The Daily Populous Thursday March 19th, 2026 morning edition
Authored by theguardian.com and submitted by fungobat

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has started buying location data on Americans, Kash Patel, FBI director, said under oath at the Senate intelligence committee worldwide threats hearing on Wednesday.

Patel’s admission came in response to a question from the senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is a longtime opponent of the warrantless surveillance of Americans. Wyden told Patel that his predecessor, Christopher Wray, testified in 2023 that the FBI did not at that time purchase location data derived from internet advertising, although he acknowledged that it had done so in the past.

“Is that the case still?” Wyden asked. “And if so, can you commit this morning to not buying Americans’ location data?”

“We do purchase commercially available information that’s consistent with the constitution and the laws under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and it has led to some valuable intelligence for us,” Patel responded.

“So you’re saying that the agency will buy Americans’ location data,” Wyden said. “I believe that that’s what you’ve said in kind of intelligence lingo. And I just want to say as we start this debate, doing that without a warrant is an outrageous end run around the fourth amendment. It’s particularly dangerous given the use of artificial intelligence to comb through massive amounts of private information.

“This is exhibit A for why Congress needs to pass our bipartisan, bicameral bill, the Government Surveillance Reform act,” Wyden said, referring to legislation he is working to pass to rein in surveillance.

While law enforcement must get a judge-authorized search warrant to obtain location data directly from telecom companies, government agencies have instead been able to buy such information from private data brokers.

Wyden’s questioning of Patel on this issue was amplified on social media by Warren Davidson, a House Republican who introduced a bill mirroring Wyden’s Senate measure with the Democratic representative Zoe Lofgren.

“This is a clear violation of the fourth amendment and is why I introduced the Government Surveillance Reform act,” Davidson observed, “to close the data broker loophole that allows intelligence agencies to buy Americans’ private data”.

The fourth amendment to the US constitution defines the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” and specifies that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized”.

Glittering-Storm-651 on March 19th, 2026 at 00:26 UTC »

The most insulting part is they keep acting like your rights disappear the second your data gets sold by a middleman.

brain_overclocked on March 19th, 2026 at 00:11 UTC »

> The Federal Bureau of Investigation has started buying location data on Americans, FBI director Kash Patel said under oath at the Senate intelligence committee worldwide threats hearing on Wednesday.>

> Patel’s admission came in response to a question from the senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is a longtime opponent of the warrantless surveillance of Americans. Wyden told Patel that his predecessor, Christopher Wray, testified in 2023 that the FBI did not at that time purchase location data derived from internet advertising, although he acknowledged that it had done so in the past.

> “Is that the case still?” Wyden asked. “And if so, can you commit this morning to not buying Americans’ location data?”

> “We do purchase commercially available information that’s consistent with the constitution and the laws under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and it has led to some valuable intelligence for us,” Patel responded.

> “So you’re saying that the agency will buy Americans’ location data,” Wyden said. “I believe that that’s what you’ve said in kind of intelligence lingo. And I just want to say as we start this debate, doing that without a warrant is an outrageous end run around the fourth amendment. It’s particularly dangerous given the use of artificial intelligence to comb through massive amounts of private information.”

> “This is exhibit A for why Congress needs to pass our bipartisan, bicameral bill, the Government Surveillance Reform act,” Wyden said, referring to legislation he is working to pass to rein in surveillance.

CBP Tapped Into the Online Advertising Ecosystem To Track Peoples’ Movements

Value your privacy where you can:

Get AdGuard Pro (DNS incl, Apple eco) or AdGuard: Adblock, Privacy, DNS (DNS premium, cross-plat) for basic ad-blocking, and turn on DNS filtering for advanced ad-blocking.

Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking, then toggle off "Allow Apps to Request to Track".

(Just stops personalized ads, not tracking) Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Apple Advertising, and toggle off "Personalized Ads".

(Older) Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services, Scroll to the bottom and select System Services, Toggle off Apple Ads (or Location-Based Ads in even older versions).

(Newer) Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services, Find App Store in the list and set it to Never, Find News in the list and set it to Never.

(May impact some features, not available on all iOS versions) Go to Settings > Cellular (or Mobile Data), Tap on Cellular Data Options, Select your primary SIM/Line, Toggle on Limit Precise Location.

(Will impact some features like location-based alerts, appointments, reminders, and searches) Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > System Services, Toggle off "Alerts & Suggestions" and/or "Search & Suggestions".

If on Firefox (GPC):

Menu (hamburger lines) > Settings > Privacy & Security > Website Privacy Preferences > Check the box for "Tell websites not to sell or share my data".

If on Safari (GPC):

There is no native GPC toggle. However, California law will require Safari to support GPC natively by January 2027.

(Mac) Get DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, it sends GPC by default.

If on Chrome (GPC):

There is no native GPC toggle. However, California law will require Chrome to support GPC natively by January 2027. You can also enable Do Not Track (DNT) under Settings > Privacy and security > Third-party cookies, but most websites are not legally required to honor DNT unlike GPC.

Get DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials. If you already use uBlock Origin Lite, then disable tracker blocking in DDGPE but keep the GPC.

snoo_spoo on March 19th, 2026 at 00:06 UTC »

Why are they so afraid of us?