In 2008, after the vice-presidential debate, I asked Rudy Giuliani a question that I very much wanted answered (and that, of course, not being obliged to answer, he ignored):

Well, I think we have an answer. The government has no interest in keeping anyone's email safe, especially after an arbitrary 180-day period has elapsed. Instead, it has developed a very strong interest in making the details of our email, chats, social-media posts, phone conversations, and credit-card statements available to anyone in government who might have a passing interest in their contents, all to support some vaguely outlined notion of "keeping us safe."

This is wrong.