The FBI investigated but didn't charge Swartz, he wrote on his website.
Three years later, Swartz was arrested in Boston. The federal government accused Swartz of using MIT's computer network to steal nearly 5 million academic articles from JSTOR.
Prosecutors said Swartz hacked into MIT's system in November 2010 after breaking into a computer wiring closet on campus. Prosecutors said he intended to distribute the articles on file-sharing websites.
JSTOR didn't press charges once it reclaimed the articles from Swartz, and some legal experts considered the case unfounded, saying that MIT allows guests access to the articles and Swartz, a fellow at Harvard's Safra Center for Ethics, was a guest.
Experts puzzled over the arrest and argued that the result of the actions Swartz was accused of was the same as his PACER program: more information publicly available.
The prosecution "makes no sense," Demand Progress Executive Director David Segal said at the time. "It's like trying to put someone in jail for allegedly checking too many books out of the library."
Swartz faced 13 felony charges, including breaching site terms and intending to share downloaded files through peer-to-peer networks, computer fraud, wire fraud, obtaining information from a protected computer, and criminal forfeiture.
JSTOR announced this week that it would make more than 4.5 million articles publicly available for free.
Swartz's funeral is scheduled for Tuesday in Highland Park, Ill.
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