits suicide after government threatens him with a million dollar fine and up to 35 years in prison for downloading too many old journal articles.

The latest round of documents published by Wikileaks offers a rare glimpse into the world of surveillance products. The collection—which Wikileaks calls the Spy Files—includes confidential brochures and slide presentations that companies use to market intrusive surveillance tools to governments and law enforcement agencies... The group says that these files are only the first set of a larger collection and that more will be published in the future.

An open letter from bunnie, author of Hacking the Xbox:

Dear Reader,
No Starch Press and I have decided to release this free ebook version of Hacking the Xbox in honor of Aaron Swartz. As you read this book, I hope that you’ll be reminded of how important freedom is to the hacking community and that you’ll be inclined to support the causes that Aaron believed in.

BERLIN — The online whistle-blower WikiLeaks said it will continue to publish more secret files from governments around the world despite U.S. demands to cancel plans to release classified military documents.

"I can assure you that we will keep publishing documents – that's what we do," a WikiLeaks spokesman, who says he goes by the name Daniel Schmitt in order to protect his identity, told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday.

The Fredericton Police issued a ticket to the activist and blogger Charles Leblanc on Tuesday for violating noise bylaws but the blogger told the police that he intended to keep on protesting. He was protesting a ticket he received for riding his bike on the sidewalk in Fredericton.

Videos of his interactions with police can be found on his blog @ http://charlesotherpersonality.blogspot.com

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Friday that there were some references to UFOs in “yet-to-be-published” confidential files obtained from the U.S. government. Will a future document dump carry a UFO theme?

Hacktivist group Anonymous took control of the U.S. Sentencing Commission website Friday, January 25 in a new campaign called "Operation Last Resort." It appears that via the U.S. government website, Anonymous had distributed encrypted government files and left a statement on the website that de-encryption keys would be publicly released (thus releasing the as-yet unknown information held on the stolen files) if the U.S. government did not comply with Anonymous' ultimatum demands for legal reform.