This is an important concept that I’ve never seen described before. It’s not just big tech. The government is also heavily depending on this creeping change in

This is an important concept that I’ve never seen described before. It’s not just big tech. The government is also heavily depending on this creeping change in expectations. Setting aside what it has been interpreted to mean legally, “unreasonable search and seizure” in English can either be taken to mean “searching without a reason” or “searching more than is normally expected.” Obviously the latter is how most people would read it. In this way, huge legal invasions of privacy such as the Patriot Act and its descendants can never be viewed by the general public as unreasonable search, precisely because of how many people they affect. Everybody faces it, so it is incredibly commonplace, so everybody expects it, so it can’t be unreasonable.