Comment by w10-1

Key point (mostly drowned): Feds can compel A to surveil B if A maintains equipment or services for B. The Feds can also compel A's silence on point.

Originally applied only to the largest communications companies, this now has effectively unlimited scope.

The only safeguard (which took years to add legislatively) was that the FBI had to clear it; but now the FBI is refusing even to record such requests, to avoid any record of abuse (and the person responsible is dubious).

Surveillance seems necessary, but in the wrong hands, it's systemically deadly: it grants overwhelming advantage, and destroys arms-length trust, driving transactions of any size into networks prone to self-dealing and corruption.