Redirecting, forwarding, copying and other email rules being set by system administrators is normal. "Heinous" is grossly disingenuous.

This sort of thing happens for a bunch of reasons, most typically as a result of legal action. I myself have all of my email being held for discovery in an ongoing case that I personally have nothing to do with, it says nothing about wrongdoing of anyone involved.

If CEO came to me and said "we need to archive all email to or from this recipient", the only unusual part of that ask would be the person requesting it.

Blackballed how and by whom and what downstream process, the cabal of principled sysadmins? I’m sympathetic to your philosophical bent but that world, outside self employment, got stomped hard some time ago.

We have The Work Number but no way to reasonably implement your suggestion. We’re cogs, just toast.