If someone steals a million dollar painting from a private gallery, Except that you're starting with a false premise: the offenses for which Aleynikov was init

If someone steals a million dollar painting from a private gallery, Except that you're starting with a false premise: the offenses for which Aleynikov was initially charged -- theft of trade secrets, and transportation of stolen property in interstate commerce -- were in no way as clear cut as simply "taking a painting from a private gallery." As you are no doubt aware, from your detailed knowledge of the case. you think the police should need a statement from a 3rd party art historian in order to make an arrest? What the FBI (and the prosecution team) have primarily been faulted for has been their (by now obvious, if not admitted) failure to understand the basic nature of the charges against the accused -- to the extent that they missed the fact that his conduct would not even have constituted an offense against either statute. In addition, yes, there's the matter of how much the "stolen" (or rather, copied) bits were actually "worth" (or whether they could, in fact, "be used to manipulate markets in unfair ways", per GS's initial complaint.) Should the FBI have waited to consult an outside authority to make an independent assessment of these claims before making an arrest? That I cannot say. But that both the premier criminal investigative arm of the richest country in the world -- and the highest-profile prosecution office tasked with keeping us safe from white collar crime, in that same country -- should have known that the "value" of copied source code just might be a teensy, weensy bit trickier and more nuanced to assess than that of say, an Edvard Munch painting pilfered from a major gallery in broad daylight? Or that they should have like, you know, read the actual text of the statutes he was being prosecuted under before filing actual charges against him (and throwing him in the klink for a year as a protective measure)? We should hope so.