Aaron Swartz--- Hero or Villain?

There is considerable debate on the comment thread here.  Plus there's some background information on the case here.  I wrote a post on his suicide recently.  It may have been self-serving on the part of Swartz to take credit for stopping SOPA.  But, I was struck by the impressiveness of the guy.  As of his character?  Frankly, I never heard of the guy before I wrote the post---I wouldn't know.  That's what the backgrounder was for.

Swartz was being aggressively prosecuted by the Obama Administration.  For me, that is probably enough by itself to be suspicious.  I am deeply, deeply suspicious of Obama.  But I'm in the minority.  There's little that can be done about people who have closed minds.  I've found out about that in the past.  All efforts to reason with people like this will fall on deaf ears.  You can try, but it will be a long and difficult battle.

Where this all leads, I don't know.

Update:

ViaMeadia:  The Death of Aaron Swartz

VM won’t directly speculate on the merits of the case as it’s beyond our core competency to judge. The indictment is here, and here is the shape of the argument that the defense was preparing to use. Friends of Aaron like Lawrence Lessig (pictured above speaking to a 15 or 16 year old Swartz) and Cory Doctorow have penned some emotional essays that will help you appreciate his legacy. [italics added, no significance except that it stands out better as a quote]