https://www.wired.com/story/odni-commercially-available-information-report/ Skip to main content Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert WIRED The US Is Openly Stockpiling Dirt on All Its Citizens * Backchannel * Business * Culture * Gear * Ideas * Science * Security More To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Sign In Search * Backchannel * Business * Culture * Gear * Ideas * Science * Security * Podcasts * Video * Artificial Intelligence * Climate * Games * Newsletters * Magazine * Events * Wired Insider * Jobs * Coupons Dell Cameron Security Jun 12, 2023 3:23 PM The US Is Openly Stockpiling Dirt on All Its Citizens A newly declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reveals that the federal government is buying troves of data about Americans. * * * * blocks stacked Photograph: Daniel Grizelj/Getty Images * * * * The United States government has been secretly amassing a "large amount" of "sensitive and intimate information" on its own citizens, a group of senior advisers informed Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, more than a year ago. The size and scope of the government effort to accumulate data revealing the minute details of Americans' lives are described soberly and at length by the director's own panel of experts in a newly declassified report. Haines had first tasked her advisers in late 2021 with untangling a web of secretive business arrangements between commercial data brokers and US intelligence community members. What that report ended up saying constitutes a nightmare scenario for privacy defenders. "This report reveals what we feared most," says Sean Vitka, a policy attorney at the nonprofit Demand Progress. "Intelligence agencies are flouting the law and buying information about Americans that Congress and the Supreme Court have made clear the government should not have." In the shadow of years of inaction by the US Congress on comprehensive privacy reform, a surveillance state has been quietly growing in the legal system's cracks. Little deference is paid by prosecutors to the purpose or intent behind limits traditionally imposed on domestic surveillance activities. More craven interpretations of aging laws are widely used to ignore them. As the framework guarding what privacy Americans do have grows increasingly frail, opportunities abound to split hairs in court over whether such rights are even enjoyed by our digital counterparts. "I've been warning for years that if using a credit card to buy an American's personal information voids their Fourth Amendment rights, then traditional checks and balances for government surveillance will crumble," Ron Wyden, a US senator from Oregon, says. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) did not immediately respond to a request for comment. WIRED was unable to reach any members of the senior advisory panel, whose names have been redacted in the report. Former members have included ex-CIA officials of note and top defense industry leaders. Wyden had pressed Haines, previously the number two at the Central Intelligence Agency, to release the panel's report during a March 8 hearing. Haines replied at the time that she believed it "absolutely" should be read by the public. On Friday, the report was declassified and released by the ODNI, which has been embroiled in a legal fight with the digital rights nonprofit the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) over a host of related documents. "This report makes it clear that the government continues to think it can buy its way out of constitutional protections using taxpayers' own money," says Chris Baumohl, a law fellow at EPIC. "Congress must tackle the government's data broker pipeline this year, before it considers any reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act," he said (referring to the ongoing political fight over the so-called "crown jewel" of US surveillance). The ODNI's own panel of advisers makes clear that the government's static interpretations of what constitutes "publicly available information" poses a significant threat to the public. The advisers decry existing policies that automatically conflate, in the first place, being able to buy information with it being considered "public." The information being commercially sold about Americans today is "more revealing, available on more people (in bulk), less possible to avoid, and less well understood" than that which is traditionally thought of as being "publicly available." Most Popular * The Best Nintendo Switch Games for Every Kind of Player Gear The Best Nintendo Switch Games for Every Kind of Player WIRED Staff * The End of Influencers on Instagram Ideas The End of Influencers on Instagram Stephanie McNeal * A Leaked Tesla Report Shows the Cybertruck Had Basic Design Flaws Gear A Leaked Tesla Report Shows the Cybertruck Had Basic Design Flaws Jeremy White * Apple's Vision Pro Isn't the Future Culture Apple's Vision Pro Isn't the Future Kate Knibbs * Perhaps most controversially, the report states that the government believes it can "persistently" track the phones of "millions of Americans" without a warrant, so long as it pays for the information. Were the government to simply demand access to a device's location instead, it would be considered a Fourth Amendment "search" and would require a judge's sign-off. But because companies are willing to sell the information--not only to the US government but to other companies as well--the government considers it "publicly available" and therefore asserts that it "can purchase it." It is no secret, the report adds, that it is often trivial "to deanonymize and identify individuals" from data that was packaged as ethically fine for commercial use because it had been "anonymized" first. Such data may be useful, it says, to "identify every person who attended a protest or rally based on their smartphone location or ad-tracking records." Such civil liberties concerns are prime examples of how "large quantities of nominally 'public' information can result in sensitive aggregations." What's more, information collected for one purpose "may be reused for other purposes," which may "raise risks beyond those originally calculated," an effect called "mission creep." Most Americans have at least some idea of how a law enforcement investigation unfolds (if only from watching years of police procedurals). This idea imagines a cop whose ability to surveil them, turn