I am trying to understand what its "newness" has to do with anything. Most crimes are not new, but we still prosecute. It sounds to me like you are suggesting that criminal justice is (or should be) based on how it would look as a CSI episode. (Sorry, simple blackmail is too bland a plot we can't prosecute, the audience will just sleep through it. Make it more fresh, have a twist at the end, something 'new').
What I meant is that abuses of power like this ought not be surprising - there are too many people who think that the powers that be can be trusted to do the right thing wrt surveillance.
