Yeah, it didn't make a lick of sense to me. I thought perhaps it was because I'm not an expert on security service, and my few encounters with AWS have made me painfully aware of just how much it is I don't know about it.
But the alternative explanation does make sense, and is exactly the kinds of errors I was afraid of making.
Didn't weev serve time for the same 'crime' of iterating a URL and downloading the contents?
Yup, and people on HN at the time argued it was bullshit. All the prison sentence did was turn him into a right wing extremist - the us criminal justice system mostly makes offenders worse rather than better.