Also the us government are not allowed to spy on US citizens but allied governments can and can and will share that information with the US and the US in turn does the same for that allied government. Circumventing the point of the original law.
this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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Breaking the law, but nobody does anything about it.
Correct. YOUR* goverment is buying it.
* only affects less than 5% of world population
I think you're trying to insinuate that the US government is the only one that's buying data from data brokers to spy on its own citizens. I hope we can both agree that that's bad and we don't like that idea, but I don't know what makes you think this isn't also happening elsewhere. Do you have reason to believe it's not?
No, I just don't fucking care about one specific country that can't shut the fuck up for one second whilst constantly complaining about everything and effectively doing nothing besides complaining.
Every normal autocratic country would just wiretap their citizen like they did in 2010 but no... that one country needs to buy the information because they are such peasants and then they need a big giant article about it.
Oh yeah and also: If you put your data everywhere of course everyone can get it. Insert suprised pikachu here.
just the fact that my data is accessible to anyone is upsetting enough. I take a little comfort in believing my data is like water molecules in the ocean of everyone else's data...
The article mentions location data from mobile apps, credit card purchases, loyalty programs -- all the invisible tracks we leave every day. What scares me isn't just government access. It's the normalization of surveillance capitalism first. Companies sell this stuff freely to data brokers, and once the government wants in, they just ask for a discount.
This isn't about terrorism or national security in the headlines. It's about who owns your movements and choices. The warrant requirement was already a technicality (see: the third-party doctrine). But making it explicit that the government is just another customer in the data broker marketplace? That's the real story.
Obviously so that the private prison industry keeps earning.