I haven't watched The Wire yet, but I'm assuming ending the War on Drugs wasn't something they tried. It's funny how granting organized crime a monopoly over highly popular goods results in organized crime becoming pervasive and well-resourced.

One would think we'd have learned that lesson a century ago, yet here we are. Until anyone over the legal drinking age can go buy a bottle of Bayer Heroin at CVS, I don't want to hear about how the government is struggling so badly with crime that it thinks my privacy should be on the chopping block.

Yeah, there was an entire season about ending the war on drugs and how it was the only thing that actually worked lol.

Also, they caught the drug kingpin at the end of the show by physically following his lieutenants to a warehouse full of drugs and arresting them all on the way out. The only thing the wiretaps were used for was to build a conspiracy charge against the leader, who had been standing outside for months/years doing face to face meetings with everyone that was arrested, clearly being the one in control of every conversation. If somehow that's not enough to charge someone with conspiracy then it seems removing a small amount of freedom to change that would be far preferable to reading everyone's messages and banning encryption.

"The Wire proves the need for mass surveillance" is the dumbest take I've ever heard. It literally shows the complete opposite.