“If the government can buy its way around Fourth Amendment due-process, there will be few meaningful limits on government surveillance,” Wyden said in a statement, referring to the U.S. Constitution’s protections against “unreasonable searches and seizures.”
The report contained a paragraph that appeared to be marked classified but that was nevertheless included that acknowledges that the U.S. government has the capability to attribute personal identities to the data, and said few policies addressed the collection of such information.
The report cited “inconsistencies between how different [intelligence community] elements define and treat” information collected from commercial sources. Some agencies treat the data as foreign, and thereby lacking robust privacy protections.
Since the 1970s, the intelligence community has been circumscribed in using intrusive surveillance techniques on Americans without court oversight. However, data available for sale is generally considered “open source” and its collection doesn’t require special authorizations.