I remember being in 8th grade in 2004 and writing an essay arguing that the FISA courts were antithetical to our notions of liberty, even if they didn't actually break the law. Little did I know that FISA warrants were the least of my worries.

I must confess I was incredibly amused every time they used "technically violated", "technical violation" or other euphemisms for breaking the law. They either followed the law or they broke it and should face the appropriate punishment (if any).

It just strikes me like the author is trying to minimize the impact by appealing to the use of technicality as "only appealing to a specialist" or in this case some "legalist". It's a disservice to the protection of civil liberties by minimizing the importance of crimes committed against said liberties.

Yeah, but they're the FBI so their intentions were good. </sarc>

As unfortunate as the situation may be, wiretapping/spying/searching will probably always happen at high levels of government regardless of the law. I don't know of any way to stop it, or that it's even possible to see if it would subsequently have been stopped.

Right, but at least let's not do really stupid things like build-in wiretapping capability, or have "law enforcement keys" or something like that.

It would probably help to have decently encrypted telephone protocols, instead of merely outlawing listening devices.

I'm sure this kind of thing is rare.~

5 years, multiple thousands of almost illegal intercepts, 'blanket' PIs to cover up the unauthorized intercepts.

Surely redefining 'rare' is not the answer.

um, I guess the sarcasm punctuation mark is not common parlance round these parts. though I guess </snark> or something would be more universally understood.

Whoops! I guess it is rare...

who will watch the watchmen

Journalists, the ones who still have jobs.