FBI Director Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard were grilled in front of a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in Washington D.C. on Wednesday where they faced questions on a number of topics, including the new war in Iran that has no end in sight.
But it was Patel’s response to questions from Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, that are raising the most eyebrows in privacy and security circles.
“In 2023, your predecessor testified that, and I quote, ‘to my knowledge, we do not currently purchase commercial database information that includes location data derived from internet advertising.’ Is that the case still? And if so, can you commit this morning to not buying Americans location data?” asked Wyden.
Patel responded that “The FBI uses all tools, Senator, thank you for the question, to do our mission.”
“We do purchase commercially available information that’s consistent with the Constitution and the laws under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act,” Patel continued. “And it has led to some valuable intelligence for us to be utilized with our private and partner sectors.”
Wyden seemed to expect that answer, responding, “So you’re saying that the agency will buy Americans’ location data? I believe that that’s what you’ve said in kind of intelligence lingo.” Wyden went on to say that collecting that kind of location data on Americans “is an outrageous end run around the Fourth Amendment.”
“It’s particularly dangerous, given the use of artificial intelligence, to comb through massive amounts of private information. This is Exhibit A for why Congress needs to pass our bipartisan, bicameral bill, the Government Surveillance Reform Act,” Wyden concluded.
Wyden has long been a champion of privacy rights in the Senate and is clearly signaling to the American public that our rights are being violated. It’s technically legal for the federal government to buy location data from third party brokers, including sensitive data on American citizens, even without a warrant.
And while his predecessor Christopher Wray tried to claim the feds weren’t buying location data, Patel doesn’t seem afraid of acknowledging that his agency is doing just that. Or, at least that’s how one can interpret Wyden’s line of questioning and the subsequent response. Wyden will often try to raise issues he can’t talk about more openly given their sensitive and classified nature.
Wyden’s mention of artificial intelligence is certainly no accident either. The U.S. Department of Defense has listed Anthropic as a supply chain risk because it refused to drop guardrails that prohibited its AI model Claude from being used for mass domestic surveillance. Wyden spoke out against that designation and seems to be putting together some piece for the public by signaling that this third party data being bought up by the FBI might be fed to AI for analysis.
Wyden told Gizmodo earlier this month about the dangers AI posed when paired with third party location data: “I’ve been warning for nearly a decade that data available for purchase from companies is just as sensitive as information the government collects directly. Creating AI profiles of Americans based on that data represents a chilling expansion of mass surveillance that should not be allowed, regardless of what the current, outdated laws on the books say.“
And that last part is what’s tricky. It’s perfectly legal for Patel and Trump’s other cronies to hoover up this data however they like. Without a massive shakeup in government, it’s likely to stay that way.
Read the full article here
