Six months in a minimum-security, white collar prison over an act of civil disobedience would not be a bad deal to take. The felony conviction would be the problematic part.
Incidentally, this also affects the idea that they should have gone easy on Swartz because of his history of depression and suicidal ideation, because then that becomes a tool for negotiating leverage as well.
But when the root cause is the systemic effect of plea bargaining on the justice system as a whole, it becomes difficult to find good solutions, and obvious that whatever the solution is, it will be very hard to implement. But our outrage compels us to demand something to be done right now, so let's just designate a scapegoat.
If he had a start-up idea, would it stop his funding?>