I think that your defense hinges on this being the only thing that they are doing. As one of many things, with no risk and little expended effort, why not?
>There are myriad easier ways to conduct individual surveillance if that was the goal
What's easier than getting a call from somebody placed at a tech company indicating that one of the most security critical pieces of code didn't have test coverage and wasn't statically analyzed before going into the build has a spot where an errant line could be inserted, in a way that could be argued later was accidental.
The total marginal cost to that hypothetical situation would have been to say 'ok.'
>these same agents already apparently have legal carte blanche to intercept traffic in other ways.
I think that your defense hinges on this being the only thing that they are doing. As one of many things, with no risk and little expended effort, why not?
>There are myriad easier ways to conduct individual surveillance if that was the goal
What's easier than getting a call from somebody placed at a tech company indicating that one of the most security critical pieces of code didn't have test coverage and wasn't statically analyzed before going into the build has a spot where an errant line could be inserted, in a way that could be argued later was accidental.
The total marginal cost to that hypothetical situation would have been to say 'ok.'
>these same agents already apparently have legal carte blanche to intercept traffic in other ways.
intercepting traffic != decoding traffic