Ok, IANAL, but I don't see the connection. My understanding of the use of "mens rea" in criminal law was that it referred to the necessity of intent, in order to qualify an action as a crime. I've never understood it to mean that intent - by itself - can be considered a crime.

My point above is that if Aaron did not actually distribute the files to bittorrent, then making any relevance of his intent to do so, is "thought crime." And as you can no doubt gather, I would consider such a thing to be total bullshit. That is, bullshit vis-a-vis my personal view of a sort of universal ethics... not necessarily with with regards to US government statutes.