During the Senate hearing, FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed that his agency had purchased information that could be used to track the movement and location of individuals. He said, “We purchase commercially available information that is consistent with the laws under the Constitution and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and that has given us some valuable information.”
The 2018 Carpenter v. United States decision requires law enforcement to obtain a warrant to obtain location data from cell service providers. But why bother with that hassle when they can buy the information from the open market?
Sen. Ron Wyden, (D-Ore.) said during an Intelligence Committee hearing, “Doing this without a warrant is an outrageous overreach around the Fourth Amendment, and it’s especially dangerous as artificial intelligence is used to sift through large amounts of private information.” Wyden is one of several lawmakers pushing for restrictions on when and how the government can obtain citizens’ personal information.
This is a radical change which is desperately needed. Patel already has a history of questionable use of government resources, such as ordering SWAT protection for his girlfriend and being somehow involved in the celebration of the men’s hockey victory at the recent Winter Olympics, so one can hope that he is not pushing the boundaries of even the few privacy protections that are in place. Then outside of the FBI, we have immigration raids, the Department of Homeland Security being sued for illegally tracking protesters, and the Pentagon labeling Anthropic as a supply-chain risk after the AI company refused to let its products be used for mass surveillance of Americans.
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