But either way, Aaron is actually a bad example as what he was charged with was still wrong to do (even if you agree with the end result he was trying to bring about). Not "felony" wrong perhaps, but even weev would have been a better example for what you're talking about.
On the other hand, "convicted of" is something that matters to the government, not to the rest of us. I'm not going to pretend that someone didn't do something just because a jury never returned a conviction, if there's enough evidence to support the claim in question. Likewise it's possible for a jury to convict people of crimes they've never committed; I won't deign to consider someone "guilty" of something they obviously didn't do just because a jury and legal process said otherwise. I'll leave the splitting of fine hairs to the legal process.
What is it that you think he did that was wrong? It recently came out that his project was not to dump it in a torrent like everyone assumed, but to do an analysis on who was funding research. If that's actually true, no laws, in spirit or in letter, were actually broken.
> If that's actually true, no laws, in spirit or in letter, were actually broken.
If you think that, it's because you have latched onto the idea that Aaron was being prosecuted only for thoughtcrime, which is incorrect.
To put it quite simply, Aaron decided to gain access to networks he was quite clearly ejected from. Aaron had access to JSTOR from his own Harvard campus account, so Aaron's own actions (going so far out of his way to do so from MIT's net) indicate he thought he was doing something at least a little bit wrong.
I don't think that evading network bans by itself is necessarily a horrible offense, but I certainly don't think it's completely OK and as far as I know the law doesn't either. In fact the CFAA could apply based merely on the cost of the MIT techs' time it took to track him down, even if he never intended to copy documents.
Where intent did play a role is that it made the existing charges he could have received just for his actions more severe. But he could have wanted to donate to charity and his acts alone would have been illegal.
And, I also think they would have been morally wrong, just as I wouldn't trespass on someone's property if they asked me to leave, no matter how innocuous my purposes are otherwise.
Don't just take my word for it, even Dr. Lessig agreed with that much (that Aaron's actions could be construed as wrong): "...if what the government alleged was true — and I say “if” because I am not revealing what Aaron said to me then — then what he did was wrong. And if not legally wrong, then at least morally wrong." http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bull...
At no time did I suggest a court's ruling was infallible, however drawing conclusions based merely on the fact that someone was accused of something at one point in time is not rational.
But either way, Aaron is actually a bad example as what he was charged with was still wrong to do (even if you agree with the end result he was trying to bring about). Not "felony" wrong perhaps, but even weev would have been a better example for what you're talking about.