[NotAtWork]

These same people seem awfully shy when I ask to go through their photos, just to see if they have any using drugs.

But that's exactly it: if you leave a gaping hole for the feds to get through I (in the sense of a hypothetical attacker) can go through it too, especially with how easily most federal secrets leak out and the fact that rekeying is essentially impossible for this use.

[jfoster]

Of course they're shy of you going through their photos. They know you personally, and you are a person, not an algorithm. Whilst it is possible that a person may go through their photos as part of mass surveillance operations, they believe it's unlikely to happen.

Your second point is true only if the access mechanism is reliant on weak security. It doesn't have to be.