Internet activist and Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz is slated to receive posthumous recognition in Washington for his efforts promoting free access to taxpayer-funded research.

The James Madison Freedom of Information Award is administered by the American Library Association, and recognizes "individuals who have championed, protected and promoted public access to government information and the public’s right to know national information."

The award will be presented by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who received the honor last year for her work in defeating the SOPA copyright bill, and recently rallied in support of Swartz after his suicide in January. Swartz had faced charges under the decades-old Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for downloading a large amount of academic research articles from the JSTOR database at MIT. But despite JSTOR dropping its own charges, the government pursued a criminal case against Swartz which some evidence suggests was politically motivated and subject to prosecutorial overreach.

The White House has also begun pushing for open access

In January, Lofgren went on Reddit to introduce "Aaron's Law," a bill seeking to amend the over-broad CFAA statute so that innocuous computer activity which violates Terms of Service can no longer be the basis for federal prosecution. “Most people, when they look at what Aaron did, think it shouldn't be a crime at all," Lofgren told The Verge after announcing the bill, "certainly not a felony and certainly not [carrying] mandatory minimums." Since then, the White House has also begun pushing for open access, ordering last week that all federal agencies spending more than $100,000 annually on research and development draw up plans within the next six months to expedite the delivery of research to the public.

Swartz led the charge on many free speech and internet-related causes in his brief lifetime, notably drumming up opposition to the hugely controversial SOPA and PIPA copyright laws. In 2008, he penned a "Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto," calling for civil disobedience against copyright laws which keep publicly-funded research behind publisher paywalls such as JSTOR and PACER.

The award will be accepted by Swartz's family this Friday at the Newseum in Washington, DC. Previous recipients include Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and digital rights advocacy group The Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Update: Rep. Zoe Lofgren has announced she will regretfully not be able to attend the ceremony, offering the following statement: