That will never happen, even with Trump. He didn’t trash it in his first term and he won’t trash it if he gets elected for a second term. We are passed the point of no return.
I think it’s fairly clear, there are cells in this country now and no president will be willing to trash it and then terrorists strike like an Oct. 7th attack. If a president did away with the surveillance, he would be tarred, feathered and run out of office for dropping the ball. No one is going to be willing to take the blame for the attacks.
You make a great point.
One of the House versions, Jordan’s, just requires a warrant for Americans information. That’s it. And it would establish a panel that would have oversight of what they’re doing.
Do folks remember when they were calling out the FBI conducting over 250,000 searches for no investigative reason. They found agents looking up old girlfriends. And, if a local cop did the same, who investigates and goes after them? The FBI.
Why can’t they have some oversight?
As someone that has experience in drafting warrants, it isn’t hard. I’ve written them on the back of a patrol car.
And these agencies have lawyers assigned to them, whose only job is to help draft warrants. For a lot of them, outside of certain information, it’s boilerplate. And if it’s for info like phone records, damn near everyone of them is going to read the same.
On top of all of that, there’s always Exigent Circumstances, which allows the search for an emergency, but paperwork will have to be drafted later to explain why. IE….if there is a murder or kidnapping, where time is of the essence, and they have to track a phone.
The fact that the FBI is pushing back against the warrant requirement should tell us all we need to know. They’ll be able to do what they want and what they’ve been doing.