> I'm pretty sure the government is delighted by Silk Road so that they can finally justify searching all physical mail in some very advanced way.
Aside from the issue that SR has been running for almost 3 years now without anyone introducing such legislation - they already scan the outsides of all letters or packages indefinitely, and can easily search anytime they want to. The legal niceties aren't why drugs by mail still work, it's because the USPS alone handles literally billions of things a year and the screening problem (economical, not too high false positive, USPS does not benefit in any way) is really hard.
The government* is also trying to kill USPS by placing unreasonable pension requirements on it. Sort of hard to justify that when you actually start needing it to fight crime.
Considering the level of access that government agency's have it is amazing to me that they have not been more effective in clamping down on the drugs trade. Considering the amount of goods and money that is flowing; does that not leave a detectable trace? Is it really that difficult to find?
Aside from the issue that SR has been running for almost 3 years now without anyone introducing such legislation - they already scan the outsides of all letters or packages indefinitely, and can easily search anytime they want to. The legal niceties aren't why drugs by mail still work, it's because the USPS alone handles literally billions of things a year and the screening problem (economical, not too high false positive, USPS does not benefit in any way) is really hard.