The Daily Background

Associated Press reports on a disgraceful waste of large volumes of our tax money:

Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies have bypassed subpoenas and warrants designed to protect civil liberties and gathered Americans’ personal telephone records from private-sector data brokers.

These brokers, many of whom advertise aggressively on the Internet, have gotten into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into revealing information and even acknowledged that their practices violate laws, according to documents gathered by congressional investigators and provided to The Associated Press.

[…]
Congressional investigators estimated the U.S. government spent $30 million last year buying personal data from private brokers. But that number likely understates the breadth of transactions, since brokers said they rarely charge law enforcement agencies any price.

Homeland Security, FBI, DoJ and the U.S. Marshals Service are all implicated in the documents AP obtained. This is illegal (and they seem to have admitted it), and a flagrant violation of the privacy of lawful American citizens and taxpayers. It is absolutely outrageous that the government that we give money to, to protect us and take care of us, then uses that money to break their own laws, and in return spy on us, and violate our rights and privacy.

Frankly none of this is surprising (given what we already know about the secret and also illegal NSA program), but outrageous nonetheless.

Filed under: Tax Money, NSA Wiretaps, Z-TDB Blog