FBI Director Confirms Bureau Is Buying Private Data To Track Americans

FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed in a Senate hearing on Wednesday, "We do purchase commercially available information that's consistent with the Constitution and the laws under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and it has led to some valuable intelligence for us." In 2023, the last FBI director claimed that such practices were no longer in place, but with a new administration in place, that policy has apparently changed.

This quote was confirmed by Politico, who also pointed out that lawmakers are currently opposing the practice and introducing the bipartisan Government Surveillance Reform Act, which would require law enforcement and federal agencies to acqurie a warrant for information like this. "Doing that without a warrant is an outrageous end run around the Fourth Amendment, (and) it's particularly dangerous given the use of artificial intelligence to comb through massive amounts of private information," said Senator Ron Wyden at the same ...