[jerf]

It is unlikely that "overly eager teenagers" are doing anything other than playing around or engaging in raw, unbacked braggadocio, as is especially the way of the male teenager. It is unlikely that targeting these users, shutting them down, or prosecuting and convicting them will do anything to enhance security, but it will cost the government money, incur an opportunity cost as these resources are wasted while more reasonable (if less sexy) things that might actually have a positive effect are left undone, and, oh, last and most assuredly least from the government's point of view, it may destroy young lives which were quite likely on a track to be otherwise quite productive, computer-savvy citizens. (How many people here can tell tales of early, somewhat-less-than-legal activities before they became productive members of the computer world?)

I've phrased it with "probably"s on purpose; every once in a while a teenager will manage to escalate to the "true threat" level. However I think it is likely such a teen will either A: tend to show up by other, more practical measures or B: slip through a crack regardless; it doesn't justify harassing relatively innocent and frankly naive users, for what is probably little more than the purpose of padding numbers to make your enforcement look good by going for cheap, easy targets, regardless of whether that's good for anybody else.