[GHFigs]

I assure you, it's just a misunderstanding. I am not saying or in any way attempting to imply that he attempted to distribute papers. In fact, I will emphatically state that Aaron Swartz was not charged with attempting to distribute the papers he downloaded. That's the reason the analogy doesn't work: it's not only that he didn't "kill Bob", it's that nobody even accused him of killing Bob.

If you look at the law, it's the combination of the actions that we all tend to agree that he did (the downloading and what that entailed) with the (alleged) intent of republishing them that constitutes the crime he was charged with.

[AnthonyMouse]

>If you look at the law, it's the combination of the actions that we all tend to agree that he did (the downloading and what that entailed) with the (alleged) intent of republishing them that constitutes the crime he was charged with.

Except...no. He wasn't charged with copyright infringement, he was charged with violating the CFAA and wire fraud. How is whether or not he would have subsequently infringed copyright by publishing the papers to the world relevant to whether he committed those crimes?

That's why this is a big deal. The DoJ came in and said "we think he's going to commit a copyright crime after downloading all these papers, look at his politics" but they couldn't prove that (or else why didn't they charge him with it?), so they poked around for something entirely different to charge him with even though their motivation in prosecuting him was to punish him for the thing they couldn't prove he was going to do. Raise your hand if you think that's how prosecution decisions are supposed to be made.

[GHFigs]

he was charged with violating the CFAA and wire fraud

Um, yeah. That's exactly the law[1] I am referring to. That's why I linked to it before and why I'll link to it again. Go read it. Because the rest of your comment is just plain ignorant, and please understand: I don't mean that as an insult. You may mean well, but it's really counterproductive to make up your mind about something while remaining untethered to reality.

[1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030 (You may find the phrase "and with intent" to be relevant to answering both of your questions.)

[AnthonyMouse]

The only place "and with intent" appears in the linked statute is when it makes up the phrase "and with intent to defraud." I'm not seeing how an intention to post articles on the internet would defraud anyone, so how is possible intent to infringe copyright going to satisfy a requirement for intent to defraud? Does the CFAA have some non-standard definition of "defraud" that I'm not aware of that would encompass copyright infringement?