The real problem here is that companies can hoard and sell said data. The NSA part in essence is a red herring.
this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024
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Agreed, this is the real issue “Wyden suggested that the intelligence community might be helping data brokers violate an FTC order requiring that Americans are provided "clear and conspicuous" disclosures and give informed consent before their data can be sold to third parties. In the seven years that Wyden has been investigating data brokers, he said that he has not been made "aware of any company that provides such a warning to users before collecting their data."”
Privacy policies have become much more readable in my experience. I still feel like I'm the only one who reads them though.
That said... I think that companies that won't allow you to use their app without consenting to your data being sold are scum of the earth.
Honestly the only thing that surprises me is that they're paying for information instead of somehow just taking it.
Legal loophole, asking for it requires courts or judges. Buying it is just a cost.
It's the same thing for medical data. Hospitals can't sell your medical data in the US but if you google stuff or engage with media that tells you have a medical condition... that's fine. So much so that they will sell data that includes who is pregnant or has diabetes and such.
Honestly I don't see why buying data on the open market is illegal. I think it shouldn't be legal to sell it but it is. I'd prefer nobody have access than the NSA pretend they don't see what anyone else can buy.
Because we have a constitutional right against unreasonable search and seizure?
Rules against Mass-surveilling US citizens is ... quite literally in our founding documents?
Are...these not good enough reasons for you?
Their point is that why do we only hold THE GOVERNMENT to those standards and not CORPORATIONS. What CORPORATIONS are doing is perfectly legal currently. All the NSA is doing is legally buying legal data already available for purchase. Is it illegal spying if the NSA buys a phone book? Nope. Neither is buying these "data directories". Sure, the NSA can't PERFORM this data collection itself, that part would be illegal. But once it's collected and sold on the open market, it's no longer data obtained through illegal spying, but data legally obtained through a business transaction.
Because the government is the only one who can execute you, jail you, etc. That's what the whole set of documents is about -- protecting YOU from the government. Not protecting you from corporations. Corporations can't jail you. Corporations can't execute you for crimes. You need to take some basic high school American history my dude...
Once again, YES THESE ARE THINGS WE PROHIBIT THE GOVERMENT FROM DOING. I agree, dip shit. That's the whole point of this conversation. We prohibit the Government from SPYING on its own citizens. You know what we don't prohibit? The Government doing business with corporations in normal ways any public individual could. And that is exactly what this is. Corporations are doing the data collection. The governments are buying this freely available on the open market data and using it. That's it. It's not spying by the government. Sure, it's spying by the corporation, but that is legal.
The whole point is that we should stop this loophole and you're over here acting like we're are endorsing it. Maybe you need to refresh your middle school reading comprehension?
The constitution doesn't say "spying"...it says searches. Searching for shit with a wide blanket and no actual specific target, is an unreasonable search because they aren't limiting it to a specific citizen. That's what warrants are for.
You have this misconception that the government is restricted from SPYING on its own citizens. That's actually not true at all. We have specific stipulations on allowing it, in fact.
But our government is not simply to just collect BLANKETS of data, and look for a criminal within them. They need to suspect a criminal, and then get the data pertaining to that person. NOT every single person in America.
You really need to get an education, because you're misunderstanding the purpose of the constitution and what it protects citizens against. Because your interpretation of it is completely fucking ass backwards.
I'm trying to give you the reasons that a normal high school educator would give you, but you refuse to accept them, and instead argue from a moral low ground of ignorance. You asked a question. I answered it. You didn't like the answer and say it's something else...so why the fuck did you ask the question in the first place? Governments are not to obtain this information en-mass for the purposes of just sifting through it to MAKE a suspect appear out of thin air.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The National Security Agency (NSA) has admitted to buying records from data brokers detailing which websites and apps Americans use, US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed Thursday.
"The US government should not be funding and legitimizing a shady industry whose flagrant violations of Americans' privacy are not just unethical but illegal," Wyden said in a letter to Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines.
To fix the problem, Wyden wants intelligence communities to agree to inventory and then "promptly" purge the data that they allegedly illegally collected on Americans without a warrant.
Wyden's spokesperson, Keith Chu, told Ars that "the data brokers selling Internet records to the government appear to engage in nearly identical conduct" to X-Mode.
That includes some commercially available information on Americans "where one side of the communications is a US Internet Protocol address and the other is located abroad," data which Nakasone said is "critical to protecting the US Defense Industrial Base" that sustains military weapons systems.
Rather than being a customer in this sketchy marketplace, intelligence agencies should stop funding companies allegedly guilty of what the FTC has described as "intrusive" and "unchecked" surveillance of Americans, Wyden said.
The original article contains 976 words, the summary contains 193 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Cool! Now what?
This is like saying the sky is blue. Of course it is