Considering it was created during a major moral panic after the movie "War Games" came out, by a bunch of politicians who knew nothing about computers (aside from, again, watching the movie War Games).

As a direct result, anything and everything can be a crime (e.g. violating a private company's Terms & Conditions), and the punishments are completely disproportionate to the actual criminality.

See the AT&T/iPad data leak, where AT&T were leaking private information on the internet with no security checks at all. Someone found it, told the press, who in turn told AT&T, but the FBI still investigated it as a "crime", raided their home, charged them with "conspiracy to access a computer without authorization." AT&T go no punishment at all.