So on one hand, we have the execution of a warrant or subpoena that is narrowly written, specific and reasonable, based on probable cause, and signed by a judge.
On the other hand, we have recently seen much greater evidence about the wholesale surveillance of society under secret law and apparently not accountable in any practical sense to oversight.
The first is normal and appropriate and well within the bounds of civil liberties guaranteed by Fourth Amendment. The second is highly problematic - but one doesn't necessarily lead to the other. Our civil liberties and civil rights have always been subject to appropriate exceptions. The problem is when those exceptions become so broad as to render the freedoms ineffective, not that they exist at all.
Unfortunately the Dunning-Krugerrand crowd seem determined to try to conflate what seems to be a fairly legitimate piece of police work[1] with the Orwellian surveillance state.
[1] Well, obviously one can disagree about the criminalisation of recreational drugs, but they are, so the cops are working within their brief.
While that remains a particularly amazing insult, perhaps it is in fact you who have conflated libertarians with minarchists?
Not all of us, gold/bitcoin stash or no, accept that police are a necessary part of society.
Given that one part of society (the state) has historically demonstrated that it will expand to fill any and all available opportunities to exert destructive power over others, it doesn't make much sense to grant them a monopoly on the opportunity to use violence to uphold the law.
Laws, we need. Cops, we don't. The NSA has nothing to do with it.
On the other hand, we have recently seen much greater evidence about the wholesale surveillance of society under secret law and apparently not accountable in any practical sense to oversight.
The first is normal and appropriate and well within the bounds of civil liberties guaranteed by Fourth Amendment. The second is highly problematic - but one doesn't necessarily lead to the other. Our civil liberties and civil rights have always been subject to appropriate exceptions. The problem is when those exceptions become so broad as to render the freedoms ineffective, not that they exist at all.