Re: My sympathy meter is broken
I will assume that you live in a western democracy, because otherwise you would not be so upset about someone's rights being trampled on.
I think you need to take this in context. I agree that there are a few people in the police or the courts or wherever (bad guys') who are trying to undermine the rights to unreasonable search and seizure that people currently enjoy. But there are not very many of these bad guys, and there are many more people (both inside and outside the government) who are prepared to fight equally hard or harder to preserve those rights ('good guys'). The good guys are not as visible, and are not as active, until the rights breach gets out of hand - until someone says 'Hey, that's not fair' and enough reasonable people agree with them. Look at the recent Florida anti-NRA movement, or the #MeToo movement, or the fight against the Muslim ban in the US. These situations are driven by a large-scale problem that affects innocent people who are just trying to live their lives, and the movements to stop the 'rights-trampling' are powerful and effective.
Pedophiles downloading kiddy porn movies on the dark web are not in the same initial situation, and are not 'innocent people who are just trying to live their lives'. They are just plain evil people who deserve the full punishment of the law. Not many people are going to defend their right to view illegal pornographic material on the dark web anonymously, just because there is a loophole in the law governing wire taps which was written without regard to current technology.
Idealism has it's place, and certainly when you are in a dictatorship or oppressive regime, idealism serves its purpose. But you have to have some trust in the government and the citizens to 'do the right thing', even if it means that the rule of law is temporarily somewhat weakened. Note that the rule regarding specific location was changed before the case went to trial, so we are only talking a temporal difference - the FBI could have waited until after the rule was changed, and then gone for the warrant. The only difference is that there would have been more consumption of kiddie porn and (presumably) a worse outcome for the kids involved. I prefer catching the pedophiles ASAP.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
