[rosser]

The relevance of your analogy of a storage locker filled with trade secrets hinges on a crucial question: Did Brown have specific knowledge that the file dump contained credit card numbers, and if so, was his intent in posting the link to the chatroom to disseminate those credit card numbers for the purpose of furthering identity theft?

Because if not, then given the crimes he's been charged with (aside from those related to the threatening the FBI agent, of course), he doesn't have the mens rea to warrant a conviction, to my — IANAL — understanding.

(There's, I think, a further question in terms of whether or not, and to what extent, posting the URL to a chatroom intended presumably for the internal communications and coordination of Project PM counts as publishing them, but that's irrelevant to his mens rea.)

[mpyne]

I forget the fancy legalese for it, but some crimes do not require mens rea (or have a lesser charge for an action without the required mens rea). I'm not sure if that applies to the data in question in this case though, but it's a great point to consider for the general question.

[pja]

"Strict liability" is the term of art I think.