I am loath to defend agents of the government, law officers or otherwise; but I have to agree with the decision here. Van Buren violated department policy, and

I am loath to defend agents of the government, law officers or otherwise; but I have to agree with the decision here. Van Buren violated department policy, and perhaps other laws in his conduct. But he did not gain unauthorized access to a system. He already had authorized access - he just used it improperly. Similarly, if I were granted access to my company's production database to perform some kind of operation that required me to read/write data, and I used that privilege to access financial records of customers, I would certainly be violating my company's policy and likely some privacy and financial laws. But it would not be gaining unauthorized access, as I was explicitly granted access to that system - just for a different purpose.