Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton drive around coked up and drunk and get either probation or a 1 month/1 year sentence but someone hacking a phone (who doesn't endanger anyone's life) gets 10 years???
Sometimes, punishments for violent crimes are lower than those for downloading songs/movies or some victimless crimes like recreational drugs.
Imagine it's your sister or girlfriend involved, and the pictures are splashed across Facebook by an ex-boyfriend.
In this case, the victims are certainly less sympathetic, but the principle is basically the same.
It reminds me a bit of this Hunter Moore business: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4890088
Putting that person in prison achieves none of that.
Obviously, that's just my personal opinion, and I kind of understand that other people feel differently.
If that's what justifies this degree of sentence, then I despair for our justice system (more than before). The principle you say is "basically the same," implies the standard should be "taking it personally." However, Lady Justice wears a blindfold as a symbol against just this reasoning.
Anyways, this is not a case of some guy just accessing email. He "stole" identities, photographs and other stuff. According to the FBI site, he even continued to do so after his computers were raided.
Instead of thinking about the hacking, think about the actual damage of identity theft, invading privacy by leaking personal documents, and so on.
(Not that 10 years is a perfect sentence, and not that other sentencing makes sense.)
http://news.yahoo.com/hollywood-hacker-honed-skills-years-07...
He really had this coming.