Newsroom /

Tax & Spy: Treasury Department Buying App Data to Investigate Private Citizens.

They’ve Enlisted Controversial Firm Babel Street to Circumvent the Fourth Amendment.


Photo for: Tax & Spy: Treasury Department Buying App Data to Investigate Private Citizens.

Key Points

  • The Treasury Department wants your private data.
  • They’ve partnered with Babel Street to buy private data for tracking individuals.
  • The Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act would prevent partnerships like this from happening.

Maybe we should start reading those privacy agreements instead of just mashing “Accept.”

Tonight’s main event: Corporate Surveillance vs. Constitutional Rights – and it’s sure to be a bloodbath. The US Treasury Department wants your private app data in order to make it easier to monitor and track down tax dodgers and, well, anyone they suspect isn’t paying their fair share.

According to the Intercept, the US Treasury Department has entered into a new agreement with controversial firm Babel Street, which has a history of “helping federal investigators around the Fourth Amendment.”

“The Treasury acquired two powerful new data feeds from Babel Street,” the Intercept reports. “One for its sanctions enforcement branch, and one for the Internal Revenue Service. Both feeds enable government use of sensitive data collected by private corporations not subject to due process restrictions.”

If that sounds bad, it’s because it is.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a quasi-intelligence wing of the Treasury Department responsible for enforcing sanctions against Iran, Cuba, and Russia, now has the power to “track the movements of individuals without a search warrant…[providing] clients with geolocational data gleaned from mobile apps.”

Critics of Babel Street – and their newfound friendship with the Treasury Department, rightly point out that this seems like a thinly veiled way for the federal government to circumvent the Fourth Amendment – and they aren’t wrong! At least one United States Senator is looking into it.

“As part of my investigation into the sale of Americans’ private data, my office has pressed Babel Street for answers about where their data comes from, who they sell it to, and whether they respect mobile device opt-outs,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). Not only has Babel Street refused to answer questions over email, they won’t even put an employee on the phone.”

Sen. Wyden is co-sponsoring a piece of legislation entitled the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act – a bill that would protect private citizens by, “[forcing] law enforcement and intelligence agencies to obtain a court order for this sort of app data, rather than simply buying it from any willing broker.”

A nice first step, but could this be too little too late in the battle for our private data?