Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 December 30

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December 30

Tagore poem

Hi everyone. I am supposed to make sense of a certain poem by Tagore, but I have the impression I was given a back-translation of a Chinese translation. I found the text I received here: http://blog.udn.com/quietdharma/8963422. Could someone enlighten me? (I am most interested in the part starting with "Two: I heard the music, from the moon and carcass" etc.) Thanks a lot! MuDavid (talk) 02:26, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree that this is very confusing. Looking at a Google translation of the page you linked to, I don't think that is a poem of Tagore at all. The page starts with line 82 of Tagore's Stray Birds, but it then goes into a Zen dialogue. I can't find anything resembling the lines you are asking about in Stray Birds, or elsewhere in Tagore's work: I think this is a poem inspired by Tagore. It's possible I'm wrong, as it's all rather unclear. Certainly the lines you are talking about are not English; but a Google translate of the page shows that, apart from "I believe I am" coming out as "I believe in myself", the "English" on the page is a Google translation of the Chinese. --ColinFine (talk) 14:11, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Hm, well, maybe I should try at the Language desk to see if I can find someone to help with the Chinese... The person who gave me this fragment confirmed it is Tagore, but I couldn't find anything like it in any Tagore work I found online either. MuDavid (talk) 01:30, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Japan in World War 2

Did any white people fight with the Japanese rather than against them in WW2? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.225.138.20 (talk) 06:12, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the Germans. They were allies. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 06:39, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I mean actually fighting with them, rather than allied with them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.225.66.217 (talk) 09:56, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

The German auxiliary cruiser Michel briefly operated out of Yokohama in 1943, if that counts. It was still a German ship though, it just happened to be stuck in the Pacific. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:58, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

The Vichy French and Germans were fighting alongside the Japanese in Vietnam. One Allied fighter saw this and it became the inspiration for Planet of the Apes. Shii (tock) 15:02, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

What was the rationale behind selling indulgences just prior to the Luther's Reformation?

From what I understand, indulgences were used to make sins less weighty, so a person receiving an indulgence from a priest wouldn't be divinely punished so harshly. Perhaps, some clerics wanted to cheat the system, so they lied to ordinary, naive laypersons that indulgences could be "purchased" instead of going through the trouble and confessing your sins to another person outside your family (probably very embarrassing and shameful!). Or perhaps, some artful laypersons bribed the priests into giving an indulgence without really confessing or repenting. Though, I have a hunch that it's more of the former than of the latter. Was selling indulgences done by a handful of corrupt priests, or was the entire Western Roman Catholic Church corrupt at the time? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 06:46, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

According to Indulgence, an indulgence was theoretically good for avoiding temporal punishment (ie penances) for sins already confessed (ie to a priest). But the reasons for the abuses are obvious; it gave the church something it could sell and which it cost nothing to produce and greed took over. Often the money raised was for a good purpose (funding hospitals, building projects, schools etc). See [1] for more information. GoldenRing (talk) 07:26, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Incidentally, let's be clear that permission was never given to sell indulgences: permission was given that donating money to a worthy cause could be an act of penance towards the indulgence (still accepted acts of penance include things like saying certain prayers, reading the Bible, going on certain pilgrimages, attending certain sorts of events, etc), and then this was abused and turned into a situation where people were practically buying them from certain unscrupulous individuals. The worst abuses were also reserved for indulgences obtained on behalf of the dead: there are no even nearly-contemporary accounts of people selling indulgences for the living with the heretical promise that the indulgence guaranteed them entry to Heaven: there are accounts that people promised that dropping the money in for an indulgence for those in Purgatory would immediately send the soul in Purgatory to Heaven, no matter the State of Grace of the individual obtaining it, or anything the soul in Purgatory might do or have done. Whether that is because even the unscrupulous had a line they wouldn't cross, or because, no matter how poorly catechised they might be, the public obviously wouldn't believe the idea of a ticket to Heaven regardless of any actions they might take, I don't know. 86.156.148.98 (talk) 10:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Would a 21st century American judge commanding people to do community service as a form of penance be a modern equivalent to the indulgence system done in the Middle Ages? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 13:36, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, there's less chance of abuse than where money changes hands. (Traffic cops are notorious for giving out more tickets when they have a budget shortfall, so suddenly behavior that was acceptable before now requires a fine.) Potentially community service could be abused something like a modern chain gang, which was a system of virtual slavery where people were convicted on little evidence and often spent the rest of their lives in prison, working without getting paid, perhaps for a relative of the judge who sent them to prison. Allowing people to choose their form of community service somewhat removes the profit motive and hence conflict of interest from the equation. StuRat (talk) 16:41, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Not really, because nobody made people do penance. Nobody made people obtain indulgences. It wasn't part of the justice system at all. And a judge can't have you do community service in order to free someone else from jail. 86.156.148.98 (talk) 22:04, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. A Papal Indulgence could also buy you remission for sins that you hadn't got around to yet - a sort of "Get Out of Jail Free Card"; the whole thing was genuinely unsavoury however you look at it. To answer the question, Pope Leo X "is probably best remembered for granting indulgences for those who donated to reconstruct St. Peter's Basilica, which practice was challenged by Martin Luther's 95 Theses" according to our article, having spent all his cash on luxurious living and making war on the French. Alansplodge (talk) 22:49, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

