You're both veering out of CFAA jurisprudence in different ways. But you know you're in trouble when you start saying things like "I am no telepath", because in fact a big part of an ambiguous CFAA case will be determining what a reasonable person (ie: the jury) would think confronted with the computer system under discussion. There will in fact be mind reading involved; your intent would in fact be tried.

There's nothing at all CFAA-specific about this; this is really basic US criminal law and it comes up in all sorts of different criminal justice contexts. The terms you're both dancing around are mens rea and actus reus.

>But you know you're in trouble when you start saying things like "I am no telepath",

I'm not in trouble. There is virtually zero chance of this ever being noticed by law enforcement, and even less chance than that of them giving a shit.

Also note, I am not arguing what the worst possible interpretation might falsely convict someone of, but how the law should be viewed, or, if someone can demonstrate to my satisfaction that the law disagreed with, then how it should be altered.

If I have to guess what retards (read: juries) might think is reasonable, then there can be no public internet. We're just a few years after journalists were arrested for looking at html source with "view source", aren't we?

>The terms you're both dancing around are mens rea

I'm only mildly ignorant. Has CFAA ever been considered to describe strict liability crimes?