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It's no different than basically finding somebody's house unlocked, going inside and using their microwave to cook food you brought with you and then using their toilet afterward, all without permission.
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I have to disagree with you completely regarding the above comment. I believe that there is a significant difference between using an open air network and entering someones home. First if someone has a scanner they can listen to your "private" wireless phone calls and or cell phone calls and there is no law against that. Secondly shouldn't it be the owner of the wireless networks responsible for the security their network? It's like this, if you're in your home and your broadcasting a signal without any security, then I outside your home happen to pick up that signal with my car radio, am I breaking the law for listening to it?
The same principle applies to broad band wireless. I had leeches on my network and all I had to do was secure it and presto problem solved. The reason there is a law in that state is not because of hacking, its because some big business decided that they wanted to have a huge wireless network that they could then charge people to use. They wanted to "protect" that subscriber service and that is perfectly fine. Its a protected service not a public open service.
Now had this guy "hacked" into the network then yes, he should be charged. Instead all he did was access a system that was open to the public. If the owner of the system didn't want any one to access the system accept paying customers then she should have taken steps to make sure that that was the case. She did not, and I don't see where what this guy did was a violation of that states hacking law.
Again had the system been secured and he accessed it, or had it come with a statement saying this system is for store customers only, then yes, he should have been charged. But that wasn't the case. Hell even the lawyers he talked to didn't even know about his law. Ignorance of the law is no excuse is a statement that only a police state would make.
I ask you, do all the police know all the laws? No they don't. The police break more civil liberty laws each day than most of us break speed limit laws in our lives. Yet when you say to a cop "ignorance of the law is no exception" they laugh at you. That standard only applies to US, not to them. And that makes such totalitarian comments like "ignorance of the law is no excuse" so counter to common sense that is it is just plain silly to accept it. However more and more prosecutors and judges are falling back on that line as an excuse to ignore reality and impose immoral edic onto victims of the system. If they want everyone to know all the laws then they should start teaching law at the pre-school level and continue teaching it through graduation from high school.
The guy who accessed that open air network had no reason to believe that what he was doing was wrong. The responsible thing for retailers to do would be to give each customer who buys a wireless enabled system the laws governing its use in their state. I mean if the police have to go back and "look" for it, then how in the hell do they expect an ordinary working person to know about it?