"A Papal Indulgence could also buy you remission for sins that you hadn't got around to yet". Citation needed, unless you're basing it on the fantasy works of Phillip Pullman. 86.156.148.98 (talk) 23:35, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

There is indeed long and hard debate about this, with all Catholic sources (that I can find) denying that such a thing ever took place and most Protestant sources taking it as read that it happened. It does seem that the official doctrine of the church never ventured into pardons for future sins. However, the practice of promising future absolution, however against doctrine it might have been, does seem to have gone on. It is difficult, for instance, to interpret these words of Urban II, during his declaration of the first crusade, in any other way:

If anyone who sets out should lose his life either on the way, by land or by sea, or in battle against the infidels, his sins shall be pardoned from that moment. This I grant by right of the gift of God's power to me.

— Urban II [2]

I can't dig out an original text of this speech immediately, and there is a suggestion that there are several accounts of it, and at any rate he wouldn't have said it in modern English, so it might be open to debate whether he said that or whether that's exactly what he meant or whether the translation is good etc. But there does seem to have been an understanding, however mistaken it might have been, that those going on crusade were forgiven all sin, either before taking the cross or after, if they were to die in the course of the crusade. GoldenRing (talk) 01:12, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Were there ways that a poor Catholic peasant could do as penance? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 02:11, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Any number of them. One could, of course, say a lot of prayers. Or perhaps donate some time or energy to the church, rather than money. Or indulge in forms of mortification or abstinence of various sorts. Or, I suppose, become a monk. Don't laugh - I think the latter was rather common among what we might today call retirees. Pretty much all the forms of penance recognized today were recognized then to. Unfortunately, particular around Luther's time, there was a serious effort to get together the money to build up churches in the Vatican, and given that then current effort, and the need for money for the building, it was maybe a bit trendier and more appealing at the time to donate money, and, of course, there were some indulgence "salesmen" who, like most other disreputable salesmen of any era, were maybe more interested in "closing the sale" than dealing in a responsible and straightforward way with the person whose money they were trying to get. John Carter (talk) 02:26, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

(ec) Of course, yes. There are two important distinctions to draw, which I think are getting lost a bit in some places above. The first is between between penance and indulgence. The normal process for dealing with sin was (is?) to confess to your parish priest, who would pronounce absolution and assign a penance. The absolution removed the obstacle between the sinner and God; the penance is the temporal punishment for the sin. Completion of the penance was seen as a mark of repentance, not a substitute for it. An indulgence could only be granted by the Pope, and essentially waived the penance.

The second is between the official doctrinal theory and how it was practised. In practice, 'could only be granted by the Pope' actually meant 'sold by one of very many Papal representatives in the Pope's name, some of whose sole job was to peddle indulgences'. 'Waived the penance' occasionally drifted into 'a promise that all sin would be forgiven, past and future' (as noted above). The requirement for confession and absolution was also often glossed over, at least by the person obtaining the indulgence. Officially, indulgences were never sold; rather, a donation was given to some charitable cause, as a sign of penitence, and the Pope (or his representative) would grant an indulgence, considering how penitent the person obviously was.

