The civil liberties activists are taking a weird stance on this. The FBI already has the legal authority to do what the rule change allows, it's just that it re

The civil liberties activists are taking a weird stance on this. The FBI already has the legal authority to do what the rule change allows, it's just that it requires a district judge (appointed by the President for life after Senate confirmation) to sign the warrant. The important thing isn't what the rule change allows but who is authorized to allow it. Magistrate judges are administrative functionaries and handle routine court tasks & cases and are not approved by the Senate. The rule change is about judge shopping. It greatly expands the number of potential marks for the FBI to lie to and mislead through technical mumbo-jumbo and obfuscation on their affidavits and submitted warrants. When they did bother to submit warrants for deploying Stingray devices, they were sure to hide their activities behind euphemism and snowjob and went to judges who would rubber stamp the warrants. As courts have come to understand what was happening, they have not been happy. Now they're trying the same tactic with dragnet-style offensive hacking of remote computers.