> In short, Aaron Swartz was not the super hacker breathlessly described in the Government’s indictment and forensic reports, and his actions did not pose a real danger to JSTOR, MIT or the public. He was an intelligent young man who found a loophole that would allow him to download a lot of documents quickly. This loophole was created intentionally by MIT and JSTOR, and was codified contractually in the piles of paperwork turned over during discovery.

> If I had taken the stand as planned and had been asked by the prosecutor whether Aaron’s actions were “wrong”, I would probably have replied that what Aaron did would better be described as “inconsiderate”. In the same way it is inconsiderate to write a check at the supermarket while a dozen people queue up behind you or to check out every book at the library needed for a History 101 paper. It is inconsiderate to download lots of files on shared wifi or to spider Wikipedia too quickly, but none of these actions should lead to a young person being hounded for years and haunted by the possibility of a 35 year sentence.

He wilfully, deliberately and with substantial premeditation broke the law. Having pretty much stated publicly he was going to and been caught and let off for a similar crime previously. He was bang to rights guilty.

However, he was then persecuted mercilessly and threatened with a sentence way out of proportion to the crime. He was hounded to his death for political brownie points and that's unforgivable.

But to suggest he was just a naughty schoolboy is inaccurate and unhelpful.

So did Rosa Parks, and so did Edward Snowden. That does not mean they automatically deserve what they got.

Indeed, and I said the same about Aaron.

Snowden's a different case as he didn't break the law to show up the law.

But it's critical to history that Rosa Parks broke the law. If she had just annoyed a racist bus driver then there's no shining a light on the system. And crucially, that's what Aaron was attempting to do too.

What I quoted says nothing more. And what I replied to was "if you can't do the time", implying "the time" was appropriate to the crime.

> to suggest he was just a naughty schoolboy

What in what I quoted suggests that? Can you quote the bits you consider "a load of nonsense"?

The article attempts to defend Swartz by essentially claiming that what he did was unimpressive... So what? Same goes for SQL injection. In fact, most crimes are quite unimpressive.

It's indisputable that both JSTOR and MIT actively tried to block Swartz, and that he actively circumvented those blocks.

The article also makes the completely bullshit claim that Swartz could've realistically received a 35 year sentence.