Another peculiar element to the government data mining scandal is the apparent public acceptance of the pretence that a mere judge's approval is all it takes to legitimize investigators seizing a citizen's personal data accounts. Due process doesn't just involve judges' discretion, but openness about the criteria for probable cause.
Judges are the biggest pack of nobody's with trumped up power and authority the world has ever seen. Backed by a judge doesn't mean anything in the world of warrants. Elected or not, there is no actual difference between a judge granting a warrant to search your personal records and some hired government worker in a white shirt deciding to do it on his own except that they have to go to one extra step, granting it the appearance of legitimacy. The American government experiment has done nothing if not conclude that public election never increases likelihood of an official working for public interests or of behaving honorably. Decisions of whose privacy gets violated and how severely may as well be kept in house, because the extra step does nothing to make me feel better or safer.
We needed to have standards for probable cause to search and to have reviewable case decisions with consequences for judges who violate set standards. We can never ensure that officials will do their jobs fairly and uphold people's rights, but it helps to have consequences for not doing so, and for those who seek to go around them or manipulate or remove laws enacted for our protection.
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