> a thread about unacceptable reach of executive power

This is true no matter who is in charge.

> top comment a defense of the sitting president

It is not a defense, but if you perceive it that way you reveal your own bias. It is merely a point about the relevance of a FISA warrant when reasoning about the issue.

> the wielder of such power)

Of course, my caution about the irrelevance of FISA warrants applies equally to the sitting president and to past and future presidents.

> a canard about a mostly-unrelated political scandal

I'm not really sure how to respond to your characterization of the Snowden revelations as a unrelated political scandal. If we're talking about "wiretapping", Snowden revealed that there is a vast power of surveillance that can be wielded by a large number of people with little oversight.

While this does not lend credence to Trump's claims, it does reveal that those rebuking Trump for making the claims based on the lack of a FISA warrant are likely attempting to deceive/misdirect the public about how the apparatus actually works.

> I'm not really sure how to respond to your characterization of the Snowden revelations as a unrelated political scandal.

Which should have been your clue that you whiffed on the point.

"Obummer tapped my phones!" is the unrelated political scandal. If you don't want to be dinged for derailing the discussion, you could have jumped into a discussion about FISA/DoJ vs. NSA surveillance via any other technique. Instead you chose to go down this ridiculous "See? Trump was right!" rathole. And here we are.

> "See? Trump was right!" rathole. And here we are.

Not at all. I don't care whether Trump was right, but I do care whether we have a system where an audit can be done that can actually provide reassurance that inappropriate surveillance is not being done. Note that I am not arguing that surveillance of Trump (if it occurred) was even inappropriate, since there were widespread concerns about his ties with Russia, and the administration in office at the time had an obligation to provide due diligence.

There has been very little focus on the rule of law and limits to the surveillance state. Trump is not a privacy advocate, but nevertheless his remark made some of the relevant issues around unchecked surveillance timely.

Because there are three separate scenarios we could be in: the sitting president wants to get rid of this power, the sitting president wants to abuse this power, and the sitting president does not understand this power.

If the office of the president is saying things like "microwaves that turn into cameras," I'm not confident in the president's ability to understand the problem well enough to solve it effectively (nor, and this is small comfort, to take advantage of it effectively).

As a wise man once said, "Anyone who cannot name our enemy is not fit to lead this country." "Now, to solve a problem, you have to be able to state what the problem is or at least say the name."

> If the office of the president is saying things like "microwaves that turn into cameras," I'm not confident in the president's ability to understand the problem well enough to solve it effectively (nor, and this is small comfort, to take advantage of it effectively).

imho this particular case seems like the incoherent ramblings of a nutcase, but bugs hidden in everyday devices are old-school espionage stuff (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device) or countless others).

A microwave would be a pretty awesome target for a bug - it can live off the microwave's standby power, and transmit in the 2.4 GHz band when the microwave is operational. The high power usage of the magnetron (and the load-switching voltage spikes) would cover the increased energy demand, and using the 2.4 GHz band prevents it from being detected by bug sweepers (the noise from the microwave will drown out the sweeper).