> if the rules necessary to obtain a warrant are currently insufficient, can you please explain how this fixes an existing problem instead of creating a loophole.
The current rules require the warrant to be issued by a court in the jurisdiction in which the data is located.
If the location has been hidden by technological means, the appropriate district cannot be determined. Note that this does not change in one whit what information must be provided to support a warrant (except that it no longer requires information about the location and now requires information about the fact that the location is technologically obscured), or the specifity required of a warrant, or the discretion of the judge in issuing a warrant -- it just says that if the location is obscured, then a judge in any district can issue the warrant.
Since it doesn't change the substantive requirements, it doesn't create any kind of loophole. All it does is remove the possibility that the appropriate court to issue a warrant may be impossible to determine.
(There's also a change which allows a narrow set of multidistrict warrants to be issued by a judge in any district rather than requiring separate judges in each district, but this only applies when the computers being searched are the ones damaged by an attack being investigated, and they are located in more than five districts.)
The current rules require the warrant to be issued by a court in the jurisdiction in which the data is located.
If the location has been hidden by technological means, the appropriate district cannot be determined. Note that this does not change in one whit what information must be provided to support a warrant (except that it no longer requires information about the location and now requires information about the fact that the location is technologically obscured), or the specifity required of a warrant, or the discretion of the judge in issuing a warrant -- it just says that if the location is obscured, then a judge in any district can issue the warrant.
Since it doesn't change the substantive requirements, it doesn't create any kind of loophole. All it does is remove the possibility that the appropriate court to issue a warrant may be impossible to determine.
(There's also a change which allows a narrow set of multidistrict warrants to be issued by a judge in any district rather than requiring separate judges in each district, but this only applies when the computers being searched are the ones damaged by an attack being investigated, and they are located in more than five districts.)