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
Well its way easier for them to buy the data they want than to get a warrant for it. Honestly, I dont think the government doing this is nearly as big of an issue as the fact that this data is available for purchase in the first place.
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
The companies aren’t seizing our info though. We’re giving it them.
That said, this does need to be addressed because they only way to not do that right now is to simply miss out, and there’s no reason it has to be the case.
Yeah, it’s the independent source exemption to the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine, basically. The original data collection wasn’t illegal, as it was collected by a third party rather than the government, and so is admissable.
I’m not a lawyer either, but from my understanding, this relates to third party doctrine. Since we willingly provide this information to a third party, we therefore have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
It is long past time that the United States passed laws to address these deficiencies. If our intelligence services are buying this data, you can be certain foreign governments and their intelligence services are doing the same.
We should spend less time focusing on Tik Tok bans and more time addressing the root cause of the issue.
If they’re buying my data then why the hell are my taxes paying for the NSA?? That’s their whole purpose is to hoover my data! I want my money back!
Nah, they already did that with Mastodon so now they only have to federate with Lemmy! It’s all coming together!
Reminder that even TOR was an NSA / Naval intelligence project.
Not an American, and while I do think it’s wrong and a breach of privacy rights, I’m hardly surprised.
This is somewhat related:
The CIA Is Begging Congress to Please Keep Spying on U.S. Citizens Legal
High-level officials from the CIA, FBI, and NSA are testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, asking Congress to continue allowing the agency to spy on the communications of US citizens. They are urging Congress to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—one of the nation’s most hotly contested government surveillance programs. Intelligence agencies have long cited the powerful 2008 FISA provision as an invaluable tool to effectively combat global terrorism, but critics, including an increasing number of lawmakers from both parties, say those same agencies have morphed the provision into an unchecked, warrantless domestic spying tool. The provision is set to expire at the end of this year.
I thought this was already common knowledge after what Snowden revealed. The US catches a lot of flack for it but I don’t doubt most Western countries are spying on their citizens.
I’m actually not sure… I live in Europe, and while I don’t doubt my gov does some shady shit, I don’t think spying on a global level would work… There are I think a few laws that allow some more flexibility for them, but not for everything. And they had to make those laws, it’s not as if they just brushed it under the rug…
there was a guy who was racist so amazon shut down his smart home (i don’t know the extent, but inexcusable to me nonetheless).
just some hypotheticals. please tell me i’m crazy and please tell me exactly why i’m crazy. this is dystopian:
imagine someone attends a protest and the government uses this intel (see original post) to know who they are and plants evidence to incarcerate them. or starts a public shame campaign like in china.
imagine legislation that set out to “mitigate the effects of control that smart home providers have over citizens” that allowed government access to its’ data
imagine if bezos could just get a letter from the biden administration saying “this guy is bad, shut down his house and activate his smart locks"
Tangential point: if your “smart home” can be shut down by a third party, then you aren’t Smart Homing correctly.
This is informative, and unfortunate.
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Man, this is deeply dystopian. While state and federal regulators are having a conniption about TikTok/ByteDance gathering information on Americans, that same information is hoovered up by all the other social media companies and freely sold by data brokers. The response should be sweeping privacy legislation and regulatory reform, but I have very little confidence that will happen in the near future.
There is a bill in California, SB362, that would allow you to press a button and have every registered data broker delete all your information. It’s a great step in the right direction. This reporting and others like it, and the overturning of roe v Wade has been hugely helpful in driving home the need for change from a policy perspective.
Well yes we’ve known about this for decades. It’s the entire point of Five Eyes afterall
AFAIK the point of the Five Eyes was to spy on allied countries citizens because they aren’t protected by your own laws, and then exchanging that information for the same infornation about your own citizens.
While i see the similarities, thats not the same as buying it from the commercial data sellers.
Here is a file to give an idea what the data looks like (xlsx-file): https://web.archive.org/web/20230525225541mp_/https://xandr-be-prod.zoominsoftware.io/bundle/monetize_monetize-standard/page/attachments/data-marketplace-buyer-overview/data_marketplace_public_segments_pricing_05212021.xlsx
