But that's mostly because it's impractical. They do use dogs to sniff for drugs and explosives, so if CSAM smelled or was visible through X-ray then it would probably be a different story. And let's not forget snail mail is by far a more uncommon way to spread that material than the Internet is. The Internet came into broad use just ~15 years after commercial CSAM was openly being sold by mail order in Europe.
replyPersonally, I am on the side of privacy, just to be clear.
If East Germany can, why can't we? /s
replyMore effort should be done to find real-world equivalents of such actions and "think of the children".
replyAn icloud is like a storage locker or a safety deposit box... the owner should go through all your stuff there, just in case you have some CSAM!
Metadata is just tracking info about who, where and with whom... every bartender should take your IDs and log when you came to the bar, who you sat with and how long you talked there.
EU Chat control is like general eavesdropping... every time you sit down and talk with someone, an EU bureaucrat should sit next to you and listen and write down your conversations, just in case.
etc.
Somehow people think that "it's ok if it's on the internet", even when it's stuff they'd never accept in real life.
Police can absolutely open snail mail with an appropriate warrant when investigating traffickers.
replyWith a signed warrant being the key differentiator vs invading privacy by default.
replyI agree, so let's make sure that signed warrant is always required for any kind of access to communications, even _if unencrypted_ like snail mail, SMS or plain text chat client. As well as encrypted.
replySo - political solution, not a tech solution.