It all looks a bit weird to our modern eyes, and of course the Protestants declared it all to be terribly wrong; but it wasn't a system that someone thought up overnight, it developed over the course of most of a thousand years, a small step at a time. Most people really believed in the hell that awaited them if sin was not dealt with and looked for some authority that could reassure them that it had been, so, for some people, the opportunity to effectively buy your way out probably seemed a boon. GoldenRing (talk) 02:53, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

For Urban's speech calling for the First Crusade, see the translations here - in short, as usual for a medieval speech, there is no "official" record of it, but a bunch of people who may or may not have been present may or may not have accurately remembered what he said when they wrote it down later (a few years later or perhaps even 30 years later, but in any case after the crusade turned out to be successful). Apparently he offered some sort of plenary indulgence though, because the precedent was continued/expanded for other crusades too. The papal bulls Quantum praedecessores and Audita tremendi also offered indulgences for crusaders. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:37, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

All-green flag on early 17th century Spanish warship

I'm passing on a question by Christopher Braun regarding a painting by Cornelis Verbeeck. What is the green flag flown from the mizzen mast of the Spanish ship (to the right) in this painting?

I've searched around a bit, but can't find references to all-green flag relating to any specific Habsburg territory. My guess is a command flag squadron commander (rear admiral?), but I don't know if these were flown from the mizzen in the early 1600s. The red flag on the stern of the Dutch ship is apparently a signal flag showing intention to engage in combat. The red and yellow flag appears to be the flag of Enkhuizen in North Holland.

Peter ^Isotalo 08:25, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Peter Isotalo You might post a link to this question at the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships if you haven't already done so. They might help garner more input in getting the question answered. MarnetteD|Talk 17:32, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

It could be the flag of Cubillas de Rueda. Mjroots (talk) 23:04, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Inheritance System in Pride and Prejudice (19th Century Inheritance System)

Hi everyone,
I'm just reading Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813), I'm not even halfway through (so no spoilers please ;)), but I've already got a question concerning the inheritance system of Great Britain in the 19th century. I know it's actually an academically irrelevant question, and my literature professors would kill me for spending time on such a subject based on that text, but I'm still wondering about the British inheritance system at the time:
The situation is that Mr Bennet has a large estate that, upon his death, will be inherited to the closest male relative, which in his case is his distant cousin Mr Collins because he's only got five daughters but no sons. Because of that, his daughters are to be married as quickly as possible to ensure that they won't end up home- and penniless after Mr Bennet's death, which is fair enough so far. But I'm wondering now that, if one of those daughters now married, wouldn't her husband be a closer relative than Mr Collins? Or, if blood-relation was the determining factor and if his daughter and her husband had a son, wouldn't Mr Bennet's grandson, who is in his direct line of descent, be a closer relative than Mr Collins, and wouldn't Mr Bennet be able to change his will?
Or, to phrase the question more generally: in the 19th century, was a distant cousin a closer relative than a grandson (to which the answer should clearly be no in my opinion) so that seniority was more important than direct line of descent?
Thanks in advance! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.245.82.10 (talk) 12:16, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

According to ordinary inheritance at the time (in the lack of a will or other specific relevant legal document), the daughters would actually inherit equally. However, in Pride and Prejudice, the landed estate (house + land) is restricted by an entail legal document established in a previous generation, which presumably gives the male-line male descendants of a specific named individual priority inheritance rights (as most entails did at that time)... AnonMoos (talk) 12:42, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

