I've always thought that the biggest unfairness in US computer law is that you're judged for what you could have done and not what you did. I think it's largely because those who made these laws where told how dangerous computers are and they couldn't imagine, as a factor of their age, why anyone would do something like this out of curiosity. So you ended up with every computer system being protected and a derogation of freedom at a scale unimaginable in the physical world. The double standard of course becomes very apparent when there's no equal punishment for the keeper of the computer system if a third-party has their data compromised as a result of mismanagement.
