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Government Continues To Rely On Private Contractors To Bypass Privacy Protections
from the ongoing-inconvenience-of-guaranteed-rights dept
There’s only so much domestic surveillance the government can engage in before it starts running into problems. The Supreme Court’s Carpenter decision strongly suggested gathering data in bulk to track people might run afoul of the Fourth Amendment. Lower courts have delivered a variety of opinions on the subject. Meanwhile, a few privacy-oriented legislators are trying to codify privacy protections that would limit the government’s ability to abuse the Third Party Doctrine to obtain massive amounts of data.
Location data was directly implicated in the Carpenter decision. Since then, federal agencies have decided to bypass warrant requirements by purchasing location data directly from data brokers, rather than engage with the constitutional parameters established by the Supreme Court. Everyone has a hunger for data. And plenty of companies are willing to sell whatever they can acquire to agencies like ICE, CBP, FBI, DEA, Secret Service, and the Defense Department.
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. These same brokers sell data to local law enforcement agencies and state prisons. They also sell to a bunch of other private companies, allowing this data to be abused by debt collectors, stalkers, and people pretending to be cops. They’re also allowing law enforcement in states that have outlawed abortion to track people seeking these newly banned services.
Selling other people’s data is big business. . ." READ MORE
Congressional Leaders Want To Know Why The DEA Is Deploying Controversial Phone Hacking Tools
from the literally-under-our-inattentive-noses,-says-Congress dept
For years, governments around the world have deployed powerful malware to hack the phones of their targets. Most of these deployments went unnoticed, as many governments were less interested in performing oversight than pursuing ends (read: wars on terror, drugs) they felt justified the means.
But as people began coming forward with evidence of suspected government-based hacking attempts, the narrative began to shift. While some governments targeted terrorists and drug lords, other governments preferred to target journalists, activists, and opposition leaders. Reports of government abuse went from “occasional” to “zeitgeist,” ushered into effect by a leak of data allegedly containing targets of Israeli-based NSO Group’s customers. According to this list, government purchasers of NSO’s zero-click Pegasus product were routinely targeting people these governments and rulers didn’t like, rather than criminals and terrorists.
The exposure of NSO Group’s willingness to sell to autocrats and human rights abusers turned the international tide. Its host country — which helped NSO broker sales contracts with abusive governments — opened an investigation into NSO and took a bunch of longtime customers off its approved sales list. The US Commerce Department made its own move, issuing sanctions against NSO and its Israeli-based competitor, Candiru.
But it’s not just NSO and Candiru doing the international dirty by selling powerful spyware to abusive governments. Yet another Israel-based exploit purveyor is being targeted, albeit somewhat indirectly, by the US federal government. Congressional oversight wants to know what the DEA is doing with the powerful malware it has purchased from another NSO Group competitor.
. . .READ MORE
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