I think the reasoning proceed from two different opinions of the citizenry.<p>It&#x27;s my opinion that in any reasonably developed and old democracy a majority of the population are currently criminals in the sense that they have broken at least one law.<p>In reality, that law is either trivial, inconsistently enforced, or generally ignored. But the important thing is that it&#x27;s <i>still on the books as the law of the land</i>, and therefore makes the citizen prosecutable in a court of law.Whether or not that individual is prosecut<i>ed</i> then becomes the folly of most systems -- a choice that can be arbitrarily made (as it&#x27;s never in<i>correct</i> for the government to enforce its current laws, even if it can be unjust).<p>As a consequence of all the above... pre-investigation is tantamount to power-to-convict. And privacy is the only effective deterrent against &quot;I would like to find <i>some</i> crime you&#x27;re guilty of and then charge you with it because {unrelated and non-legally-based rationale}&quot;. Imho, this is the fundamental and most dangerous type of corruption a democracy can fall institutional victim to, because it only requires that there be a large number of rarely-enforced laws on the book (a systemic weakness of democracy where repealing a law takes more effort than leaving it valid) and individuals of questionable motive (human nature) in positions of power.<p>(I&#x27;m perfectly willing to accept that others may have a different viewpoint on democracy, but I think I historical support as to this is the actual way a mature legal system functions)