[roguecoder]

You can’t break and enter and then claim that it was legal because all you did was read documents you used to write a New York Times article.

Indeed, actual journalists have ethics departments that help ensure they don’t step over the line from accepting information gained illegally into encouraging people to commit illegal acts to get them information, and if they commit illegal acts to get information that is always a crime. It’s not even a grey area here.

[bubblethink]

"Breaking and entering" is a well defined thing in the real world. It does not extend well to digital stuff, and if you go down that road, you end up with the failure to decrypt DVDs. There is no digital property per se. It's just a proxy for other things. So decouple the two. There is no breaking and entering in the digital world. There are just actions you take after the fact, and you can rule on the actions.

[mike00632]

If you use someone else's credentials to log in as them then you are breaking the law, even if you didn't have to crack the password. I feel like this is very clearly defined. It's just like if you steal someone's purse because they set it down without securing it. It doesn't matter how easy it was or if you consider your act "art", it's still clearly breaking the law and easy to understand why it's illegal.