The first word in the award: Disobedience.
The award is clearly for people who are being disobedient for the benefit of society.
Breaking rules for the sake of breaking rules is just anarchy or trolling. You're just inconveniencing people who set out to recognise real contributions to society.
Unless there is an Aaron Schwartz foundation or something, nominate people who are still doing work.
That would be a much bigger contribution to society than any one person walking away with this award.
The next person? There are people CURRENTLY downloading free stuff and sharing it.
Nominate an appropriate person. Vote for someone who really deserves it NOW. Show these people that we support civil disobedience when it benefits society. Take the fucking money.
At this point, I have to believe that the people who want to flood them with ineligible nominees are simply trolling HN and trolling the MIT Media Lab. You guys are potentially throwing away 250K for no real reason.
Also from the page > Both individuals and groups are eligible to win the prize.
We must repeal (and not replace) the cfaa. Of course, we should name and shame MIT at every junction (shame on you, MIT!) However, we shouldn't lose sight of the bigger picture. CFAA is evil.
http://tech.mit.edu/V133/N12/swartz.html
Perhaps the rest of MIT deserves shaming, but please don't punish the Media Lab.
Aaron Swartz was not an MIT affiliate, alum, faculty, or student. MIT had no obligation to "have [his] back" for violating MIT network policy and federal law.
Having "no obligation" to do something is never an excuse for any behavior.