Imagine that Congress proposed a law that made postage free in the United States. In exchange for free mail, postmasters would be permitted to open your mail and read our letters and bills. The benefit, postmasters would insist, is they would know when you’re planning a family vacation. We prefer that strangers not read our mail — that’s why we’ve made doing so a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison. We have laws to protect our health care records because we definitely don’t need strangers knowing our medical history.

Source: New York Times July 14, 2019 22:52 UTC