You don’t need a warrant to purchase data.
That data would have been collected by a private company, and sold to them. The NSA isn’t the only entity purchasing that metadata.
Not only should the public be concerned on the NSA’s intention for that data, but for the countless private companies holding & using it too.
I heard from someone that used to work on the military side of things of data collection. He said a few years ago Amazon came in with their servers and set up their tech and then had to teach the gov side about data collection and all that. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gov just started contracting out their spying.
Ron Wyden is a treasure:
“The U.S. government should not be funding and legitimizing a shady industry whose flagrant violations of Americans’ privacy are not just unethical, but illegal,” Wyden wrote.
I did an FOIA request to the NSA on anything they had on me.
They sent me a letter saying that my request wasn’t even considered.
Then it was signed by one person but with another person’s name under the signature.
Classy letter agencies. Surprised they didn’t just Photoshop NSA on top of an FBI “no, fuck your inquiry” letter without any further changes.
They all need mandated Public Relations teams. Not the ghoulish capitalist idea that really means “Publicity Relations”, but actually meaningfully and transparent (within honest and good faith security consideration reasons*) departments whose mandate is to square up the operational needs with the citizen rights to information.
Yes, I know it would be more likely to trip over a genie’s lamp so I can ask for the Unicorn dragon I always wanted.
US National Central Cyber Security Security Command Agency Service
Thank $DEITY for Firefox.
Made by Mozilla Corporation, an US company. Just saying.