I’m not sure about that. At the end of the day he wasn’t entitled to access that information.
The information arguably shouldn’t have been placed on the internet in a way that let him access it as he did but it remained information he did not have permission or a right to access.
I don’t think he can argue that he accessed with ‘colour of right’.
I’d say its the requirement for fraud that saves him (if anything does).
One thing I’d like to see determined: Was there any way that those 250 unredacted PDFs could have turned up in the results of a normal search on the site?
Free pamphlets! (Except taking one of them will get you arrested.)
I suppose the analogy the prosecution would use is that taking one of every pamphlet is permitted (perhaps even taking more than one) but if you take an industrial vacuum and try to hoover up all the pamphlets rather than waste time picking up each one by hand and you accidentally also hoover up some other documents that you don’t have permission to take but were stored in such a way that your hoover could them up, then you are still taking documents you are not entitled to.
Except the internet is not a pamphlet stand.
And even if it is, in this case it’s more like putting up two pamphlet stands.
One which contains leaflets you’re happy for people to take and one which contains documents that you don’t want people to take.
You tell people about the one you want people to take leaflets from but all you do to secure access to the other one is that you don’t tell people about it.
You don’t put up any security or a sign to tell people not to take leaflets from it.
People can just walk right up to it and take stuff if they know where it is.
And you put it right next to the pamphlet stand people can take leaflets from.
Then you complain when someone does take a leaflet.
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