It's one they are granted when evidence is presented to a court for a warrant. In a public hearing.

That's not how things are spelled-out in the Constitution. And it does not make any sense. A public hearing will alert the suspect.

I'm pretty sure that the past decade has taught us that government does not respect this constitutional requirement.

No, we've known it for much longer.

So, they should get a time out from those powers until they can demonstrate that they know how to behave.

They are not children, to whom such an approach may be applicable. Nor will the criminals be willing to join the "cease-fire" you propose... Bad as government's intrusions into privacy are, they have neither killed nor raped many people.

Not even the scariest abuses — when police get a "hint" obtained with unwarranted search and perform "parallel reconstruction" — have targeted innocent people. Not yet. The time will surely arrive, but for the time being it is the IRS — not the NSA — that is used to suppress opposition. Them and the government's power to audit . But not the eavesdropping.

We have the Constitution, we just need the government to obey it. The previous President was often accused of "shredding" the document, but the current one is actually doing it.

In other words, we have the laws already — we just aren't following them. Creating new laws will not help that...

I would rather take my chances with the armies of terrorists and child molesters

How about fraudsters, thieves, rapists and murderers, embezzlers of public funds and bribe-takers? I don't think, I'm willing to have even a 10% higher rate of those things in exchange for unbeatable https.

Two and a half centuries ago we allowed the government those powers

No, actually. All governments before that have always asserted the right to search anyone and everywhere. We didn't "allow our government" to do this or that — we explicitly disallowed everything else. This may seem like hairsplitting, but it is historical truth — and you seem like you need refreshing of your perspective...

The sort of crimes the NSA catches have nothing to do with you and I in our daily lives.

NSA is not going to ask for a warrant any more than Alan Turing was asking for one, when he monitored all radio traffic he could — in an attempt to catch the enemy's transmissions. That organization's activities are beside the point, really — as long as they don't prosecute in US courts.

There are, unfortunately, a large number of other crimes, which the bad old eavesdropping helps solve/prevent — whenever the bad guys need to communicate, law enforcement has a legitimate need to be able to listen. Few of these crimes are Internet-specific — the same things we are discussing with regards to the Internet have been said back and forth decades ago about telephone.

They protect megacorps [...]

Oh, sorry, I didn't notice, you are an "anticorp" sort — I wouldn't have bothered with such an idiot. One percent much?

But now that I typed most of the answer anyway, you may as well have it. Remember to logout and, please, don't hate.

That is a discussion we should have.

We should. But, unless you are going to suggest, the government ought not to have such powers at all (as pla argues below) — ever — then this is not the place for this discussion.

Because if, in your opinion, sometimes they do legitimately need this capability, then they ought to remain able to circumvent https — without spooking the subject.

If the state can forge certs, the state can redirect your traffic to their youtube proxy and insert the malware just behind the fake thing you authenticated with.

And that is, how things ought to be — unless we want to strip the state off their power to search us (and trail us).

Yes, the state ought to need a proper warrant to exercise that power. But, without the described capabilities, police would not be able to do, what the warrant allows (and their job demands!) them to do.

Does the end justify the means?

Winning a war — especially that for your very survival — does justify risking the soldiers' well-being — and even lives.

I can't be the only one shocked, SHOCKED to discover, the government is inefficient and wastes money. I mean, after the staggering success of everything else it operates — things like US Postal Service or Amtrak — it is certainly most disappointing to encounter a government program, that fails to live-up to our high expectations.

Nay, this may even chill our collective enthusiasm for making food and shelter a government's responsibility too — you can't be healthy without nutrition and a roof above your head, can you, so it only would've seem natural to further expand the government's omniscient and benevolent control into that direction. But not any more... Not quite...

And unless social networks, media sites and governments come up with some innovative way of defeating online troublemakers, the digital world will never be free of the trolls' collective sway.

Theft, rape, and murder are still with us despite millenniums worth of efforts to get rid of them...

Why would trolling be any easier to dispense with?

There will always be another war, another enemy

Aliens are remarkably hard to find, actually. Even in that Science Fiction book there was only one race encountered.

it seems that mankind keeps track of its history this way

Possibly. But that's irrelevant — unless you are arguing, humanity should punish its war-mongering self with suicide so that "better" species can develop and take over.

Does anyone else remember when "America's Army" came out, just before the Iraq 'war'? It was a free first person shooter, and a very advanced game (for the time). Coincidence? I think not...

Well, in that case, what is the meaning of the new game, where you shoot members of the Tea Party? Celebration of tolerance? Respect for other people's opinions?

Please, don't hate.

That's only accurate if you ignore the cost incurred by the child-soldiers themselves, as elaborated even more in the subsequent books.

Compared to saving the human race that "cost" is a pebble in the Universe. For even if humanity prevailed through other means, it would have taken longer — meaning (much) higher losses and expenses. Many more children would've suffered the loss of their parents and older siblings, for example.

Well, in "Ender's Game" the plan resulted in a wonderful victory for our side... It is a sad story because of the genocide of the enemy, but not because children's abilities were creatively used by the military.

If you're hitting a BSOD, you can help diagnose the problem

You should also close your /.-account — and never come back, for all I care...

A bump living in the tunnels of a New York metro

A "bump" born and raised in America — the land of milk and honey, where millions of immigrants (legal and otherwise) not only do well despite the culture-shock and the disadvantages of having to learn a new language, but also manage to support their extended families back home — such a bump has no one but himself to blame for lacking anything he wants, but can not afford.

waive certain parts of the nearly half-century-old California Environmental Quality Act

This seems to affirm the giant elephant in the "save the Earth" room: Tesla (as well as other products relying on highly-capable batteries) aren't all that "green". It may be a great car to drive, but if one needs violates environmental regulations — and not the recent ones — to make it, then green it is not.

Oh, and then comes the problem of disposing of those wonderful batteries — or recycling them...