You have it backwards. You don't have some inalienable right to government-backed control over what I do with my copy of some code. The original will always be yours, but my copy is mine, and actually I do have a close-to-inalienable right to do whatever I want to with my own property.

So then does the same apply to the copy of your emails that travel across the internet? Once the NSA obtains a copy, do they then have a close-to-inalienable right to do whatever they want with what is then their property?

Yes they do. I would argue for privacy laws, specific exceptions to that right, just as I support trade secret law. But it would be an exception, a deeply unnatural change to the legal norm, and I would have to make the case on its merits that the value to society of such privacy laws was worth that extraordinary curtailment of the NSA's usual rights.

You're not allowed to sell stolen property, and I don't think you have a right to distribute code that was obtained illegally. Now if someone got a copy from the author with his/her permission, say by buying it, and then gave you a copy, you might have a defensible point.

You're assuming a copy of code can be treated like stolen property--there are several practical differences.

Not exactly the same. But there's a difference between distributing stuff that's obtained legally or illegally. First-sale doctrine doesn't apply to stolen goods, and I think there's a similar distinction that should be made with illicit data.