I'm not talking about a court-mandated warrant. I'm talking about a friendly chat with a fellow law enforcement person who cordially asks for help - who needs warrants between friends? And you do want to be friends with the law enforcement, because it's a bad enemy to have, aren't they?
> It is not their duty to ensure that you can say anything here.
I'm not saying it's their duty. I am saying you can't at the same time claim anonymity is alive and well and say nobody actually will protect your anonymity once push comes to shove. If that's the case, then anonymity essentially does not exist where it counts. Nobody cares that you can anonymously praise the Dear Leader. Anonymity is only important when somebody has real reasons to want to break it. It's like with free speech - nobody worries about speech that everybody likes being free. You only need free speech protections when somebody actually wants to censor, otherwise it's just vacuous.
Maybe yes, maybe not, but who cares if nobody ever finds out? And cops are pretty much immune from most illegal acts on the job, once they are sure they are doing the right thing, or can convincingly pretend they were, and once there's no law on the books explicitly, in minute details, prohibiting exactly this particular behavior. That's "qualified immunity". As for the other side, who's going to prosecute them if the law loves them? Private users, who probably can barely afford one hour of lawyer time?
People say "there should be a law against it". Well, politicians pass a law against it. And then arrange things in a way that makes the law useless since police unions' support brings in sweet money and votes. And then frame the discussion about police misconduct in a way that you either ok with anything and everything the police does, or you support abolishing the police altogether and violent mobs trashing your town daily for sports. That is good for brining in votes too. So I guess that's the point for them. What's the point for people to tolerate such system? Please tell me if you ever find out.
> It is not their duty to ensure that you can say anything here.
I'm not saying it's their duty. I am saying you can't at the same time claim anonymity is alive and well and say nobody actually will protect your anonymity once push comes to shove. If that's the case, then anonymity essentially does not exist where it counts. Nobody cares that you can anonymously praise the Dear Leader. Anonymity is only important when somebody has real reasons to want to break it. It's like with free speech - nobody worries about speech that everybody likes being free. You only need free speech protections when somebody actually wants to censor, otherwise it's just vacuous.