Oregon U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden contends that federal agencies are skirting Americans’ Fourth Amendment protection against unlawful search and seizure.
His oversight of the data-broker industry uncovered that law enforcement agencies, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Homeland Security and the like, have managed to obtain information normally protected by the amendment through “buy-arounds” offered by brokers in the commercial database sales business.
The implications of obtaining intelligence on citizens that would normally require a search warrant are deeply concerning to a number of lawmakers. Now, Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., are reintroducing the Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act.
First introduced in 2021, Sens. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, Mike Lee, R-Utah, Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Jon Tester, D-Mont. will cosponsor the bill, which seeks to close major loopholes in federal privacy law and ensure that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The statute regulates law enforcement access to Americans’ information. In addition to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which regulates intelligence agencies, these are the exclusive means by which the government can surveil Americans.
“Americans of all political stripes know their Constitutional rights shouldn’t disappear in the digital age,” Wyden stated.
The bill focuses on privacy in the digital age – loopholes in the law currently permit data brokers and other firms without a direct relationship to consumers to sell Americans’ private information to the government without a court order – allowing data brokers such as Venntel and Clearview AI to collect and sell that information.
Venntel, it was reported, sold location data collected from smartphones to government agencies. Clearview AI, a developer of an intelligent platform based on face recognition technology, illicitly obtained photos to power a facial recognition service it sells to government agencies, which such agencies can search without a court order. They hold two U.S patents for their powerful and reliable photo identification technology, with a highly accurate and bias-free facial recognition algorithm.
“It’s more important than ever that our data is protected and not collected and sold to government agencies or anyone else,” said Murray.
The Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act requires the government to get a court order to compel data brokers to disclose data; stops law enforcement and intelligence agencies buying illicitly-gathered data on people in the U.S. and about Americans abroad; extends existing privacy laws to infrastructure firms that own data cables & cell towers; closes loopholes that would permit the intelligence community to buy or otherwise acquire metadata about Americans’ international communications without any FISA Court review; ensures that intelligence agencies acquiring data on Americans do so within the framework of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and takes away the Attorney General’s authority to grant civil immunity to providers and other third parties for assistance with surveillance not required or permitted by statute.
“The Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure ensures that the liberty of every American cannot be violated on the whims, or financial transactions, of every government officer,” said Dr. Paul. “This critical legislation will put an end to the government’s practice of buying its way around the Bill of Rights by purchasing the personal and location data of everyday Americans.”
The bipartisan bill has broad support from a coalition of civil liberties, civil rights, technology and free speech groups.
“Even during one of the most polarized political environments of my lifetime, the House Judiciary Committee passed our bill on a unanimous vote. There is a deep well of support for bolstering Americans’ privacy, and I will look for every available avenue to advance protections for Americans’ personal data, both in this bill and omnibus surveillance legislation this fall,” Wyden said.
