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Declassified report reveals that the US government is buying troves of data about its citizens (web.archive.org)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Perhaps most controversially, the government believes it can “persistently” track the phones of “millions of Americans” without a warrant, so long as it pays for the information, a newly declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ODNI, reveals. Were the government to simply demand access to a device's location instead, it would be considered a Fourth Amendment “search” and would require a judge's sign-off. But because companies are willing to sell the information—not only to the US government but to other companies as well—the government considers it “publicly available” and therefore asserts that it “can purchase it.”

Here' tge report (pdf): https://www.odni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ODNI-Declassified-Report-on-CAI-January2022.pdf

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

That's what I thought, too. If the police needs a judge's sign-off as collecting such data without a warrant would violate the Fourth Amendment, why then are private companies allowed to do so? I'm not a lawyer, but this is strange to me. As a legal layman I would say that private companies and data brokers are violating the law, right?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Im also a legal layman, but my understanding is that the 4th amendment protects you from this kind of data collection from the government, not from corporations. Shouldn't be that way IMO though

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Read the report, it covers the legal basis they are using and why warrant protections don’t apply. The “publicly available information can’t be sensitive personal information” justification has basically allowed them to buy what would otherwise require actual warrant processes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think they read the report; they're saying that corporations shouldn't be able to sell that information in the first place, to anyone. The government can't use the "it's publicly available information" excuse if nobody else can legally collect it to sell it to the gov and other corpertions. (Aka, they can't "make it publicly available.")

People are arguing that if it's illegal for the gov to collect the info directly, it should also be illegal for a corporation to collect and/or sell that info directly, thus closing the loophole.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yes, privacy should be an 'unwaivable right'. I'm not sure whether this is the correct legal term, but it should indispensible like basic human rights.

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