Discussion
FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms
givemeethekeys: That's the job of the FBI - to investigate domestic crimes. But, why do private organizations so willingly participate in the tracking ecosystem? I suppose they're in the, "you have nothing to worry about if you're not doing anything illegal" camp! Hopefully they understand that they have the most to lose.
nomel: The supreme court had a 5-4 decision related to this [1]. Was there something specific, in that decision, that leaves a loophole open?[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf
renewiltord: Believe it or not, not everyone is a prison abolitionist and some think that if you kill someone you should go to prison so you can’t go kill another person.I know. It’s strange. I don’t agree with them. Generally, I think unless a judge and jury reliably witnessed a crime with their own eyes they shouldn’t convict and that prison is an evil place to dispossess the poor of what little dignity they have left after online advertising has raped their senses and datacenters have stolen their water (and don’t forget the atrocities in Gaza) but some other people have these views.
rendx: How Legal Punishment Affects Crime: An Integrated Understanding of the Law's Punitive Behavioral Mechanisms (2025)"This article explains what these 13 potential effects of punishment are and how they have been theorized. It further reviews the body of available empirical evidence for each of these mechanisms."https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47266997
whatshisface: If something is bad when it's done illegally, it's worse when it's done legally, and even worse than that when it's done dutifully.
wmf: It's just business. Buy (your data) for a dollar, sell for two. It's all legal and the data brokers are mostly unknown or already-hated companies so I'd say they have nothing to lose.
anonymars: I wonder if we can still buy burner phones for cash
josefritzishere: A generation ago our leaders derided China (and Russia) for this kind of pervasive spying on it's citizens. In the US we did the same thing just increasing costs by enriching the private sector on the way. That's not better. That's worse.
FL4TLiN3: Who's selling the data is the far more serious issue here. Behind this is a remarkably well-structured syndicate. The supply chain looks something like this: consumer apps embed ad SDKs → those SDKs feed location signals into RTB ad exchanges → surveillance-oriented firms sit in the RTB pipeline and harvest bid request data even without winning auctions → that data flows to aggregators who don't have any direct relationship with consumers → and from there it's sold to government agencies, among others. The genius of this structure is that accountability dissolves at every layer. Each intermediary can claim they're just passing along "commercially available data." Nobody verifies whether consumers actually consented to their location data being collected and resold. The consent verification is always someone else's job. The real problem is that this data is buyable at all, by anyone, through an opaque multi-layered supply chain specifically designed so that no single entity bears responsibility for the end result.
lmeyerov: Apple and Meta are facilitating the data salesSpecifically, they revenue share with app companies who in turn increase monetization this way, esp for free apps, and run security vetting programs and ToS for who they do business withIt's not rocket science to figure out who these companies are and, if you're iOS / android os already tracking users anyways, triangulate to which apps are participating
46493168: The Trump admin has found a neat loophole where they ignore the supreme court when they don’t like what the ruling is
edm0nd: kinda the same technique Democrats want to use as well with their "pack the SCOTUS" campaigns. They want to shove a bunch more justices in there so they can get their way.I hate how weaponized each side is. We desperately need a viable 3rd party that can win elections and hold seats + put age limits on the majority of these political positions like POTUS. Our country should not be ran by 80 year olds in the House, Senate, or POTUS.
fullstop: The difference is that the right is actually doing this, and some parts of the left have suggested it.I don't give the actions of one group the same weight as the opinions of some people in the other group.
bonsai_spool: > kinda the same technique Democrats want to use as well with their "pack the SCOTUS" campaigns. They want to shove a bunch more justices in there so they can get their way.> I hate how weaponized each side is.To be clear, one of these things has happened. The other has been hyped on Fox News.It is really a stretch to "Both Sides" this issue.
nullcathedral: I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a headline in a few years when we find out other actors (e.g. China, Russia) have been buying this data en-masse too.
Permit: > kinda the same technique Democrats want to use as well with their "pack the SCOTUS" campaigns. They want to shove a bunch more justices in there so they can get their way.Did this take place? Or is it just a fear of a hypothetical?
wittyusername: I find myself uninstalling every app unless I really need it and use it. It's amazing how many apps just sit around in your life over time. get them off your phone
nullcathedral: Yikes. Why are private organizations so happy to participate in mass surveillance.
thephyber: For profit organizations are legally required to maximize shareholder value. Many of them will abuse the spirit of the law in order to squeeze profits where others won’t.The FBI is violating the spirit and original intent of the 4A by creating an entire industry out of the “3rd party doctrine” bypass to the 4A. That doctrine was whole cloth created by SCOTUS and Congress has been too happy to avoid credit or blame for it to not enshrine it in statute.
SoftTalker: You can buy almost anything for cash.
helterskelter: Hell, I can get you a toe by three o'clock this afternoon -- with nailpolish.
SoftTalker: There probably was a consent, buried on page 12 in the terms of use of the app they installed at the front of your chain.
wmf: The CIA buys this data to track Putin's chef so of course China and Russia are doing the same to us.
redmattred: Not sure about now, but geolocation data used to be available for purchase from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyhook_Wireless
CSSer: That's not "kinda the same" at all. You can feel however you like about the strategy, but the constitution specifically doesn't elaborate on how many justices make up the supreme court. Article III simply states the following:> The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.There is a huge gulf between ignoring standing law or a supreme court ruling and ignoring precedent. One involves choosing not to acknowledge i.e. disobeying an authority, and the other involves choosing to act differently than has generally been expected in the past. Moreover, at least in recent history, it's primarily the Republicans who began the practice of ignoring precedent, long before our slow descent into where we are now. And I mean none of this in any partisan fashion. It's simply a matter of fact.
darknavi: Well yes, but by republicans on Trumps behalf. Not allowing Obama to put a new judge forward in the last year of his term, and then allowing Trump to with even less time left in his term is just a chef's kiss of hypocrisy.
