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US spy agencies are buying the same surveillance data advertisers crave
Companies are selling spy-grade data to the government. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Surprise, surprise, the US government is buying personal information, including location data, from commercial data brokers — and it may be worse than we knew, according to a report from the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), an office headed by director Avril Haines, a US cabinet official who oversees the US intelligence community, which includes a host of military intelligence agencies, as well as the FBI, CIA, NSA, and others.
The report, covered by The Wall Street Journal, concludes government agencies have been buying huge amounts of “commercially available information” (or CAI) from the open market. It admits the information resembles something only dedicated government surveillance would once have produced,…