I'm shocked and horrified by this news too. It's awful that Aaron died. But it's foolish to blame anybody but him for his actions in this.
With a more realistic and efficient judicial system, people would be under a lot less unnecessary stress and there'd be fewer straws to break the proverbial camels' backs. Being threatened with 35 years in prison for what he did is indicative of a sick judicial system.
I mostly don't believe what Aaron did was a crime at all. If it was wrong, it was a civil tort against JSTOR or JSTOR's authors, who declined to give a shit (and I suspect most authors in JSTOR would support him). If it was a crime, it was a very minor crime -- not a 35 year federal felony.
I'm sad Aaron is gone, and angry he didn't fight this to the end. He probably could have won, or at least ended up with a suspended sentence or something like that, and this could have been a catalyst for reform of copyright laws (if not general laws, the scientific-papers-created-with-government-funding laws).
At the end its all about some prosecutor increasing his kill count.
(If you hacked in or bribed an employee and a trade secret and started making something in competition after someone spent 30 years researching, there's probably a civil case there)
I would say that it was about as serious as parking in a loading zone. We need to stop this nonsense where we expect people with no legal background to pay attention to copyrights. We don't tell people they will go to jail for 35 years if they park in a loading zone, nor do we threaten them with prison if they routinely park in loading zones; we give them a small but annoying fine and send them on their way.
Since when was it their "job" to tactfully subject a civilian under stress of facing criminal law with potential 35 years of imprisonment?
Apart from above, the intent to know the people and faces behind such a bench (read DOJ) is not the same as blaming them for the part called suicide in this entire story.
We should definitely know who said what in the case, just to estimate how much weight one added into the sinking of the ship. Blaming justice system "DOJ" is like letting the real criminals getting away with it, however you may want to put it.
I think it's important to bring up names and faces of people (state agents) who make/made laws as well. As someone pointed out somewhere on HN today - "killing in the name of duty is an absurd bug in human psyche. The Lucifer effect? [1]. Those in public duty should probably be publicly visible along with their actions."
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Zimbardo#The_Lucifer_Eff...
[Edited at few places]
A fundamental misconception of Bitcoin is that using Bitcoin as a currency will magically obliterate the Government's ability to determine income taxes. The government never has tracked currency for the purposes of determining income. They track transactions in whatever currency or assets the transactions are denominated. Thus, governments have been able to determine taxes since the days of barter, and they will continue to be able to determine taxes until long after Bitcoin is digital dust.
That's what makes this so tragic. Aaron Swartz was one of the few people willing to actually do this, even when it meant poking at a sleeping bear, one that, in the end, he couldn't face.
The last option has the side effect of bleeding the existing one dry through inaction (within the boundary of the current system). It is similar to a software fork. We have seen many a project where the ones in charge have become rigid enough in their ways that, for all intents and purposes, the cost and probability of convincing them outweighs the cost of detaching from the infrastructure and moving in a new direction. For example, XFree86 and X.Org.
An issue that we face with activism is that the structure in place is supported by individuals with orders of magnitude more wealth and influence than what the activists have access to. This is evident in the case of Mr. Swartz where he was rapidly running out of money to fight his battle in court. We are at a disadvantaged position in that sense.
As such, every [insert your unit of currency] we pay in taxes go towards feeding the policies we so emphatically disagree with. With a nod to The Art Of War, a valid tactic in such a case is to starve your enemy and wage a war of attrition - in other words, reduce their material wealth while increasing our own. The end result is that nobody gets hurt yet they slowly lose their influence and the new guard have the opportunity and resources to build theirs.
Many people who committed atrocities were just following orders or doing their job.
Also, notice that it was not "We're giving you 35 years in jail" it is "The absolute most that you could possibly receive for this crime is 35 years". I somehow suspect that number is far higher for rape cases but, as your comment demonstrates, that number is not necessarily indicative that that's how long you would serve.