If a url is not supposed to be edited by people, address bars wouldn't be text fields. It wasn't long ago that one of the primary ways of going to a website or even a particular webpage was entering it manually in the address bar as opposed to going to google first.

Websites are not only meant to be accessed by humans either. Are you telling me that bots should employ human reason to guess what should be viewed or not?

I'm not even sure what you're proposing. The web has always been public space.

If a website puts a link to a resource that is not protected by authentication means, and hides it behind some other html element, or styles it with javascript to a white font on a white background, or does something else that is similarly difficult for a script to guess is not viewable by humans on some subset of browsers, is it now breaking the law because obviously the url was not viewable on any webpage?

How about if someone takes the url, and doesn't view it, but posts it on some other website with high traffic. Now all people that click the link have broken the law?