Perhaps most controversially, the government believes it can “persistently” track the phones of “millions of Americans” without a warrant, so long as it pays for the information, a newly declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ODNI, reveals. Were the government to simply demand access to a device’s location instead, it would be considered a Fourth Amendment “search” and would require a judge’s sign-off. But because companies are willing to sell the information—not only to the US government but to other companies as well—the government considers it “publicly available” and therefore asserts that it “can purchase it.”
Here’ tge report (pdf): https://www.odni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ODNI-Declassified-Report-on-CAI-January2022.pdf
Well its way easier for them to buy the data they want than to get a warrant for it. Honestly, I dont think the government doing this is nearly as big of an issue as the fact that this data is available for purchase in the first place.
That’s what I thought, too. If the police needs a judge’s sign-off as collecting such data without a warrant would violate the Fourth Amendment, why then are private companies allowed to do so? I’m not a lawyer, but this is strange to me. As a legal layman I would say that private companies and data brokers are violating the law, right?