I'm talking purely in the hypothetical, and I'm not a lawyer. I do suppose that methods and technology outstrip the intents of the laws. We see it to an extent with copyright laws, and the new mediums being invented to record movies and music. From a legal perspective - how justifiable or currently legally defensible is a warrant to interecept virtually every cell phone conversation in a 1,000 mile radius, in order to sort them for certain phrases, or names? Then, once those are found, go back for specific warrants against certain people? Is that sufficient, or legal to establish probable cause? A corallary might be, you live in a neighborhood where someone sells drugs. Can someone search your house because drugs are known to be in the neighborhood, and if they find a pack of zig zags, use that to get a further warrant?
The administration has a valid point if one is looking at this as a national security issue, being done under a wartime footing. It's another issue entirely if it's being viewed as domestic law enforcement. Once again, what is going on in the world is outpacing the intents of the laws. Then, toss in the political posturing of both sides, and it's a recipe for disaster.
This is the same group crying about intelligence agencies not sharing information. Well, where does one think the information comes from? When trying to connect the dots to form a picture in terms of situational awareness, one can't do it by picking and choosing the medium that gets sifted.
So, the laws need to be re-written. Looking at what is going on with the Patriot Act, I don't know if that is likely to happen. In my view, a lot of this definitely is driven by the technology, and once again the methods. I assure you, no one is interested in your conversations with the neighbors wife. No one has the time.
The big issue to me here, is that a lot of people don't seem to realize there is a war going on, beyond the nightly Iraq news.