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It is the only way the copier can efficiently forward the image to the CIA.

FTFY. Here's a link to the history of that.

We think because we would, they would.

The cameras installed in copy machines. I recall reading about this many years ago and IIRC it wasn't just soviet copy machines. But memory of the article is too faded. Spying is nothing new.

Sometimes it's much harder to start a company, build your own products (e.g. xerox machines), establish a well known brand, then do the spy stuff:
http://www.editinternational.com/read.php?id=47ddf19823b89
http://tinyurl.com/a7b9jql

I doubt the CIA call up random companies. But as you can see they definitely do use existing established companies.

It's been done before.

http://www.editinternational.com/photos.php?id=47ddf19823b89

Why did they start designing copy machines to have long term storage, and to keep a copy of everything ever copied?

The Cold War.

On a more serious note. If you ever photocopy a manual more than 50 pages long, I think you'll find out why. Nobody wants to wait around for each page to get printed before feeding the next page in. Also, nobody wants to resubmit the entire stack of originals, if for some reason the printer gets jammed midway through, or if midway through for some reason your boss just asks you to get 10 copies of those 50+ pages, not that the 5 copies that he originally asked.

When it comes down to it, there is great business sense in decoupling the scanning task from the printing task. It's just something that most of us would never think about, when disposing one of those newer machines. In my opinion, manufacturers shouldn't be required to get rid of this feature, they should just be required to put a warning label on the machines that have it, at the very least. It's more of an education issue.

Data may be weightless, but how about hardware key logging devices?

That reminds me of a Cold War story I heard once upon a time. The CIA worked with a Xerox technician to secretly install a camera inside the machine(s) at the Soviet embassy. They got away with it for a long time because those old machines were so complicated that only a handful of people knew how they really worked.

This is just the modern day equivalent. If your hardware is out of your sight even for a few moments it should be treated as though it was compromised. If it's worked on by someone that you don't trust implicitly then it should be treated as though it was compromised.

I thought that was just in the Russian Embassy, although according to the following link, it was probably all of them. http://www.editinternational.com/read.php?id=47ddf19823b89

fnord