You guys obviously did not look at my link
I looked at your link, and it is just another case of revisionist history.
To be accurate, in 2011 he downloaded almost 5 million documents from MIT's subscription based JSTOR database that he knowingly had only limited guest privileges' to.
He faced federal charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Mass. State charges also because he illegally physically connected directly to their network.
He did connect in an unmarked wiring closet knowing that making that connection, alone, was a federal offense.
The federal prosecutor was heavily criticized, but was following the law, which was changed after Swartz committed suicide.
Changing the law satisfied the legislature and public outrage, but if those changes were in place when he was arrested, it would have only made a minor difference in the number of federal counts Swartz was charged with and not what he was charged with.
Swartz had made a small fortune from his prior work with RSS and in several other areas and could easily have afforded to subscribe to the JSTOR data base (which was quite expensive at the time) and downloaded the journals and documents legally.
To this day no one knows why he did what he did the way he did it, but it is pretty universally agreed that he knew at the time what he was doing was against federal and state laws.
BTW - it was 35 years on Federal charges (11 counts) and 5 years on state charges (2 counts) to be served concurrently as the maximum + required-by-law restitution, which was knocked down to a plea deal of 6 months in low-security federal detention, no state charges and minor restitution (offered by the prosecutor), which he turned down to take his chances in court, while his defense lawyers were still negotiating for a better deal and then he hung himself.
It was not well known at the time, but several of his closest friends later admitted he had mental health issues that had not been dealt with, while other close friends deny he had any problems.
All the above is verifiable by simply looking at public records and copies of newspapers of the times, yet like your link, some sites still try to make a legend out of someone that had a great life and career and then decided to commit a crime. After his death it was also revealed that he had obtained a database from the Library of Congress illegally 7 years earlier and the prosecutor of his case had decided not to pursue that because of statute of limitations vagaries.
So can we put this to rest now or at least move it to the correct forum?