A number of US House Republicans earlier this week asked the Biden-Harris administration to get behind legislation that would put an end to the current exploitation of surveillance carried out by data brokers – that happens to be warrantless.
The letter signed by nine members of Congress came after news of a security breach that reportedly ended up with personal data from 2.7 billion people getting exposed in a hacking operation.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
Clearly, that’s a number greater than the total number of US citizens, so what’s going on here?
It’s because of data brokers, the signatories of the letter suggest – the “super-state actors,” as some might describe them.
The group said to be behind the breach, “USDoD”, is supposed to have released records such as names, home addresses, date of birth, and social security numbers, where this applies – of nearly 3 billion people in the world – simply because this data was centralized and available to one entity – National Public Data, “a major data broker.”
In the US, such breaches in the end amount to warrantless searches – i.e., violations of the Fourth Amendment. The letter from House Republicans seeks to shed light on the shadowy industry of data brokers, how they may or may not be funded by taxpayer money – and what to do about it. […]
— Read More: reclaimthenet.org
