Around D.C., you can go to just about any coffee shop and use their wi-fi internet connection. You simply power up your laptop, scan the airwaves, and connect to their internet connection. Shopping malls and other businesses are following suit. For $50 a month and the cost of a few cheap wireless routers, you can let your customers surf the web while they suck down your coffee and eat danishes. It seems harmless and must be good for business or they wouldn’t do it.

But in Florida, it is apparently a felony.

Benjamin Smith III, 41, faces a pretrial hearing this month following his April arrest on charges of unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony.

Police say Smith admitted using the Wi-Fi signal from the home of Richard Dinon, who had noticed Smith sitting in an SUV outside Dinon’s house using a laptop computer.

Now, I’m not saying that Smith is completely innocent. Exactly what he was doing on the internet wasn’t made clear. He could have been surfing for kitty p0rn, downloading illegal music, or harvesting credit card numbers. If he was, he should be charged with those crimes. But on the other hand, he could have been just checking his email and stock quotes. Or looking for directions to a local address.

Unless they can determine malice, charging him with a felony just seems idiotic. And shame on Dinon for not securing his connection. You don’t leave your curtains open and then complain because people watch you get undressed.

UPDATE: I wonder if the Communcations Act of 1934 weighs in here. It basically says you are allowed to receive whatever someone is transmitting. (We’ve amended that, obviously, to exclude cell phones and encrypted transmissions.)