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 0x815@feddit.de to c/news@beehaw.org

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] Protegee9850@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Lowbird@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

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.

this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023

2 points (100.0% liked)

World News

22057 readers

84 users here now

Breaking news from around the world.

News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.

Guidelines for submissions:

Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.

For US News, see the US News community.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS