The rapid erosion of privacy
By Don
Bell
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| ...And everything else |
In order to function, they connect with communications
networks and geolocation services, creating detailed maps of our daily lives.
If you knew how to read them, you’d know someone’s favorite coffee shop, the
person they’re dating, where they go to school or church, and more.
Would you want the government to have this information at
its fingertips? Most of us wouldn’t — but that’s what’s happening. FBI Director
Kash Patel recently admitted that
the agency is buying up our personal information — including movement and
location data — without a warrant.
If this concerns you, it should. It’s a clear violation of
the Fourth Amendment. And it’s one reason why privacy and civil liberties
advocates have been demanding Congress close a
loophole that essentially allows the government to purchase our data without a
warrant.
The Fourth Amendment exists to prevent the government from
conducting unreasonable searches and seizures. So normally, if law enforcement
officers want to access a person’s cell phone location data in the United
States, they need a warrant. However, because Congress hasn’t updated laws to
address technological advancements, government agencies can instead pay third
party data brokers to access this data for them — no warrant needed.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing in the law that explicitly
outlaws buying information from third parties. This loophole is the equivalent
of the police handing your landlord an envelope of cash in order to enter your
apartment without a warrant, with the police arguing that they didn’t technically break
and enter.
There’s a good reason we don’t want the government to be able to buy endless amounts of information about its citizens. Besides being a massive invasion of privacy, it also endangers free speech and communities that are already subject to overpolicing.
In 2016, for instance, the ACLU found that
law enforcement agencies were purchasing data to track protestors. In 2020,
a Vice investigation revealed
that the Pentagon was buying location data from Muslim prayer and dating apps
to monitor Muslim communities.
The reversal
of Roe v. Wade revealed the threat of
state and local law enforcement agencies potentially buying cellphone data to
prosecute people who seek reproductive care. And in 2023, my organization, the
Project on Government Oversight (POGO), published an
investigation warning that law enforcement could use digital data to
enforce anti-trans laws.
This loophole has already been widely abused by federal
agencies. The Department
of Defense, Customs
and Border Protection, Immigration
and Customs Enforcement, Federal
Bureau of Investigation, and local
and state agencies across the country have all used this loophole to
gather information about millions of Americans.
With the advent of Artificial Intelligence, the stakes are
growing higher. In fact, the Pentagon recently broke
off its relationship with AI firm Anthropic over the company’s refusal
to drop safeguards against mass domestic surveillance.
With AI supercharging companies’ abilities to conduct
invasive surveillance at an unprecedented scale — and the federal government
itching to access these massive troves of data — Congress must finally stop
these abuses.
The good news is that there’s support on both sides of the
aisle for ensuring that the law keeps pace with our evolving information
landscape. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have signaled their
support for closing the data broker loophole and stopping illegal spying on
Americans.
Section
702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — a law that
authorizes government surveillance programs — is up for renewal in just a few
weeks. There’s a reason why lawmakers designed this key surveillance authority
to sunset: so Congress could consider what changes are necessary to keep pace
with the ever-growing number of ways the federal government can access your
personal data.
The current law isn’t cutting it. By finally closing the data broker loophole, lawmakers can protect our constitutional rights — and ensure that what you do remains your business, not the government’s.
Don Bell is policy counsel at The Constitution Project at POGO, the Project on Government Oversight. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.
