Editing Paper shredder (section)

===Applications===
Until the mid-1980s, it was rare for paper shredders to be used by non-government entities.

A prominent example of their use was when the [[Embassy of the United States, Tehran|U.S. embassy in Iran]] used shredders to reduce [[paper]] pages to strips before [[Iran hostage crisis|the embassy was taken over in 1979]]. Some documents were reconstructed from the strips, as detailed below.

After Colonel [[Oliver North]] told [[United States Congress|Congress]] that he used a Schleicher cross-cut model to shred [[Iran-Contra]] documents, sales increased nearly 20 percent in 1987.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,966794,00.html |title=Business notes office equipment |magazine=Time |date=1988-02-29 |access-date=2009-07-27 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930115604/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,966794,00.html?promoid=googlep |archive-date=2007-09-30}}</ref>

Paper shredders became more popular among U.S. citizens with [[privacy]] concerns after the 1988 [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] decision in ''[[California v. Greenwood]]''; in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the [[Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourth Amendment]] does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside of a home. Anti-burning laws also resulted in increased demand for paper shredding.

More recently, concerns about [[identity theft]] have driven increased personal use of paper shredders,<ref>{{cite web|title=About Identity Theft|url=http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/consumers/about-identity-theft.html|work=US FTC website|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090520060906/http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/consumers/about-identity-theft.html|archive-date=2009-05-20}}</ref> with the US Federal Trade Commission recommending that individuals shred financial documents before disposal.<ref>{{cite web|title=Fighting Back Against Identity Theft|url=http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/idtheft/idt01.shtm|work=US FTC website|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090528001302/http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/idtheft/idt01.shtm|archive-date=2009-05-28}}</ref>

[[Information privacy]] laws such as [[Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act|FACTA]], [[Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act|HIPAA]], and the [[Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act]] drive shredder usage, as businesses and individuals take steps to securely dispose of confidential information.