Jtsummers: When people talk about packing the Supreme Court they're talking about adding justices so that one side (the one doing the nominating and appointing) gets a majority. It's not about filling vacancies (or blocking filling vacancies) to reach the current limit of nine justices.
cael450: There is nothing sacred about the number of Supreme Court justices, and historically there was one for each circuit, which is not the case now.But the truth is, Democrats can win every single election this year and in 2028 and they would not be allowed to govern by this Supreme Court, which has chosen over and over again to overturn precedent and sow chaos.Unfortunately, to arrest the slide into right-wing authoritarianism, you have to adopt their tactics sometimes.But you don’t have anything to worry about. The democrats aren’t going to do any of this, and we’ll be in an even worse state in 2032.
rootusrootus: Perhaps we could overturn the third party doctrine. With legislation, preferably. And while we are at it, solve the underlying issue of pervasive data collection and sharing in the first place.
jmbuilds: Another angle I think worth attention is product developers should build tools / platforms that don't even touch user data and be open about that so consumers can choose those more. I believe people will choose privacy when given the choice more often if the product is just as good or better.
hobs: We can hold both accountable actually, its a workaround of our fourth amendment rights and also it should be illegal to do this for the companies involved.
skirmish: Your German girlfriend will not be happy about it. Give her "halbe Pfannkuchen"!
triceratops: I can't tell if these The Wire references are deliberate or a coincidence.
ranger_danger: Do you have a source for this claim?
aceazzameen: Same here. I use Firefox for everything, and uninstall all the junk via adb. Also low power mode not only for battery efficiency, but to prevent most background services from running.
mhurron: No it is not the job of the FBI to to conduct mass surveillance of citizens.
saltyoldman: What if an investigation is based on finding the same specific people near another specific person that they're tracking, but they only know about the one person, not the others.And by doing this they stop a terror attack?One more thought - if they buy just data for specific people related to an investigation, the seller of the data is tipped off. If they just buy all the data, then there is no potential tip-off to the target.
themafia: You get a "geofence warrant." They exist and are ubiquitous. You then go to Google or any other provider and you demand the data for a specific location in a specific time window. You then use the data to capture criminals.Then again, what I _really_ want is for the FBI to prevent crime. If their only solution is to let crime happen and then use a giant dragnet to put people in jail then they are less than worthless... they are actively dangerous to democracy.
mogwire: > Carpenter v. United States (2018) was a landmark Supreme Court case that held the government generally needs a warrant to access historical cell-site location information (CSLI) from cell phone carriers, as its acquisition constitutes a Fourth Amendment searchThis is very different from buying your data from a company especially when the user consented to their location being tracked.Too many people in these threads jumping to anti-Trump when the real issue is how quick we are to give up our our privacy to use technology and then quickly turn to shock in anger when it’s used against us.
Dezvous: > This is very different from buying your data from a company especially when the user consented to their location being tracked.No, it's not 'very different'. When you sign a cellular contract you consent to all sorts of tracking and data collection, but it still requires a warrant for government to obtain.
themafia: I have to give my age to my OS.Yet they can't write a law to make this basic practice illegal.Why do I feel like I'm not being represented _at all_?
thenthenthen: There was a great talk at the Chaos Computer Conference a few years ago how to diy this, sadly cant find it because web search seems dead nowaydays. If anyone knows, please chip in. It was a german researcher following german politicians who hilariously(scandalously?) related travel patterns
ranger_danger: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/12/whistleblower-finds-une...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHsz6jzjbRc
anigbrowl: They can get a warrant.And by doing this they stop a terror attack?Fuck off. This is just trying to manipulate people with fear of undefined bad thing.
wmf: https://www.wired.com/story/how-pentagon-learned-targeted-ad...
lazide: You don’t actually consent (per-se) in most cases. Hence the warrant.If you consented, no warrant would be required.
wmf: No doubt.
samrus: I think the pipeline needs to be plugged at both ends. We shouldnt allow this data to be sold without express consent. And we shouldnt allow the government to purchase this sort of data regardless of consent, protected under the 4th amendment. unless, iguess, express consent is given to be used by the government for investigative purposes, which no one would give since they dont have to under the 5th amendment
jimt1234: This should be a surprise to absolutely no one. I think it sucks, but I also don't think it's anything new.
clayhacks: Yeah, if you had any faith in these private companies to not bend over backwards for the feds, I have a bridge in San Francisco to sell you
lukeschlather: I'd really like to just have legislation to treat location data like audio or video under wiretapping provisions. If you collect my location info and convey it to a third party without my consent or a reasonable good-faith belief that I would consent, that ought to be treated similarly to recording without consent.And consent needs to be granted explicitly for each party that might get access to my location, you can't just get blanket consent to sell my location to anyone, especially not with real-time identifiable location data.
cameldrv: The RTB thing has been around for over a decade at this point. What I’m not sure about is what’s being sold by car companies. I know they sell the data to insurance companies. I’m curious if the government can manage to get it as well commercially.
