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The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people

theintercept.com

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Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people

#281

Post by jkhdigital »

downandout wrote: post #157
nostromo wrote: post #8

We need a Supreme Court ruling or law that says if the government doesn’t have a warrant to collect your data, they also can’t buy it from third parties. We also need privacy protections so these companies wouldn’t exist in the first place.

If SCOTUS outlawed buying the data, they’d just find ways around that too. Maybe they’d just start creating apps and directly monitoring people. With an unlimited marketing and development budget, they could wind up on the majority of Americans’ phones pretty fast. Depending on the kinds of apps they created, they might get warrantless access to millions of bank accounts, text messages, emails, video conferences, ful…

Warrantless access to all of those things is basically the definition of an unreasonable search and seizure. It is prima facie prohibited by the 4th amendment. There is no "way around" it.

Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people

#282

Post by jkhdigital »

salawat wrote: post #228
whimsicalism wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Irrelevant. Gov wants data, Gov gets a narrowly targeted warrant first. Beyond this lies 4A violations. No? What are you basing this off of?

No... Government asks nicely, and business decides whether being a known narc will kill their business prospects, then either hand over the data, or ask the Government to pretty please get a warrant so they have an excuse. Let's be realistic here.

And it's still a violation of the 4th amendment. Now, whether the fact that the violation occurred is surfaced in court, and successfully used to exonerate a defendant, is where the problems occur.

Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people

#283

Post by jakecopp »

user3939382 wrote: post #270
literallyaduck wrote: post #165

Don't like it? Organizations like the EFF have been working to stop overreach: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/01/eff-fincen-stop-pushin... You can help financially, and contact each of your representatives and senators and request they act to stop this end run around the constitution.

I used to be a big EFF supporter until I learned they take millions in donations from the same organizations they’re supposed to be watching. Best case scenario it’s a massive conflict of interest, it’s a big problem for me that they find it to be ok.

I hadn't heard this before, could you provide a source or examples?

Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people

#284

Post by ineedasername »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #227
ineedasername wrote: post #182

Unfortunately, this isn't really the Fed's buying their way around the 4th amendment as the article states: it's people selling away their 4th amendment rights by giving their personal data & right to resell it to companies that will sell to anyone with the cash to buy it.

I don't think much of the constitution but surely this goes against the spirit of the 4th amendment. It kind of defeats the whole purpose. The sale seems to be conducted under duress. Also, the way you frame it sounds wrong. You wouldn't expect it to be legally binding for someone to sell his constitutional right not to be made a slave, for (an extreme) example. The easy way out would be to make such information not…

People do have, in certain situations, the ability to sell their constitutional rights. You sell your right to free speech when you sign an NDA. You can't sell yourself into slavery because slavery itself is illegal.

Slavery itself is also somewhat of a special case because entering into a contract requires the ability for each party to seek redress or other appropriate methods of enforcement. But once a slave, all personal agency is lost and therefore the enslaved party is no longer on equal grounds with respect to having the contract honored. It is an inherently paradoxical contract.

Contrast this with selling your right to free speech with an NDA: you still have access to all the methods of enforcement and redress if disagreements about the terms arise while the contract is in effect.

Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people

#285

Post by varenc »

Babel Street, the firm selling data to the IRS, seems to say they don't have to follow the California CCPA requirements around data access or data deletion. Their only mention of CCPA is obtuse but implies it's their customers' responsibility: https://www.babelstreet.com/privacy-policy

My understanding was that if a company has my personal data and is selling it, the CCPA requires that they allow me to put in a request to access that data or delete it. Babel Street seems to be saying that it's their customers who needs to follow these requirements not them.

Is this legit? Tons of other big sketchy personal data brokers actually allow you to access and delete your data under the CCPA even though they have the same customer arrangement. Acxiom for example: https://www.acxiom.com/data-privacy-ethics/california-consum...

Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people

#286

Post by jkhdigital »

whimsicalism wrote: post #226
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arizona v. Gant

Paying someone for information != warrantless search. A search involves compulsion.

No, it is more nuanced than that and depends on the nature of the information. Banks hold massive amounts of highly personal information about their customers, and this knowledge is an unavoidable consequence of the business relationship. I think most people would agree that the government needs a warrant to obtain this information, even if the bank was willing to sell it anyway.

Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people

#287

Post by jkhdigital »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #236
whimsicalism wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying someone for information != warrantless search. A search involves compulsion.

> A search involves compulsion. Exclusively? That's a novel interpretation of 4A. Where did you get it?

I get the impression that a majority of the commenters here are (somehow) not aware that there is a deep body of legal precedent interpreting 4A.

Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people

#288

Post by jkhdigital »

whimsicalism wrote: post #74
artificialLimbs wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Unlike private actors, governmental actors are publicly constrained in their actions and representatives of the will of our society. Are you aware of the term 'unelected bureaucrat', and do you know how many of them exist? They are accountable to no one. They continually prove to be significant problems.

Even the most unelected bureaucrat in America is more representative of the will of the people than a middle manager at Facebook.

No

Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people

#289

Post by jkhdigital »

closeparen wrote: post #123
nostromo wrote: post #8

We need a Supreme Court ruling or law that says if the government doesn’t have a warrant to collect your data, they also can’t buy it from third parties. We also need privacy protections so these companies wouldn’t exist in the first place.

Almost all investigative work is asking people to share information that they don’t legally have to.

Interviewing a person is not "search and seizure"; the two things are categorically different.

Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people

#290

Post by yc12340 »

nine_k wrote: post #214
munk-a wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much everyone in the west gets a credit score the math of which is nebulous and proprietary. It is increased by acting in a desireable manner even if that manner is unhealthy or unproductive for the individual - and a lot of random BS can go into the math that we can't even see. In the west these things aren't public so it isn't the government grading you - but you still are very much being graded by private c…

A poor credit score does not limit your ability to board a plane, to be admitted to a university, or to found a political organization. If you want a taste of low social credit score in the US life, consider the status of a convicted felon, or a status of a sex offender.

> A poor credit score does not limit your ability to board a plane, to be admitted to a university, or to found a political organization.

Is it possible to do any of those things without money?

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