Comment by immibis

A protected computer is "a computer which is protected by this law", which is most American computers, not a special class of American computers. The only reason it's not all American computers is that the US federal government doesn't have full jurisdiction over the US. They wrote the definition of "protected computer" to include all the computers they have jurisdiction over.

In particular, the interstate commerce clause is very over-reaching. It's been ruled that someone who grew their own crops to feed to their own farm animals sold locally was conducting interstate commerce because they didn't have to buy them from another state.