Not that you needed another reason to distrust the FBI, but here we go…
According to a shocking report from The New York Post, the U.S. government’s top intelligence agencies, including the FBI, DHS, and NSA, are buying up troves of sensitive files containing intimate information on U.S. citizens.
“The startling overreach into citizens’ lives was flagged in a report to the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines which has only just been declassified,” NYP reports.
What kind of overreach are we talking? Well, for example, intelligence agencies can track your phone and the locations of millions of Americans without a warrant due to a loophole. (We really ought to close those darned things.)
Intelligence agencies can just buy this info —no warrants asked.
According to NYP, “if agencies pay for the information it is considered ‘publicly available’ whereas if the government were to demand to access the location of a cell phone, that would be classified as a search under the Fourth Amendment and require a judge’s sign-off.
And there’s your loophole.
“This report reveals what we feared most,” Sean Vitka, a policy attorney at the nonprofit Demand Progress, told Wired.com
“Intelligence agencies are flouting the law and buying information about Americans that Congress and the Supreme Court have made clear the government should not have.”
But they want the info so they buy the info.
All those agreements you click through without reading can land your personal info into the hands of data brokers like Safegraph and Gravy Analytics (which isn’t as delicious as it sounds). The brokers then turn around and sell your data to sneaky Uncle Sam.
Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Adam Schwartz told tech site Ars Technica in March: “US government agencies must not be allowed to … [buy] private information from data brokers who collect information about the precise movements of hundreds of millions of people without their knowledge or meaningful consent.
“This extremely sensitive information can reveal where we live and work, who we associate with, and where we worship, protest, and seek medical care.”
Well…who’s going to stop them?
