U.S. Spy Agencies Buy Vast Quantities of Americans' Personal Data, U.S. Says
upstart writes:
From the Wall Street Journal: U.S. Spy Agencies Buy Vast Quantities of Americans' Personal Data, U.S. Says
The vast quantities of Americans' personal data available for sale has provided a rich stream of intelligence for the U.S. government but has created significant threats to privacy, according to a report newly released by the U.S.'s top spy agency.
Commercially available information, or CAI, has grown in such scale that it has begun to replicate the results of intrusive surveillance techniques once used on a more targeted and limited basis, the report found.
"In a way that far fewer Americans seem to understand, and even fewer of them can avoid, CAI includes information on nearly everyone that is of a type and level of sensitivity that historically could have been obtained" through targeted collection methods such as wiretaps, cyber espionage or physical surveillance, the report concluded.
[...] Since the 1970s, the intelligence community has been circumscribed in using intrusive surveillance techniques on Americans without court oversight. However, data available for sale is generally considered "open source" and its collection doesn't require special authorizations.
The partially redacted report is available online: ODNI-Declassified-Report-on-CAI-January2022
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.