Posession with intent to distribute is an actual statutory crime (written explicitly to make prosecution easier for the cops)
There is no generalised "intent to" law, there would need
to be an actual seperate crime of posession with intent to distribute academic articles.
So "mens rea" is not enough to convict without action unless there is a specific exception. And in general even the police try not to rely on the intent laws - which is why bank robbers get nicked after robbing the bank, and why we have such convoluted anti terrorist laws.
Most crimes aren't strict-liability, and for all of those, the state has to prove mens rea. It's not an optional thing, or something that has fallen out of fashion.
Similarly, there is a huge body of law around what it takes to convict for an attempt as opposed to the actual crime. Attempts also require actus reus, but of a different sort (for instance, "an attempt occurs when the defendant has obtained control of an indispensable feature of the criminal plan").
Still, "intent to piracy" isn't a crime. He's accused of scraping the documents, not doing anything with them. It's the same crime, whether he intended to use the as a personal library, analyze them, or put them all on The Pirate Bay.
The only question of "intent" is whether he intended to bypass security, and download the documents.
I think it's a stupid law. Wire fraud should only matter if he used social engineering, forged cookies, or some other measure that was intentionally deceiving (see the definition of "fraud"):
From Wikipedia:
Common law fraud has nine elements:
1. a representation of an existing fact;
2. its materiality;
3. its falsity;
4. the speaker's knowledge of its falsity;
5. the speaker's intent that it shall be acted upon by the
plaintiff;
6. plaintiff's ignorance of its falsity;
7. plaintiff's reliance on the truth of the representation;
8. plaintiff's right to rely upon it; and
consequent damages suffered by plaintiff.
Now, he did "lie" - he listed his name as "Gary Host". But were the damages consequential to the plaintiff's reliance on the dummy name? I doubt it.
Robbing a bank while wearing a Mickey Mouse mask isn't fraud. It's robbery, and it might bring down the wrath of the Disney corporation, but the disguise isn't conning anyone, so it's not fraud. Robbing a bank by disguising yourself as a security guard would be fraud, as the disguise isn't just to mask your identity, but to deceive the victim.
Robbing an archive while using phony credentials (but NOT the credentials of a person who is allowed to access the archive) shouldn't be wire fraud.
the state has to prove mens rea. It's not an optional thing, or something that has fallen out of fashion.
You say it like the state can't just do whatever it damn well pleases, such as imprison Aaron if he's being a pain in its ass.
It's obvious that the US is quite a police state already. If we assume that Aaron's indictment is political - which seems highly likely to me at least - it makes you look like some kind of weird police state apologist.
There is no generalised "intent to" law, there would need to be an actual seperate crime of posession with intent to distribute academic articles.
So "mens rea" is not enough to convict without action unless there is a specific exception. And in general even the police try not to rely on the intent laws - which is why bank robbers get nicked after robbing the bank, and why we have such convoluted anti terrorist laws.