You have the wrong impression. No United States law criminalizes port scanning. This is a legal and useful service. See for yourself: https://nmap.org/book/leg

You have the wrong impression. No United States law criminalizes port scanning. This is a legal and useful service. See for yourself: https://nmap.org/book/legal-issues.html https://nmap.org/book/legal-issues.html Even if it was illegal wouldn't the answer simply be to rent servers in a country where it isn't illegal (or even condoned by the government) and scan away? I'd imagine most government responses to this would be IDGAF.