Legislative loopholes have allowed the US Department of Defense’s intelligence agency to acquire databases without a court order.
According to the materials that the staff of the department handed over to Democratic Senator Ron Wyden in response to his request, the Pentagon monitored the movement of Americans using data purchased from certain brokers. At the moment, there are five known investigations in the past two and a half years, in which illegal methods were launched.
More remarkable is that intelligence is interested in the movement of foreigners abroad. The New York Times reminds that developers of mobile applications have the ability to collect information about the location of users. This data is combined and then sold to brokers. Those, in turn, resell the materials. The US government is one of their clients.
Usually, when this kind of data arrives at the Pentagon, its employees need to go to court for a warrant before using the information. True, here the intelligence agency is taking advantage of a loophole in the privacy law. The law requires you to apply for a warrant only if the data needs to be obtained from the telephone companies. Brokers with their databases are out of the question.