According to a recently declassified report, the United States government has been covertly compiling an alarming amount of sensitive and private information on its own citizens.
Over a year ago, several senior advisers informed the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, about this shocking development.
The size and scope of this government program to gather data about the most intimate details of Americans’ lives has been alarming.
Towards the end of 2021, Haines initially called on her advisers to disentangle a web of clandestine business dealings between commercial data brokers and members of the American intelligence community.
The report’s conclusions have frightened privacy advocates.
Sean Vitka, a policy attorney at the nonprofit Demand Progress, proclaimed the report revealed what privacy advocates have feared for years.
He believes intelligence agencies are breaking the law and purchasing information about Americans that Congress and the Supreme Court determined the government should not be in possession of.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has long warned about the dangers of the US surveillance state and its ability to compile sensitive information about Americans’ private lives.
In a hearing held on March 8, 2023, Wyden called on Haines to release the recently declassified report. At the time, Haines responded the public should read this report.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released the report on June 9.
The ODNI found itself in a protracted legal scuffle with the digital rights advocacy organization Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) with regard to several connected documents.
Chris Baumohl, a law fellow at EPIC, stated the report clearly demonstrates how the government continues to believe it can simply buy its way out of constitutional safeguards by using taxpayer funds.
Baumhol called on Congress to sort out the government’s data broker pipeline in 2023, prior to any consideration of reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The ODNI’s panel of advisers clearly outlined how the government’s static interpretations of what information is publicly available constitutes a major threat to the public.