This read starts out and is premised on a falsehood:

An interview with Aaron Swartz‘s defense attorney reveals that, though the government was threatening Aaron with between 30 and 50 years in prison if he went to trial and was convicted.

Not only was Swartz not threatened with 30 years, but the prosecutors themselves threatened him with (an itself implausible) single-digit-year sentence. Swartz's own attorney thought it likely that even were he convicted, he wouldn't end up serving a custodial sentence.

It sucks when this case gets brought up, because the only way to get to the truth of it requires people to sound like they're defending Steve Heymann, the prosecutor in the case. There was a great deal wrong with the case. It's just that a 30-year sentence wasn't part of it.