[ben_w]

During the Cold War, everyone had spies in the other side.

Russia is certainly still trying that now (I assume the US is too, but haven't heard of it recently).

Giving any group legit access to this risks those spies having a convenient and easy way to find anyone with dirty laundry (even mild, legal stuff), and blackmail them into helping the spies.

This problem still exists even if we don't have the system for legit access, I'm only saying an official system makes it worse.

We still have to alter our societies so that nobody has anything secret to be ashamed of. This necessarily means making society radically more transparent, and I think the only way this is possible is to also make society radically more inclusive and tolerant. Why also tolerant? Because I've heard people typically commit 3 felonies a day (don't trust random factoids), and at that rate transparency without liberty turns the whole nation into a prison.

[experimenting]

Blackmail and coersion of civilian assets for intelligence work is both possible and a risk.

But it won't happen though an Interpol investigation and leave a formal audit trail.

It is just turning "think of the children!" into "think of the sexual blackmail!".

[ben_w]

Given the LOVEINT that we only found out about because of Snowden, given the sexual blackmail used to coerce gay people during the Cold War, and given rule 34, I fully expect officially sanctioned mechanisms to be abused in this way.