NEWS: An amendment requiring the US Military to obtain a search warrant before buying Americans’ location information from private data brokers will be included in the House version of the NDAA. #privacy#ndaa
It's important to realize when Congress attempts something like this, it faces significant pushback from some very powerful people. This amendment only covers half of the intelligence community (components run by the Pentagon exclusively).
Taking on the entire IC at once -- the FBI, CIA, and the rest -- is way more daunting. These types of reforms happen piecemeal purely as a matter of survival.
The unfortunate reality is that if Democrats still controlled the House, this wouldn't be happening. The national security hawks who've controlled the party since 9/11 would never let this slide. It wasn't until Pelosi and Schiff were stripped of their power that something like this became possible. This is evident by the events of the Section 215 debate a couple years ago.
@hwestiii You’d have to look into what we already know about the types of insight they glean domestically. The NSA for instance will capture capture calls between US persons & foreign nationals, and in some cases maybe that leads to interest in tracking that caller. They have a legal process for this involving judges but maybe it’s easier to just pay for the information and not worry about the court. But not just that person’s info, but millions of other people too.
@dell Maybe I'm a little thick, but if it's invasive enough they're requiring a warrant in order to purchase it, why doesn't it require one to collect it in the first place? (Aside from the fact this would exclude corporations from collecting it in the first place)
@dell I wonder how that interacts with the Posse Comitatus Act? Will the military have to get an act of Congress passed authorizing the investigation & search warrant every time, or is this going to be treated as another carve out?
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