their phone into a tracking device, or start squeezing records out of businesses they frequent, are all gated behind evidentiary thresholds, like reasonable doubt and probable cause. These are legal hurdles that no longer bother an increasing number of government agencies. Access to the most sensitive information about a person was once usually obtained in the course of a "targeted" and "predicated" investigation, the report says. Not anymore. "Today, in a way that far fewer Americans seem to understand, and even fewer of them can avoid, [commercially available information] includes information on nearly everyone," it says. Both the "volume and sensitivity" of information the government can purchase has exploded in recent years due to "location-tracking and other features of smartphones," and the "advertising-based monetization model" that underlies much of the internet, the report says. "In the wrong hands," the ODNI's advisers warn, the same mountain of data the government is quietly accumulating could be turned against Americans to "facilitate blackmail, stalking, harassment, and public shaming." Notably, these are all offenses that have been committed by intelligence agencies and White House administrations in the past. What constraints do exist on domestic surveillance activities are all a direct response to that history of political sabotage, disinformation, and abusive violations of Americans' rights. The report notes: "The government would never have been permitted to compel billions of people to carry location tracking devices on their persons at all times, to log and track most of their social interactions, or to keep flawless records of all their reading habits. Yet smartphones, connected cars, web tracking technologies, the Internet of Things, and other innovations have had this effect without government participation." Most Popular * The Best Nintendo Switch Games for Every Kind of Player Gear The Best Nintendo Switch Games for Every Kind of Player WIRED Staff * The End of Influencers on Instagram Ideas The End of Influencers on Instagram Stephanie McNeal * A Leaked Tesla Report Shows the Cybertruck Had Basic Design Flaws Gear A Leaked Tesla Report Shows the Cybertruck Had Basic Design Flaws Jeremy White * Apple's Vision Pro Isn't the Future Culture Apple's Vision Pro Isn't the Future Kate Knibbs * The government must appreciate that all of this unfettered access can quickly increase its own power "to peer into private lives to levels that may exceed our constitutional traditions or other social expectations," the advisers say, even if it can't blind itself to the fact that all this information exists and is readily sold for a buck. Get More From WIRED * Don't miss our biggest stories, delivered to your inbox every day * Our new podcast wants you to Have a Nice Future * "Building a platform like Twitter is not difficult" * The bizarre reality of getting online in North Korea * People let a startup put a brain implant in their skull--for 15 minutes * Do people actually want to wear a headset all the time? * They plugged GPT-4 into Minecraft--and unearthed new potential for AI * Our Gear team sounds off on audiophile-grade speakers, vinyl accessories and the best wireless headphones for anyone Dell Cameron is a Texas-based privacy, policy, and security reporter. Prior to joining WIRED, he was a staff reporter at the Daily Dot and senior reporter at Gizmodo. Senior Reporter, Politics and Policy * TopicssurveillanceprivacyFISANSAnational security More from WIRED The Messy US Influence That's Helping Iranians Stay Online The Messy US Influence That's Helping Iranians Stay Online Newly announced sanctions against Iran-based Avaran Cloud underscore the complexity of crafting Washington's internet freedom efforts. Lily Hay Newman China Hacks US Critical Networks in Guam, Raising Cyberwar Fears China Hacks US Critical Networks in Guam, Raising Cyberwar Fears Researchers say the state-sponsored espionage operation may also lay the groundwork for disruptive cyberattacks. Andy Greenberg A Massive Vaccine Database Leak Exposes IDs of Millions of Indians A Massive Vaccine Database Leak Exposes IDs of Millions of Indians Personal information, including ID documents and phone numbers, have been released on Telegram. Varsha Bansal The True Cost of a Free TV The True Cost of a Free TV Telly TV tracks you and bombards you with ads on a dedicated second screen. It could help normalize smartphone-style surveillance in your living room. Amanda Hoover The Underground History of Russia's Most Ingenious Hacker Group The Underground History of Russia's Most Ingenious Hacker Group From USB worms to satellite-based hacking, Russia's FSB hackers, known as Turla, have spent 25 years distinguishing themselves as "adversary number one." Andy Greenberg The Bizarre Reality of Getting Online in North Korea The Bizarre Reality of Getting Online in North Korea New testimony from defectors reveals pervasive surveillance and monitoring of limited internet connections. For millions of others, the internet simply doesn't exist. Matt Burgess The Security Hole at the Heart of ChatGPT and Bing The Security Hole at the Heart of ChatGPT and Bing Indirect prompt-injection attacks can leave people vulnerable to scams and data theft when they use the AI chatbots. Matt Burgess Millions of PC Motherboards Were Sold With a Firmware Backdoor Millions of PC Motherboards Were Sold With a Firmware Backdoor Hidden code in hundreds of models of Gigabyte motherboards invisibly and insecurely downloads programs--a feature ripe for abuse, researchers say. Andy Greenberg WIRED WIRED is where tomorrow is realized. It is the essential source of information and ideas that make sense of a world in constant transformation. The WIRED conversation illuminates how technology is changing every aspect of our lives--from culture to business, science to design. The breakthroughs and innovations that we uncover lead to new ways of thinking, new connections, and new industries. * * * * * * More From WIRED * Subscribe * Newsletters * FAQ * Wired Staff * Press Center * Coupons * Editorial Standards * Black Friday * Archive Contact * Advertise * Contact Us * Customer Care * Jobs * RSS * Accessibility Help * Conde Nast Store * Conde Nast Spotlight * Do Not Sell My Personal Info (c) 2023 Conde Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Conde Nast. Ad Choices Select international siteUnited States * UK * Italia * Japon