He knew what he was doing, and hew knew what he was doing was wrong. Doesn't seem terribly smart to make enemies high up.
He might have known (and even the extent of this is not clear) that what he was doing was illegal.
But that doesn't mean it is wrong, law and morality are two very different things.
Me and many others would argue that what he did was almost a moral imperative, he tried to free human knowledge (mostly paid by tax dollars!) from the artificial monopoly of some corporate leeches.
And if you need more arguments for this, just read up on what Thomas Jefferson had to say about it: http://harmful.cat-v.org/economics/intellectual_property/
If you believe something shouldn't be illegal, then campaign to get the law changed!
Are people video-camming movies in cinemas "just freeing human knowledge"? Were wikileaks publishing secret sensitive hacked info "just freeing human knowledge"?
I don't need any more arguments, because I absolutely disagree. If you believe a law needs to be changed, the way to get it changed is not to start breaking it. We live in a civilised society here. It's this kind of "political activism" I detest.
Is that because you believe it's not likely to be effective, or because you'd rather see an unjust law than an unruly populace?
Edit: ...or some third opinion that I can't think of
On the contrary, history shows it to be one of the few effective methods.
You're saying that Rosa Parks was wrong when she refused to go to the back of the bus. The underground railroad was wrong for refusing to comply with fugitive slave laws. Ghandi was wrong for breaking the laws imposed by the British.
We live in a civilized society precisely because many people have disobeyed uncivilized laws. It's actually one of the hallmarks of our civilization that we can draw a distinction between what's right and what's legal.
But do you have any data on the downside of that approach?
How many people who disagree with a law will then cause havoc if they broke the law to get what they wanted? Instead of attempting to follow channels?
And I would add: if people didn't ignore dumb laws society would crawl to a halt and collapse.
If what Swartz did was a "moral imperative", why aren't you working on liberating journal articles from Elsevier as we speak? My guess: because it is not really a moral imperative. There is a difference between a moral judgement and an "imperative", and you've lazily blurred that line.
This is right in the indictment, which is linked from the last 'aaronsw post on HN.