Perhaps I missed something. I don't see anything about the user accessing Google's protected debug servers that require authorization. I see 'mail.google.com'

Perhaps I missed something. I don't see anything about the user accessing Google's protected debug servers that require authorization. I see 'mail.google.com' then 'about:blank' in the url bar, which indicates that he's accessing a public server and then probably accessing data already on his machine. Data that they chose to send to him and present to him within his browser with controls that were displayed to him to allow him to access it because they decided he was authorized to see it. I don't know much about weev's case except that it sounds like it was information that AT&T had decided that the public was authorized to access without any authentication or protection. They screwed up. I agree that a lot of legal people are tech-illiterate, and they screw up, too. Which may be why they eventually bailed on a venue technicality rather than address the actual case. But your point was: "Whoever intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains information from any protected computer" (which doesn't really sound that dumb on its own) My point is that you're authorized to access your own computer and it isn't protected from you, so that would not apply (unless the legals involved couldn't figure it out). Is clicking the 'About' button in the help menu of an application and accessing the version number a crime? Seeing the Gmail debug info in chrome is just that with more detail. Try putting "chrome://about" in your Chrome url bar. Ooh, there's data. Lots of debug data. Are you a criminal now? No, it's your system and you're authorized to use it. And the makers of Chrome chose to give you access to that data. Just for fun, try chrome://quit/