I'm not sure how this is answers my question at all.
How many whistleblowers would have been killed without a secure way to blow the whistle? How many journalists and journalist sources would have been killed? Etc. These people aren't using the USPS for good reason.
Point being, you are only doing one side of your calculation and presenting it as a full argument. But it's just a bad argument unless you calculate both sides.
That's a different question. You asked how many people would have been harmed if weaker/no encryption was the standard. The USPS is a message system where federal employees are able to intercept suspicious content, and there is no built-in encryption for mail. Voting by mail is a great example of how a critical message can be sent without relying on encryption. Whistleblowers can still encrypt documents on a flash drive, and drop it into a mailbox. There is nothing stopping them from doing so.
I don't really want to hash this same thing out for the... At least hundredth time. You're not going to convince me, I'm not going to convince you, and we'll both just leave less happy if we keep going.
>Whistleblowers can still encrypt documents on a flash drive, and drop it into a mailbox. There is nothing stopping them from doing so.
The only thing I want to highlight for your consideration is that the USA is not the entire world. The USPS, even if it were perfect, does not exist in the overwhelming majority of the world. People talk to people across borders.
(Also, with some of the proposed laws, encrypting the USB would be illegal)
And no service offering encryption has existed since 1755? Because that is required for your argument. Otherwise you simply send unimportant stuff via USPS and sensitive/secret/important stuff via non-USPS.
My vote, my taxes, my REAL-ID driver license, passport, credit cards, phone SIM, checks, 401k statements, etc. have very recently been sent via USPS. Do you consider this unimportant stuff?
Can you do the same thing, but in the other direction? How many people would have been harmed if weaker/no encryption was the standard?