> The magistrate judge doesn't know anything about computer forensics or how long the brute force attack is going to take.<p>That's a bit ad hominem.<p>Let's look at it another way. Should warrants be issued for indefinitely long periods of time? If so, what would keep limitless warrants from being used to harass people? Imagine if the cops just seized property and said it's just going to take them literally years to access it, and the owner can't get it back in the meanwhile. Also, imagine if this is done to extend the statue of limitations. There are so many ways this could be abused.<p>Then it becomes not too different for arresting someone even when they've done nothing wrong - sure, the charges might be dropped, or no charges brought at all, but spending the night in jail and missing work still has deleterious effects.<p>> Requiring the government to exercise "greater care" to make sure it is keeping up with a series of requests [...] seems exceedingly odd to me.<p>So... the author is advocating for rules being too hard, and for the government to not be required to follow them? This is similar to the common response to the simple question about privacy intrusions: why not just have investigators get warrants? "But terrorism! It takes too long! Do you want the terrorists to win?"<p>Most of the copterbation movies and shows on TV try to show us that cops often don't get the bad guy unless they're allowed to break the rules. It's all absolutely bullshit.