House Judiciary Shows Bipartisan Interest in Government Data Collection

Government purchases of Americans’ personal data is a threat to civil liberties, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, agreed Tuesday at a hearing. Never has the government had more ability to spy on its citizens, Jordan said, focusing his remarks on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse and the surveillance of Trump campaign officials. The mass adoption of electronic devices that allow the tracking of every aspect of life means Congress needs to rethink the law, said Jordan. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are buying data for their own use, meaning they can obtain vast quantities of information without warrant, including location, search and online preference history, said Nadler. He cited instances of pervasive use of geolocation data to track protesters, sweeping surveillance of thousands of targets to identify a minimal number of suspects and the purchase of data from dating apps. When there’s no constraint on the sale of future use of data, companies have no control over reidentification of the data or where it goes next, said Nadler. Agencies ranging from the Defense Intelligence Agency to the IRS, FBI and CIA are buying personal data of millions of Americans they would otherwise have to obtain through warrants, former House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., told the committee during testimony. He noted a report from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., showing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence informed his office it doesn’t need to adhere to the Constitution or the Supreme Court’s Carpenter ruling on collecting cellsite location information when it buys data, which Goodlatte said is “outrageous.” Monday, the ACLU released thousands of pages of data showing Department of Homeland Security agencies paying millions to data brokers, “one of which claims to collect more than 15 billion location data points from over 250 million mobile devices every day,” said Goodlatte.