United States of America v. Aaron Swartz

On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested by MIT police on state breaking-and-entering charges, in connection with the systematic downloading of academic journal articles from JSTOR. Federal prosecutors eventually charged him with two counts of wire fraud and 11 violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, charges carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines plus 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution and supervised release.

On January 11, 2013, two years after his initial arrest, Swartz was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment, where he had hanged himself.

JSTOR is a digital repository that archives and disseminates online manuscripts, GIS systems, scanned plant specimens and content from academic journal articles. Swartz was a research fellow at Harvard University, which provided him with a JSTOR account. Visitors to MIT's "open campus" were authorized to access JSTOR through its network.

According to state and federal authorities, Swartz downloaded a large number of academic journal articles from JSTOR through MIT's computer network, over the course of a few weeks in late 2010 and early 2011. They said Swartz downloaded the documents to a laptop computer connected to a networking switch in a controlled-access wiring closet. According to press reports, the door to the closet was kept unlocked.

For more details, visit the following two links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Swartz

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/217117-united-states-of-america-v-aaron-swartz

Question:

1. Express your own opinion to this case, i.e., Mr. Swartz's suicide definitely made this case a tragedy, let that alone, do you think Mr. Swartz's conduct deserves those felony charge?

2. Try to understand and explain the reasoning from the prosecutor's perspective, i.e., what is their purpose to bring such felony charges to Mr. Swartz?