This comparison is flatly hyperbolic. The general warrants the framers prohibited were a tool of harassment that essentially allowed agents of the British government to tear apart the homes and belongings of anyone they saw fit. You could be stopped, detained, intrusively searched, have soldiers enter your house and dump the contents of your drawers and cabinets on the floor.
The similarity he's trying to invoke is between the probable cause requirement of a criminal warrant and the lack of any targeting whatsoever in a general warrant. It's obviously true that a FISA warrant is less targeted than a domestic criminal warrant. But FISA warrants also also much less intrusive than a criminal warrant, and, like airport searches (which are entirely warrantless and nonetheless constitutional under administrative search), serve a safety goal instead of a criminal evidence collection purpose.
FISA warrants also are targeted, unlike general warrants. The FISA court exists to verify that actual investigations are being served by the warrants. It's not hard to see why FISA warrants are rarely rejected: the government is not actually in the habit of randomly surveilling people outside of actual investigations.
Heading a series of unproductive responses off at the pass: seeing the logic of the "yea" votes in the Senate on this issue does not mean that I agree with them.
I'll go one farther. I think the current FISA law is better than the previous one. Yes, I do find the oversight provisions a bit weak, but it's better than the absence of any legal framework for targeting non US persons communicating via US systems.
The similarity he's trying to invoke is between the probable cause requirement of a criminal warrant and the lack of any targeting whatsoever in a general warrant. It's obviously true that a FISA warrant is less targeted than a domestic criminal warrant. But FISA warrants also also much less intrusive than a criminal warrant, and, like airport searches (which are entirely warrantless and nonetheless constitutional under administrative search), serve a safety goal instead of a criminal evidence collection purpose.
FISA warrants also are targeted, unlike general warrants. The FISA court exists to verify that actual investigations are being served by the warrants. It's not hard to see why FISA warrants are rarely rejected: the government is not actually in the habit of randomly surveilling people outside of actual investigations.
Heading a series of unproductive responses off at the pass: seeing the logic of the "yea" votes in the Senate on this issue does not mean that I agree with them.