[mc32]

It’s so obviously unconstitutional. If Congress gives them a pass, I don’t see how they would explain allowing agencies to sidestep the Constitution. At that point they’re not upholding the Constitution any more. The only chance is bringing it up to the Supreme Court.

[petesergeant]

For those of us not well-read on the Constitution, which specific parts does it violate?

[iinnPP]

I would say it qualifies under unreasonable.

It's unreasonable to expect every citizen to understand when and where their data is being taken.

It's unreasonable to expect people to understand what actions lead to what data points.

It's unreasonable to assess data for unrelated traits that don't match every person perfectly.

It's unreasonable to trust a company selling data to not at some point include illegal data. Certainly not without a verified chain of custody.

It is unreasonable for the government to bypass the constitution by using limited interpretation of language.

[krapp]

The "unreasonable" part of the Fourth Amendment refers only to "unreasonable search and seizure" by law enforcement, not to any and every subjectively unreasonable aspect of society or law.

[haswell]

I'd state what the parent comment says a bit differently: the availability of data for purchase does not make its purchase by law enforcement magically "reasonable".

> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

In a digital world, one's "Person" and "effects" have become inseparable from the phones/platforms we communicate with. Participation in many cases is not a choice if one is to function in society.

The requirement that warrants are issued only upon establishment of probable cause also highlights the issue here. It seems highly dubious that a company holding your data and selling that data is somehow an acceptable end-around the warrant requirement.

Is this all technically legal? Seems like it might be. Is this what the authors of the 4th amendment had in mind? Seems extremely unlikely.

[lesuorac]

> Is this all technically legal? Seems like it might be. Is this what the authors of the 4th amendment had in mind? Seems extremely unlikely.

you are not inconvenienced when the NSA buys data in the same way that you're inconvenienced when you have to feed/house a soldier.

While it's extremely unlike the authors of the 4th amendment had the internet & etc in mind this concept of selling things to the government surely was known to them and so the current implementation would be OK from their perspective.

A lot of the first 10 amendments are about protecting your physical property from the Government. 2nd - Guns, 3rd - House, 4th - Property, 8th - Money. The digital bits that Google and etc created (ex. metadata) are clearly neither in your procession nor your property. There is no amendment that protects letters you wrote but gave to somebody else nor recordings made by somebody else of your interaction with them.

[Joeri]

When you send someone a letter it is held by the post office, but it is definitely not allowed for the government to open those without a warrant, even if they do not inconvenience you. When you rent a house from a landlord they can’t turn around and sell warrantless access to that house to the government.

People have digital homes just as they have physical homes, and they have digital letters (mail, messages or chat) traveling to and from those digital homes. It is not unreasonable to expect all of that to be private against broad government surveillance.

[iinnPP]

I should have been more clear, but it seems the message got to you correctly.

I can't read the 4th amendment and this article and not come to a conflict. It seems obvious to me that it is unreasonable to expect a person (with the average IQ being 94-98) to understand what data on their phone is public or private.

It's obvious because we have millions of teenagers believing they have privacy on their phones to a point where they break incredibly consequential laws to store sexualized imagery there.

What the average citizen believes is private is where the goal posts should be.

So a potential solution is to poll America asking the following question:

Donald Trump and Joe Biden would both like to download all the data on your phone to share with the world via press conference. Do you accept? If 50% of people so no, it is unreasonable.

Disclaimer: I worked on Geolocation products with the top 3 aggregators and have extensive experience with Palantir.

[lesuorac]

Geolocation and your sexts are two separate things so your poll doesn't reflect what is purchased.

[gravypod]

If we allow this logic what is to stop the following situation:

    1. Landlord writes into rental agreements that they could have someone inspect the property every year.

    2. Sold access to people's apartments to police officers every year.

In this situation a third party secured access to something which is traditionally constitutionally protected. This third party is in a position of power that is hard to bargain with (as many tech companies are). Most people wouldn't agree to this if they had the option to say no and would not expect this lease clause to be used this way.

[troll_v_bridge]

Collecting data is specifically searching and seizing, and in an unreasonable manner without warrant.

[weard_beard]

… they’re using the data to perform searches …

[mc32]

Fourth amendment to the constitution. They would need a warrant. Laws don’t evaporate just because it’s in the digital realm.

[space_fountain]

If you have a friend who's willing to report on you for a price and the government pays the price the 4th amendment wouldn't have been violated. Why is is different because it's digital? The government isn't spying on you, it's just paying for information collected legally

[mc32]

If you call the gov and you confess to something that’s on you.

Your friend also cannot just bust into your house and search through your things. Now the government because it has enormous powers behind it and people willing to do the wrong thing on its behalf is specifically limited in what it’s allowed to do.

[somenits]

It depends. If someone breaks into your house with government encouragement, that’s a Fourth Amendment violation. If he breaks into your house because he’s a burglar, and then happens upon something he knows the government would want, and then sells that information to the government, it’s not a Fourth Amendment violation.

[krapp]

The question is, if you hold a garage sale and someone buys your stuff and the governments then buys that stuff from whomever you sold it to, is it a Fourth Amendment violation?

Because that's what's really happening here. Once you sell your data to Facebook, Twitter, etc, it's no longer "in your house." If you granted third parties license to collect and sell your data under terms of service, then that data no longer belongs to you, and you agreed to that..

To me the bigger problem isn't the government buying data on the open market, it's that data is a market to begin with.

[weard_beard]

The government paying a contractor to circumvent the constitution is still the government violating the constitution.

[kevin_thibedeau]

The 4A does actually evaporate for a subset of Americans. Reagan's EO12333 permits warrantless collection for Americans subject to background investigations. You are fair game for the panopticon from the submission of an SF86 application until the time you end your security clearance. The domestic surveillance apparatus exists, in part, to facilitate that need which is something the affected agencies want to preserve a carve out for.