"calculated to influence and affect the US government by intimidation and coercion".

So we just make shit up now, to make things look as bad as possible and as worth prosecution as possible?

Pretty much. The US were kinda embarrassed by this guy. From what I've read, the $800K of damages was actually just him logging in with a VNC client using a blank password, then clicking around. I wouldn't be surprised if they spent $800K securing the systems he accessed and then claimed that was the 'damage'.

See also the raid on Steve Jackson games where documents available in public libraries (and which were also sold to the public) were claimed to be sensitive secrets worth many thousands of dollars.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._U...)

> So we just make shit up now, to make things look as bad as possible and as worth prosecution as possible?

Yes, though that mentality is unfortunately nothing new[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

To me, the scariest part of that is how similar it is to the "9/11 was a guvernment conspiracy I tell yah!" folks...

Not saying I agree with them, of course.

Why do we have CIA again?

To collect intelligence about foreign nations so we are not taken by surprise.

It's relatively important.

And yet we seem to be taken by surprise, well, almost every time. The nature of the business is such that we just have to trust that they're actually doing something besides sitting on their collective asses in Langley and counting down the days to retirement.

I realize we need a foreign intelligence service, but I'm not sure we need this foreign intelligence service. There are 14 separate US government agencies that collect intelligence in other countries as part of their mission. We might be able to do without the CIA.

>. And yet we seem to be taken by surprise, well, almost every time.

Don't forget about the possibility of the two following scenarios:

1.) The CIA succeeded and therefore the US Government weren't taken by surprise - even if the general population were

2.) They knew about something and therefore prevented or countered it, therefore the public never heard about it.

3.) The CIA knew, and were ignored.

4.) The CIA knew, and didn't know that they knew.

I am very happy that this is finally over for Gary and his family. It was a huge waste of time and money.