>Just because the government is big doesn't mean it can't own (digital) property.
The topic of whether there's any meaning to the concept of owning digital property when anything digital is a post-scarcity asset that costs essentially nothing to duplicate is something that society still hasn't really agreed upon.
But we're talking about proprietary government information here. Just because it's digital doesn't mean that it can't be criminal to access it via unauthorized channels. It isn't a matter of "oh you still have your copy" - I'd be surprised if anyone actually thinks that because something is a string of bits it means that there can't be an illegal way of obtaining those bits.
Is the government entitled in any way to “proprietary information” that is then treated like property?
We (some of us) allow corporations to treat proprietary information as intellectual property with the same legal protections as physical property because it benefits society to protect the revenue streams of eg hollywood so that they will continue producing new movies at a profit. But it is a specific hack to protect revenue streams of businesses to incentivize them to produce new and valuable information.
We never agreed to the same protections for the state, or even that such is good or necessary.
I am not sure how treating a video bitstream of war crimes (produced with hardware purchased with my tax money) as “property” that does not belong to me (a member of the group who paid for its production) benefits society. I am not sure how punishing someone who furnished me with a copy of that bitstream as someone who “stole” benefits society or encourages production of new or innovative or valuable information. Recall, that is the whole basis for the concept of “intellectual property” - a metaphor for businesses to profit from spending time and money producing new bitstreams, by shoehorning it into old physical property protection systems. The state is not a business and their prosperity is not an explicit goal of our society.
All it does it protect the state, who has demonstrated over and over again its willingness to break the law, perpetrate violence, and lie to everyone about all of it.
That is not a legal interpretation of “property” that we agreed to.
>But we're talking about proprietary government information here. Just because it's digital doesn't mean that it can't be criminal to access it via unauthorized channels.
Right. We're debating whether that might be an ok thing to do under some circumstances. The government that is protesting criminal access to it's records is the government that gets to set what is or is not criminal, which is a clear conflict of interest.
If that government was morally praiseworthy, we might be willing to assume it is capable of rising above this conflict of interest. However, the government in question has, in it's recent history, knowingly opened fire on children with gunships and then attempted to cover it up, so I personally am of the opinion that it doesn't have a track record that would imply it is capable of rising above that conflict of interest.
Hence, I'm not very interested in what US law says on this matter, but I would be inclined to hear what the UN has to say on the matter.
The topic of whether there's any meaning to the concept of owning digital property when anything digital is a post-scarcity asset that costs essentially nothing to duplicate is something that society still hasn't really agreed upon.