No wonder Elizabeth was pushed into marrying Mr. Collins - and when she rejected, she had an argument with her parents. Apparently, she put herself over what was best for her family, which seemed very selfish of her to do. And there was intense pressure to get those daughters married in wealthy homes, so they could maintain a similar standard of living. AnonMoos, couldn't Mr. Bennet get a mistress or concubine and receive an heir through her, but the child would be legally passed as Mr. and Mrs. Bennet's? That seems entirely biblical too. Sarah/Sarai received a son through a handmaiden named Hagar. He was named Ishmael. But then Sarah conceived and gave birth to Isaac. Although Isaac did become the next patriarch, Ishmael was believed to found a new religion - Islam. Also, Martin Luther and his wife Katherine begot and adopted children. Surely, the Bennets could do the same and raise a small child as their own, bestowing everything to the adopted son? Also, how could Mr. Collins have received a last name so different from Bennets? Wouldn't there be a female ancestor somewhere up the family tree? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.79.234.132 (talk) 13:51, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you miss a lot of the context of the book if you don't realise that getting the daughters married was actually a deadly serious matter, that Mrs Bennet is the only one taking it as seriously as it deserves, that Mr Bennet has surrendered all responsibility for his children's well-being because it is hard and embarrasing, that Lizzie Bennet is being unreasonably prideful in her judgement of her best friend, and that Jane and Lizzie are making very difficult decisions that value their pride potentially over their own well-beings and the well-being of their sisters. But the alternative is effectively like being sold to the highest bidder, which Mr Collins attempts to be: at the same time, he is trying to do the right thing by his cousins, by allowing them first refusal. 86.156.148.98 (talk) 22:00, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers. It's a shame that there's no reference to the document (or at least to as far as I've read), so we can only speculate about it. It just seems weird to me that it's legally possible for a boy not to inherit anything from his mother's father, even when Mr Collins is very, very unlikely to be a male-line relative to Mr Bennet, otherwise he would be called Bennet as well (thanks 71.79.234.132 for that point)? So that legal document doesn't really explain why Mr Bennet couldn't bequeath the estate to a grandson as soon as one of his five daughters gives birth to him, unless it specifically names Mr Collins as heir. That, however, seems unlikely to me as a lay because Mr Bennet isn't too keen on Mr Collins or his father, and only meets the former for the first time in his life in Chapter XIII or XIV... That must have been a hell of a specific document because otherwise there's no reason why an unpopular non-male-line distant cousin should be preferred to a non-male-line (but obviously direct) grandson that is nearly bound to be born within the next five to ten years with two extremely beautiful and three other normal-looking daughters. 87.245.82.10 (talk) 15:31, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Additionally, I think Mr. Collins is a Protestant clergyman. If he were Roman Catholic in Anglican England, then religion would probably be a big issue in marriage, unless the Bennet family had been Roman Catholic as well. Also, the fact that he can marry hints that he is definitely not Roman Catholic, so he may be affiliated with an Anglican church or a Free church or an Anglican off-shoot (Methodist, Quaker, Puritan, Evangelical, etc.). 71.79.234.132 (talk) 15:59, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

The deed to the real estate that was the basis of Mr. Bennet's wealth could have established an order of succession to the estate other than male primogeniture. For example, it could have given priority to direct male descendants of the original owner's children, including his daughters, according to their birth order. That would explain why Mr. Collins was next in line even though his surname was not the same as Mr. Bennet's. Marco polo (talk) 16:22, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

In a previous thread a few months ago (which I can't find now), we came to the conclusion that the English gentry at that time were almost universally Anglican and that any other case would have been worthy of mention. Alansplodge (talk) 23:11, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

The document is described, in a cursory manner, in the first paragraph of the seventh chapter:

Mr. Bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, in default of heirs male, on a distant relation; and their mother's fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply the deficiency of his. Her father had been an attorney in Meryton, and had left her four thousand pounds.

— [3]

In other words, according to the will of whoever left it to Mr Bennet, the estate (a not-inconsiderable one - somewhere near £200,000 per year in today's money) would pass first to Mr Bennet's male heirs, then to Mr Collins. Mrs Bennet's fortune might have earned a few hundred pounds per year. GoldenRing (talk) 00:37, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Does "an estate of two thousand a year" mean property whose rents average that much, or an annuity, or what? —Tamfang (talk) 09:02, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Monetary wealth and annual income were generally converted back and forth using a conventional 4% or 5% ratio (4% was the interest rate paid by long-term government bonds, while 5% was a typical rate of return for relatively safe, but not absolutely guaranteed, investments). So Mrs. Bennet's £4,000 wealth translates to £200 or a little less of yearly income. (They can't touch the principal because £5,000 is "secured" as an inheritance to the Bennet daughters after the death of both Mr. and Mrs. Bennet.) But the "estate of two thousand a year" is the average annual income of the entailed property... AnonMoos (talk) 20:11, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

