[betterunix]

"Yes, intent only matters if you've committed a crime, but it's not at all difficult to argue that Swartz probably did commit a felony under the CFAA"

You are not saying much here. The CFAA is so broad that one could argue that any Internet user has violated it at one time or another. We might as well pass a law that says, "You are a criminal if the government does not like you."

"If you can't see that, imagine he had downloaded loosely protected private emails or credit card account lists."

Hm, I see where you are going. You are saying that if a business posts a bunch of credit numbers on its website, and says to everyone, "Please only download these numbers one at a time by manually clicking on the links on our website," it should be a felony for someone to write a script that automatically downloads all the numbers.