Say you have a journalist who suspects a company is doing something not kosher or has a big acquisition coming. That company has a strict policy that employees may not talk to the press without permission. Despite that the journalist probes, he tries a bunch of people, he then finds someone inside the company who is willing to talk and reveal the company is doing something unethical or is going to buy a company.
The journalist then publishes that info and hopes, as a sign of the power of the story, that it is market-moving news. In an e-mail to an editor, she jokes that they ought to short the company. Or if you are Mark Cuban's short-lived venture, one actually shorts the company.
Given the journalist has exceeded authorized access to an employee and hoped to do damage to a company, should that journalist be prosecuted and charged with a felony?
If not, why is Weev being charged with a felony for doing the same exact thing by getting the info from a publicly available server that had no password protection?