Imagine a system that works as follows. You can have people assassinated. In order to do so, however, you need to fill in a hundred-page form with exhaustive details of your personal finances, your medical history, and the contents of your computers' hard drives; and then you need to play six sets of tennis against a strong player and win at least two; and then you need to play a 7-game chess match against a holder of FIDE's International Master title, and win at least two. Oh, and then there's a fee of $100k. Once you've done this, your application takes six months to be processed. Every week during this time, you get a callback and are asked intrusive personal questions about your sex life, your religion, and how you have voted in past elections. And then, at the end of the six months, the person named on the form gets assassinated by government agents.
Can we agree that (1) this would be a "massive bureaucratic battle", and (2) the bar would be "incredibly high" ... but (3) this shouldn't reassure us much, because jumping through the bureaucratic hoops and meeting those difficult criteria doesn't actually constitute good reason for having your target assassinated?
Your comments about the FISA court seem a little like this. Let's stipulate that getting approval is a tiresome process, and that there are difficult criteria to meet. That doesn't in any way guarantee that it only happens in cases where it's actually a good idea.
Can we agree that (1) this would be a "massive bureaucratic battle", and (2) the bar would be "incredibly high" ... but (3) this shouldn't reassure us much, because jumping through the bureaucratic hoops and meeting those difficult criteria doesn't actually constitute good reason for having your target assassinated?
Your comments about the FISA court seem a little like this. Let's stipulate that getting approval is a tiresome process, and that there are difficult criteria to meet. That doesn't in any way guarantee that it only happens in cases where it's actually a good idea.