"In another time, a man with Swartz’s dark drive would have headed to the frontier. Perhaps he would have ventured out into the wilderness, like T. E. Lawrence or John Muir, or to the top of something death-defying, like Reinhold Messner or Philippe Petit. Swartz possessed a self-destructive drive toward actions that felt right to him, but that were also defiant and, potentially, law-breaking. Like Henry David Thoreau, he chased his own dreams, and he was willing to disobey laws he considered unjust."
Computers, communications, and various corrupting incentives have made it easy and painless for government organizations to hammer the protruding nail.
"We can rightly judge a society by how it treats its eccentrics and deviant geniuses—and by that measure, we have utterly failed"
What punishment would Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak have faced for their illegal phone activities, if today's laws were in place then? Seems that Ortiz could have gone after them for more than even 35 years.
According to the WSJ, about 6-7 months, which is what the prosecutor actually sought against Swartz. 35 years was the maximum potential prison sentence allowed by the law; it was not the prison sentence that the prosecutors were seeking.