Actually, that particular issue (the alleged attempt to crack a password hash) isn't covered under the Espionage Act[0]. Rather, it's a separate charge under t

Actually, that particular issue (the alleged attempt to crack a password hash) isn't covered under the Espionage Act[0]. Rather, it's a separate charge under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act[1]. And that matters because the penalties are enormously more severe for the the former than the latter. >This is a far cry from conspiracy to commit murder, with our without a functional gun. Conspiracy is defined[2] as: "If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. If, however, the offense, the commission of which is the object of the conspiracy, is a misdemeanor only, the punishment for such conspiracy shall not exceed the maximum punishment provided for such misdemeanor." As such, the example was just that, an example. Would you be less butthurt if the example was conspiracy to steal office supplies from a US Post Office, and the overt act was to bring a hand-cart to the post office in order to cart away said office supplies? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371 Edit: Fixed grammatical error