Re:Hacker Releases More Democratic Party Documents
by michaelt on Saturday August 13, 2016 @10:59AM
(#12281723)
Well, technology has changed the status quo in two ways.
The first is, as you say, previously you could intercept a suspect's mail and search their papers; with proper encryption that isn't possible.
The second is in the past the search process wouldn't scale to searching every citizen all the time. With e-mail, web traffic and smartphones, it becomes possible.
We can restore the status quo from 30 years ago for either one of those changes, but not for both.
The first is, as you say, previously you could intercept a suspect's mail and search their papers; with proper encryption that isn't possible.
The second is in the past the search process wouldn't scale to searching every citizen all the time. With e-mail, web traffic and smartphones, it becomes possible.
We can restore the status quo from 30 years ago for either one of those changes, but not for both.