No, a child by "a concubine" would be illegitimate and excluded from such a succession. — As for the surname, it may be that some ancestor changed his name from Bennet to Collins as a condition of inheriting property from his mother's side; I don't know how common that was but I've seen multiple examples. On another hand, Marco makes a good point that the entailment could have included the founder's daughters and their male heirs but no further female inheritance; there are examples of such clauses ("special remainders") in peerages created for someone with daughters but no sons, see e.g. Earl Mountbatten of Burma. In that case the founder might be neither Bennet nor Collins! —Tamfang (talk) 09:03, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

It was quite common. A more recent example is Admiral Hedworth Lambton, who changed his name to Hedworth Meux so that he could inherit the estate of the eccentric brewery heiress Valerie, Lady Meux who had taken a shine to him. He cheerfully abandoned his own family name, being descended from one John Lambton who is said to have killed the Lambton Worm (a dragon) at the time of the Crusades. Alansplodge (talk) 17:32, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

See fee tail for the legal background. However unfair the arrangement may appear to us reading the book, it was a way for the previous testator to set up precisely what he intended to happen to the estate after his death. --ColinFine (talk) 14:25, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

What would've happened if a centrist became president instead of Batista?

His dictatorlike-ness helped Castro be popular enough to win the Civil War, right? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:19, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Please note the following "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate" which is printed towards the top of this page. This question can only be answered with opinions which are also debatable. MarnetteD|Talk 17:23, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

But yes, I'd say in general a more moderate government will prevent civil wars. Perhaps if the Mensheviks hadn't been wiped out by the Bolsheviks in Russia, it would have had a much more peaceful revolution. StuRat (talk) 18:02, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to think that if they had instituted an all-kitten government, it would have kept order quite well. Generalissimo Mittens McFluffikins would have ruled with an iron paw. On a more serious note, I'd go looking for alternate history books. There's a healthy industry for them and many are exceptionally fun reads. There's bound to be a few that deal with a Cuba that never became Communist. Though many might be in Spanish. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 8 Tevet 5775 18:12, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, both Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and Castro in Cuba started out reasonably enough, but were driven to more radical positions and measures because the West opposed them and their only way of surviving was alignment with the opposing superpower. The cold war tended to have such an effect - and not unreasonably. The highly illegal Bay of Pigs Invasion cost more lives than 9/11 even in absolute terms, and certainly showed much more real threat to the Cuban state than al-Qaeda ever did to the US. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:49, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

This is really two separate questions, the question in the heading and the one beneath it. The question in the heading is unclear. Is it asking what would have happened if a centrist were president instead of Batista, in the first place? It's unclear what "centrist" is supposed to mean here. Also, the primary issues with Batista were not his position on the left-right spectrum but 1) his undemocratic seizure of power in 1952, and 2) his policy of favoring the interests of U.S.-based property owners over those of the Cuban people. So, the question ought to be, What if Cuba had had a democratically elected president in 1952 who had attended to the interests of his people? Clearly, in that case, Castro would never have launched a revolution. On the other hand, this question might be asking, What if a centrist had replaced Batista instead of Castro? Of course we can't know the answer to that question, but most likely a centrist would not have provoked the anticommunist paranoia of the United States at the time, and Cuba would probably have had better relations with the United States, but probably also would have maintained high levels of income and wealth inequality like other Latin American nations. As for the second question, I think that the answer is no. Castro's dictatorial tendencies were not the basis of his popularity, nor was popularity the reason Castro won the war. He won the war through a combination of luck and shrewd strategy. The popularity came later, partly because Castro had succeeded in overthrowing the hated Batista and partly because his government's reforms reduced inequality and improved living standards for many Cubans (while also alienating many others). Marco polo (talk) 22:29, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Batista, as an army noncommisioned officer, was a leader of the 1930's overthrow of Machado, who was as evil and corrupt as Batista wound up in the late 1950's. Batista was elected president in 1940 as a progressive, with the full support of the Communist Party, and enacted a progressive constitution in 1940. The 1940-1944 version of Batista seems to have been everything one would wish in an alternative history version of the 1950's Batista, democratically elected and attentive to the needs of the people. Yet he came back in 1952, after residing in the US, with the backing of the US mafia, the US military and civilian authorities, and US multinational corporations, to take over as a dictator, and crush opposition in favor of organized crime, an anticommunism strongman with lots of US weapons, and allowed exploitation of the natural resources of Cuba by US corporations. How did he get co-opted? Our article only gives the explanation that he saw he would lose the 1952 election so he cancelled the elections and took over with the backing of the Cuban military.Wikipedia says that even in his 1952-1958 reign, wages in Cuba were relatively high. Perhaps he had backing from Washington to supply money and weapons the military wanted. That still does not explain how he made alliances in the US from 1944 to 1952 with the military, politicians, the state department, multinational corporations, and the Mafia, so that they all backed his coup in 1952. Was he in tight with the CIA? In the early 1950's they are said to have backed the overthrow of democratic governments in other countries such as Iran, leading to similar "blowback" years later when anticommunist strongman governments were overthrown. A document by Lyman Kirkpatrick, who worked for Allen Dulles of the CIA, does not indicate much control of Batista or tight coordination with him by that agency in the late 1950's. A progressive president in 1952 might have had his hands full if the US were engaged in Cold War moves to install anticommunist strongman dictators, the US multinationals wanted the natural resources, and the mob wanted casinos and drug trade. Edison (talk) 21:01, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Duty managers in retail/hospitality/leisure/travel/transport industries

