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U.S. Spy Agencies Are Getting a One-Stop Shop to Buy Your Most Sensitive Personal Data
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of The Intercept

Photo illustration: Fei Liu

The Intercept, May 22, 2025
Posted: May 28th, 2025
https://theintercept.com/2025/05/22/intel-agencies-buying-da...

The U.S. intelligence community is now buying up vast volumes of sensitive information that would have previously required a court order, essentially bypassing the Fourth Amendment. But the surveillance state has encountered a problem: There’s simply too much data on sale from too many corporations and brokers. So the government has a plan for a one-stop shop. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is working on a system to centralize and “streamline” the use of commercially available information, or CAI, like location data derived from mobile ads, by American spy agencies, according to contract documents reviewed by The Intercept. The data portal will include information deemed by the ODNI as highly sensitive, that which can be “misused to cause substantial harm, embarrassment, and inconvenience to U.S. persons.” The “Intelligence Community Data Consortium” will provide a single convenient web-based storefront for searching and accessing this data, along with a “data marketplace” for purchasing “the best data at the best price,” faster than ever before. It will be designed for the 18 different federal agencies and offices that make up the U.S. intelligence community, including the National Security Agency, CIA, FBI Intelligence Branch, and Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis — though one document suggests the portal will also be used by agencies not directly related to intelligence or defense.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of intelligence agency corruption and the disappearance of privacy.


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