> Imagine if the US had a maximum sentence of 35 years for mere possession of a firearm but in practice, it would only be used in very unlikely conditions. It wouldn't last a minute. It's only allowed to be like this because nobody cares about tech.

This is effectively how all federal sentencing and reporting about that sentencing works, all the time. A lawyer blogger Popehat has talked about this for years[1]. Headlines pull add up all charges and the maximum statutory sentences for those and report it as if that's even remotely close to a likely outcome and it's not. In fact, Popehat actually wrote about that as it applied to Swartz in the aftermath of his suicide[2].

    If you read about the Swartz prosecution, you saw people decrying the fact 
    that he was facing 35 years in prison. That's more than rapists and murders
    serve, they say. But they are talking about the maximum possible sentences, 
    not any sentence he was remotely likely to get. Recently in the context of 
    another case I explained how federal sentencing works, and how it's driven by 
    an arcane set of rules producing a recommendation that federal judges often 
    follow — rules that on most occasions produce a result well below the 
    maximum possible sentence.

[1]: https://www.popehat.com/p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sentenci...

[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20150604204913/http://www.popeha...