I.e. Customer service or operational roles. Are duty managers in these roles employed specifically for the purpose of being duty managers or are they just a manager level employee who is required to perform duty manager roles on a shift basis but has a separate day job? 176.251.149.108 (talk) 17:43, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Justifications for the different legal treatment of physical mail and email

In most developed countries it's a serious offense to steal physical mail from someone, more serious than petty theft. Many of these same developed countries have government-run programs that read email and record internet browsing habits. How are these contrasting policies justified? I would be interested in reading statements from American, French etc politicians and government agencies about this.--31.200.166.105 (talk) 23:45, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I do not for a moment condone governments engaging in mass espionage of citizens without having to convince a court that there is reason to suspect criminal activity in specific cases, but the situations that you describe are not analogous. When mail is stolen, the intended recipient never receives it. When email is intercepted by government agencies, it does still reach its intended recipient. There is no theft, unless the email contains information of monetary value and either the government profits from it or an entity favored by the government profits from it.

The analogous situation is a government intercepting a person's paper mail, reading its contents, and then sending it along to the recipient. Many countries have legal arrangements that allow police to do just that, though in countries with rule of law, police generally have to produce evidence supporting suspicion to obtain a warrant from a court.

There are two things that are different about email surveillance: 1) It is now much easier to capture and process metadata than it was before the recent expansion of computing speed and capacity, and this activity is therefore inadequately addressed by existing law. Government intelligence agencies have taken advantage of this loophole. (It would be possible to collect metadata for paper mail as well, and that may very well be happening.) 2) The international structure of the internet means that email messages, even those passing between two people in the same country, may pass through servers in a number of different countries, unlike paper mail, which typically passes through as few countries as possible. For this reason, legal restrictions on government surveillance of citizens make it difficult for governments to monitor citizens' paper mail without court action. However, there are often no legal restrictions on monitoring the communication of noncitizens, so a government can monitor noncitizens' email when it passes through the country's servers. Because lawmakers did not foresee the possibility of governments trading information on one another's citizens, few laws exist to prevent this.

Finally, one might expect that lawmakers would have been swift to close these legal loopholes, which threaten their constituents' privacy. In fact, pervasive fears of terrorism have created a strong appetite among governments, and to a lesser degree among their citizens, for intelligence activity that threatens privacy, and so little action has been taken in most countries, beyond occasional empty expressions of outrage by certain politicians. Marco polo (talk) 01:20, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

• Consider historically that stealing mail is theft and may prevent the actual delivery of money, goods, and legal documents entirely; while reading email is like tapping a phone line. It's an invasion of privacy that may have further bad consequences like fraud, blackmail, and identity theft, but which in itself is merely eavesdropping. There's also the fact that the USPS, for example, was government chartered by constitutional mandate, while the WWW has largely developed free from the clutches of or even understanding of the legislature. μηδείς (talk) 18:48, 2 January 2015 (UTC)