Whoops ignore the arson part, that depends on local statues and was related to something else I was working on and misspoke it. The disruption of public services implies if you overloaded a smaller government server and took it down (think "reddit hug of death") but with malicious intent through hotlinking you could be found liable under that statue. Government entities tend to refer all potential threats to prosecutors/legal offices and criminal proceedings take much less effort to begin then civil ones (such as if you bothered the oatmeal by hotlinking his comics).

How a CDN worksimplies you have a contract for services with the CDN service provider. If you have no contract and were using their services without permission, it's theft. Look up theft of services and your state if you want further information on it. I'm not going to continue to define something that is clearly written and easy to search.

Yes contacting the government and requesting access is a legitimate approach, but I was referring to how you can easily look for public domain content provided by the government. Or submitting an inquiry for personal/commercial use is an option but that's most likely not a common scenario anyone in this subreddit is dealing with. If you are, you're already speaking to your lawyer who is most likely procuring access for you.