Midwest Chick's Place

(A.K.A. Non-Original Rants)

–Co-opting good stuff from all over the ‘Net and maybe some original thoughts—ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

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J. Edgar Hoover would have had an orgasm

Our surveillance state, largely fueled by the citizens of this nation, has allowed personal data to be collected through multiple legal means. This data is for sale (hells bells, the government sells census and other data that they collect as well).

The government, while nominally restrained by the 4th Amendment, has jumped on the commercial bandwagon and buys information on US citizens that they couldn’t get via a warrant. It’s there and it is legal for purchase. And they’ve decided that it is the way to go around the Constitution.

The Department of Homeland Security has been purchasing data from brokers like Venntel and Babel Street as far back as 2017, spending millions of taxpayer dollars to track the movement of millions of Americans without a warrant. ICE has been using that data to identify and arrest immigrants. CPB used it to monitor activity along the southern border, and well beyond it. The NSA has confirmed the purchase of Americans’ internet browsing data. This shadow surveillance infrastructure was built quietly, across multiple administrations, and has continued to grow.

And Supreme Court decisions are considered to be more of a speedbump than a wall:

In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled in Carpenter v. United States that law enforcement needed a warrant to obtain your location data directly from your cellphone carrier. So rather than comply with the spirit of that ruling, agencies simply went on a shopping spree. Buy the same data from a third-party broker, sources from the weather app on your phone, the game your kids play, the navigation tool you use, and suddenly, no warrant is required.

If the FBI had access to the data available today back in J. Edgar Hoover’s day, I have a feeling this country would look a lot different.

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Midwest Chick

3 responses to “J. Edgar Hoover would have had an orgasm”

  1. Unferth Avatar
    Unferth

    There is no consequences for flagrant violations of the constitution. If the people doing end-runs around the constitution were sent to prison, things might change.

    The sad part is that most of them are good intentioned idiots. By destroying the constitution, they probably honestly believe they are making the United States safer. Not realizing the constitution is the United States.

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  2. Nemo Avatar
    Nemo

    The Church Committee in the 70’s made the public aware that the Eff Bee Eye, among other three letter agencies, was illegally tapping wired phones and ATT and every other phone company was letting them do it.

    Even though they were told to stand down, they never did. Hoover would be creaming his jeans over the spying tech available these days.

    This new wrinkle in car spying just takes the cake. Get in your car and make a crazy face at the camera and poof, you’re not going any where. Of course they stick this little devil in the must pass Defense bill so that even conservatives have to vote for it, the bastards.

    Next they’ll be making it mandatory to have every vehicle in the country retrofitted with the technology.

    An enterprising mechanic will be making bank disabling these things.

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  3. Unferth Avatar
    Unferth

    Nemo, have you looked up Harris Corporation’s Stingray? FBI would use it as a man-in-the-middle fake cell tower, ease dropping on calls and text messages. Since it was highly unconstitutional, the FBI didn’t admit it t that it existed, but would do parallel construction to build the cases.

    Deliberately circumventing the constitution should be considered treason with the accompanying punishment.

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