True to his name, Lauri Love went AWOL (absent without leave) from the Finnish Army to care for a sick friend. Before formalizing his conscientious objector status in 2004, Love noticed what felt right about being a friend and caretaker — while also realizing what felt wrong, for him, about being a soldier. The soft-spoken son of a Baptist preacher and a Finnish teacher has since been intermittently plagued by a range of health problems of his own. Love’s struggles echo Aaron Swartz’s — and he is accused of participating in Anonymous’s digital political protest and mourning of Swartz’s death…
[Read more from the latest in my surveillance essay series at Rebel News.]