In US, deed is public (grantor name, grantee name, property id). That’s probably how the scammers knew that you are involved in a recently recorded deed, and offered to send you a copy if you pay them.

When my parents closed on a house, me, and all of my siblings, regularly and illegally got scam/spam calls for my parents' home. We are not on the deed. We are not involved in the transaction in any way.

Also, don't buy a car, either; that also generates a significant volume of incoming scams & fraud, although most of that is in the snail mail. (But "at least" there I am the person in the transaction … I guess?

But fraud is still fraud.

Does US law prevent (or frown upon) defendant from publicly publishing evidence, even when the plaintiff publicly published the accusation and their evidence first? If so, how is the defendant supposed to protect their public reputation when a lawsuit is ongoing for years? Or maybe I’m missing your point on what wouldn’t be looked upon kindly?

Two wrongs don't make a right, even if the plaintiff is playing dirty it doesn't give you the right to join in.

Assuming the exhibits aren't sealed they're publicly available as soon as they're entered by the court during trial.

If they're sealed there's probably a good reason they shouldn't be published until the trial is over (or ever in some cases)

In some places, I see people do that. It’s not stupidity. I learned the logical reason after observations. During busy hours in some busy buildings, there isn’t enough elevator capacity. Therefore, if you want to go down to the ground floor, taking a trip up and then down might be better (a less-bad worst case outcome, or even a better average outcome) than waiting for a non-full downward elevator. In such case, it’s logical to press both up and down.

Currently, git log -- a -- prints all commits that affects the files whose name is a or two dashes.

Yes, that would change behavior slightly. To restore behavior for pathspecs including a "--" file, you would need to add an additional -- to make the revspec explicitly blank:

    git log -- -- a --

Previously working command needs to continue behave the same way. Your original proposal was intended to provide backward compatibility (your third point in original comment), and that’s an important part of why it could work.