When Russian authorities jailed Pussyriot for dancing on a church altar under the charges of "hooliganism and inciting religious hatred", it is clear that the a

When Russian authorities jailed Pussyriot for dancing on a church altar under the charges of "hooliganism and inciting religious hatred", it is clear that the authoritarian streak had gone too far. Many people have thought Swartz's crime was to download documents. But actually, JSTOR has stated they had settled with Swartz and it was not a problem and not to press charges. What the government actually did is to charge Swartz for WIRE FRAUD. This is for plugging his computer into the MIT LAN. WIRE FRAUD is reserved for people with criminal intent. Aaron's actions were as criminal as Pussyriot's dancing in miniskirts to draw attention to Putin's hand on the Russian government. The US government will continue to spin this as "hacker" and "document download". Do not get drawn into this. The correct framework to think about this is when Gandhi and his supporters got clobbered by the British police for breaking a salt-making monopoly. To Gandhi, the premise was simple: salt comes from the sea and no one owns it. A law that grants monopolistic rights to limited organisations for something as universal as the sea has no justification. It is important to note that Aaron was not talking about giving away MP3s etc. He pointed out that scientific papers that were already in the public domain were starting to get locked up behind pay walls. There is nothing right about this. When he started to figuratively walk to the ocean to make his own salt, he was charged with criminal trespass. As a footnote, after the Salt March - where hundreds of non-violent protesters were beaten up by the police - the British was shown up to be bankrupt of moral authority. This, is the threat the DOJ faces today.