I'm sure as yewt that none of the stuff those guys did was in the letter of the law, but the context of the situation is what justified it according to the spirit of the law.
We don't need the honor code office in its current form. I don't think it necessarily needs to go away entirely, but it's time to loosen the dumb thing. Hasn't changed since the sixties but the times have, and believe me, there comes a point when "standing up against the opinions of the world" doesn't protect eternal principles anymore and you're just doing it to be a dumb contrarian.