(This seems in fact quite appropriate to me, because then the punishment is proportional to the extent to which the general misused the privileges given to him. If he was new to the job and they didn't show him much of anything, then they have little to complain about him breaking their trust; if he's spent ten years getting his fingers in all their data with their conditional permission, and now they realize they shouldn't have allowed him, then they have a lot to complain about.)

The case of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater can be handled similarly: Customers agree not to do that sort of thing as a condition of being allowed into the theater, and if they break that, then they are guilty of trespass. You might complain that the customers didn't agree to any such thing, and that implicit contracts are bad. Fine, then the theater can put up a sign that says "You are not allowed to falsely shout 'fire'". As a matter of fact, I have seen many fire alarms in large buildings with a sign that says something like "$NNN fine for spurious triggering of this alarm".

The point is, there is no need to count any of these situations as cases where freedom of speech breaks down. These things can be illegal without allowing any chinks into your free-speech armor; they can be punished, not because they're an illegal form of speech, but because of something else.

If we were to apply it with no exceptions, there would be NO EXCEPTIONS, and no other laws, rules or agreements would be able to overrule it.

If the U.S. military requires its generals (as a condition of their employment and their access to top-secret info) to not give away top-secret info, and it prosecutes those who break this agreement, this is clearly not Congress making any kind of law and therefore is not prohibited by the above, so in fact a perfectly strict and literal interpretation of the First Amendment would conclude that this is totally legitimate.

Not that I disagree with your premise, but an issue with this is that people like to see punishment that fits the crime - I'd expect public outrage over a misdemeanor prosecution for an infraction that may result in loss of life.

As a matter of fact, I have seen many fire alarms in large buildings with a sign that says something like "$NNN fine for spurious triggering of this alarm".

Those fines are actually due to local ordinances. As such they are an example of government imposition on individual freedom in order to protect the public, and are a bit of a counter-example to your point.

If someone got stomped to death in a stampede triggered by someone's cry of "fire", methinks the person or people who did the stomping would have a lot to answer for. You shouldn't do that even in a real fire. The only difficulty is that it may be hard to identify the culprit(s) if everyone was busy panicking about their own escape routes; and I can see how a mob, with no other targets available, might place all blame on the original "fire"-shouter.

But perhaps this "loss of life" thing is an incidental flourish, and your main point is that people, responding legitimately to a fire alarm (not stomping on people), suffer a lot of inconvenience (they drop whatever they're doing and evacuate), and the "fire"-shouter is responsible for all that and perhaps should pay for it. I agree with that. I don't see a problem with assigning a large punishment to the simple crime of trespass when the trespass has large consequences.

Suppose I gain access to a Toyota plant and press a few buttons or rearrange a few materials in such a way that a batch of several cars comes out ruined. I haven't done anything beyond simple trespassing, but I am responsible for thousands of dollars of property damage, and I can be made to pay for it, right?

So either this is a case where a trespass is a huge crime; or I can be considered responsible for massive property destruction, even though I just pressed some buttons or rearranged stuff (possibly without realizing the implications of my actions), and even though it required the actions of other people in the assembly line to completely carry out the destruction. (In the latter case, what makes me guilty and the others innocent is that I committed a crime--trespass--and they didn't.) These choices seem largely equivalent to me; the former has the drawback that you can no longer hear "trespass" and think "Oh, ah, trespass, a misdemeanor, with maximum punishment X", but perhaps this could be remedied by calling it "trespass causing major property damage". Either way, I think something similar could be made to apply to the case of a false fire alarm.

Those fines are actually due to local ordinances. As such they are an example of government imposition on individual freedom in order to protect the public, and are a bit of a counter-example to your point.

Interesting. I didn't know that. Still, couldn't you call it a form of trespass and still punish it with a fine of approximately that magnitude (see above for further discussion)?

Sure you could get a fine for trespassing, or even imprisonment, but since it's a criminal offense it's at the discretion of the prosecuting jurisdiction rather than the establishment. On the other hand, the trespasser could probably be held civilly liable for damages by the establishment directly.

In fact, going back to the theatre example, I suppose the person who yells fire and causes a stampede could just as well be held liable for injury or wrongful death in a civil suit by the affected individuals, rather than reckless endangerment or manslaughter in a criminal court.

In the end, though, we'd also have to consider the cost and effort involved in individuals conducting civil suits vs. the convenience of having the government handle investigating and prosecuting it as a criminal offense.

Vandalism? Sabotage? You've done more than just trespass if you've interfered with anything in such a way as to cause damage (deliberately or otherwise).