Bingo. I think it was a dick move to go running to Gawker with it, rather than practicing responsible disclosure. But even then, I'm having a hard time with the idea of criminal charges for that; he didn't steal this data, AT&T happily handed it to him. He basically ran around saying "Haha, what a moron the guy at the administrative desk is, I just kept asking him for files and he just kept on handing them to me". And while that's distasteful, is it criminal?

Honestly, to me, it feels like he's being run down because someone got embarrassed, and he's being railroaded with archaic laws that can be applied in vague and nebulous ways to make just about anyone a criminal if it's useful.