[wpihfrvh] Taxing privacy

Consider making privileged communication far more widely available than just attorney-client, doctor-patient (HIPAA), and educator-student (FERPA).

Anyone can establish privileged communication, with legally sealed records, with anyone else, but there's a catch, some money involved.

The government, by power of subpoena, may unseal any such records, but in doing so, must pay an amount to a beneficiary specified in the establishment of the privileged communication.  The communicators may choose any amount, so the government will only choose to pay if the information obtained is worth that amount.  The amount paid to the beneficiary compensates for the loss of privacy suffered when the government breaks the seal on what was originally planned to be private communication.

There will probably be at least two beneficiaries and two prices, one for each endpoint of the communication.  The government must pay both.

In order to prevent the communicators from choosing an arbitrarily high price, the chosen price automatically induces a tax that must be paid in order for the establishment of private communication to be valid.  Perhaps the value of the tax is tuned so that the total government tax revenue after, say, 200 years balances out the cost of unsealing any secret.  No secret is worth keeping beyond 200 years.

Could also be adapted to one-party communication, i.e., private records.