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Activists 10 years ago are probably still linked to interesting people the government wants to survey though, even if they are maybe less active now

Activists typically aren't secretive about their actions, on the contrary they tend to be as public as they can safely be. The setup though might be, if it's to prepare an event that might be crushed down before it even take place, but then even a day later, not even a decade, to decipher would be too late and thus pointless.

> Punishing people a decade after the fact isn't very effective for anything.

It sends a very clear message: even if it takes a decade, we will find you and punish you.

That’s not a message activists tend to care about though. In places where speech is dangerous enough for this to matter, there are usually far more immediate threats.

It could potentially have blackmail material.

Blackmail/ influencing elections. Find the presidential candidate's post when he was 14 and said something racist or edgy and use that as leverage or kick him out of the race.