They are military. It was a cyberweapon. That's the point of a cyber weapon. Russians stole it from the NSA. Yes, that's incompetence, but an attacker only has to get lucky once. It's much harder to defend a cyberweapon than a tomahawk missile.
Does that mean we shouldn't build cyberweapons? No. That's just how cyberweapons are. That's the reality we live in now, and the world will just have to deal with it. There's nothing to be done, is there? Not unless you're suggesting that computers should never be used for offensive capabilities, which from a game theory perspective means that country will be powerless in the digital arena.
Don't do the crime if you cant do the time.
Personally, I'd rather our military NOT be full of people who are willing to do this kind of thing.
If this discussion was about missiles, and the gov agency in charge of the missiles were using them on Americans, I'd say that they should go to jail as well.
You are right. These cyber exploits are weapons. And they should stop using those weapons on Americans, as a multitude of leaks have shown that they do, through mass spying and mass data collection programs.
I've repeatedly said on HN -- if the US tech companies can't build the most secure systems possible, the US government itself will not be able to secure their own systems. Secure devices and communication is not a given nor will it become easier.