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Simple - our laws haven't evolved with technology. That's why your mail has about a million times more protection than your email.
by gbrown 5y ago
Simple - our laws haven't evolved with technology. That's why your mail has about a million times more protection than your email.
- kilroy123 5y agoYup. That's what happens when the country is ran by a bunch of old lawyers.
- Barrin92 5y agoprobably depends more on the kind of old lawyer. I've actually noticed that in general older people tend to be more privacy conscious than younger ones. Old people at least still know what secrecy of correspondence even is. It's not even a concept that exists any more for a lot of gen z. In particular American supreme court arguments often stand out to me in how clearly the judges manage to connect old principles to newer technologies.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoIt has nothing to do with them being "old". Saying that is a very ageist thing to say. I know a bunch of old techies who are completely against this. It's about lack of technical knowledge and how this is being twisted to seem okay. Your average millennial doesn't give a damn about it either.
- EpicEng 5y ago>old lawyers Meanwhile, it's predominantly young people who freely hand their information to mega-corps to be disseminated and distributed. Outside your (our) bubble young people don't give two craps about privacy.
- ink404 5y agoOutside this bubble most people young or not don't give two craps about privacy
- shuckles 5y agoUSPS regularly X-rays mail, and the only protection against abuse is policy (it’s not admissible evidence in the United States).
- twobitshifter 5y agoNot only that, but they log all metadata on the envelope of every letter sent.
- enriquec 5y agoand my building's mail gets routinely stolen
- 0x426577617265 5y agoLaw Enforcement can also get access to that metadata -- it's called a mail cover. See U.S. v. Choate. "A mail cover is a surveillance of an addressee's mail conducted by postal employees at the request of law enforcement officials. While not expressly permitted by federal statute, a mail cover is authorized by postal regulations in the interest of national security and crime prevention, and permits the recording of all information appearing on the outside cover of all classes of mail."
- vkou 5y agoThis cuts both ways. Our laws not evolving with technology is also the reason why tapping and intercepting secured digital communication is orders of magnitude more difficult than tapping someone's analog phone line, or why decrypting a hard drive is far more difficult for the police than sawing apart a safe.
- sgustard 5y agoAgreed. Technology has allowed abusive images to thrive and reach new consumers. Any pressure to "evolve laws with technology" will surely lead to more draconian anti-privacy measures.
- gjs278 5y agothey used to use candles to unseal mail all the time