Big fan of court ordered warrants as a way to limit law enforcement here.

That said, warrants protect law enforcement like searching someone's house. It seems that some less intrusive powers like running someone's plate has been given to the police with lower controls.

And it makes sense right? If every judge needed to approve every potential plate check, it might be too much for daily operations.

So option A, push towards everything being protected under warrants.

Sure, option B, how about protection mechanisms that sit somewhere in the middle? For example, what if some powers were audited (sounds like they are logged already) on a probabilistic basis. What if judges could inspect some fraction of searches after the fact, and ask for justification afterwards. Of course this would have no effect on the actual search, but it would have long term effects on future searches.

Even if 1% of lesser searches are audited, I'm sure most policemen would be much more weary about using them for personal matters like stalking women.