The advent of fast, cheap networking has made it possible to store information at remote third-party locations, where it is intermingled with that of other users. For example, many people no longer keep their email primarily on their personal computer, and instead use a web-based email provider, which stores their messages along with billions of messages from and to millions of other people. Similar services exist for photographs, slide shows, computer code and many other types of data. As a result, people now have personal data that are stored with that of innumerable strangers. Seizure of, for example, Google's email servers to look for a few incriminating messages could jeopardize the privacy of millions.
It's no answer to suggest, as did the majority of the three-judge panel, that people can avoid these hazards by not storing their data electronically. To begin with, the choice about how information is stored is often made by someone other than the individuals whose privacy would be invaded by the search. Most people have no idea whether their doctor, lawyer or accountant maintains records in paper or electronic format, whether they are stored on the premises or on a server farm in Rancho Cucamonga, whether they are commingled with those of many other professionals 1177*1177 or kept entirely separate. Here, for example, the Tracey Directory contained a huge number of drug testing records, not only of the ten players for whom the government had probable cause but hundreds of other professional baseball players, thirteen other sports organizations, three unrelated sporting competitions, and a non-sports business entity—thousands of files in all, reflecting the test results of an unknown number of people, most having no relationship to professional baseball except that they had the bad luck of having their test results stored on the same computer as the baseball players.
The earlier Gulf War lasted only 100 hours, but still resulted in 21% compensable disabilities among its veterans, not counting those who are still in active military service. But the Iraq and Afghanistan wars still continue after 10 years, albeit we're now fighting the Iraq War with mercenaries only. And thus far, 45 per cent of those who served in Iraq and Aghanistan have applied for VA disability compensation, with far more still in service and thus ineligible for VA disability comp until they are discharged from the military. That's how badly the U.S. government treated its military in these latter wars, with many of them serving as many as seven combat tours of duty. That compares with the Viet Nam war where a 3-year enlistee normally saw only a single combat tour. The incidence of injury increases along with time spent in combat. And some types of injuries, e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder ("PTSD"), result from cumulative time spent in combat. Virtually everyone has their breaking point and the more time spent in combat the more likely that PTSD will result. Likewise, the more time spent handling projectiles weighted with depleted Uranium or walking through areas where such rounds have exploded, the more likely that radiation sickness or cancer will result. And a huge range of injuries may only result in disabilities well after the aggravating factor of aging has worked its magic. As Prof. Bilmes said in 2008, "in World War II and Vietnam and Korea, the number of wounded troops per fatality was about two-to-one or three-to-one. And now, the number of wounded troops per fatality is seven-to-one in combat, and if you include all of those wounded in non-combat and diseased seriously enough to have to be medevaced home, it's fifteen-to-one. So it's a very significant difference. And this difference compared to previous wars is, of course, you know, a great tribute to the medical care that they receive on the field and the enormous advance
