Despite the practice becoming more frequent and widespread since the US Supreme Court restricted the government’s ability to track Americans’ phones warrantlessly, around five years ago, the FBI did not previously acknowledge ever making purchases of such kind.
The revelation comes after Sen. Ron Wyden [D-Ore] questioned Wray “Does the FBI purchase US phone-geolocation information?” The response to which alarmed privacy experts.
“To my knowledge, we do not currently purchase commercial database information that includes location data derived from Internet advertising[…]I understand that we previously—as in the past—purchased some such information for a specific national security pilot project. But that’s not been active for some time,” said Wray.
The response, while being vague and revolving around the question asked, gave a clear insight into the way the FBI made use of location data to monitor US individuals with no court oversight.
It is not immediately clear whether Wray was talking to a warrant—a court order that states that a crime has been committed—or another legal device. Wray also did not explain why the FBI decided to sto
[…]
Content was cut in order to protect the source.Please visit the source for the rest of the article.
Read the original article: