Privacy Advocate Accuses US Government of Investing in AI-Powered Mass Surveillance (theconversation.com) 25
The Conversation published this warning from privacy/tech law/electronic surveillance attorney Anne Toomey McKenna (also an affiliated faculty member at Penn State's Institute for Computational and Data Sciences). The U.S. government "is able to purchase Americans' sensitive data because the information it buys is not subject to the same restrictions as information it collects directly. The federal government is also ramping up its abilities to directly collect data through partnerships with private tech companies. These surveillance tech partnerships are becoming entrenched, domestically and abroad, as advances in AI take surveillance to unprecedented levels... "
Congressional funding is supercharging huge government investments in surveillance tech and data analytics driven by AI, which automates analysis of very large amounts of data. The massive 2025 tax-and-spending law netted the Department of Homeland Security an unprecedented US$165 billion in yearly funding. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of DHS, got about $86 billion. Disclosure of documents allegedly hacked from Homeland Security reveal a massive surveillance web that has all Americans in its scope. DHS is expanding its AI surveillance capabilities with a surge in contracts to private companies. It is reportedly funding companies that provide more AI-automated surveillance in airports; adapters to convert agents' phones into biometric scanners; and an AI platform that acquires all 911 call center data to build geospatial heat maps to predict incident trends. Predicting incident trends can be a form of predictive policing, which uses data to anticipate where, when and how crime may occur...
Meanwhile, the Trump administration's national policy framework for artificial intelligence, released on March 20, 2026, urges Congress to use grants and tax incentives to fund "wider deployment of AI tools across American industry" and to allow industry and academia to use federal datasets to train AI. Using federal datasets this way raises privacy law concerns because they contain a lifetime of sensitive details about you, including biographical, employment and tax information....
The author argues that it's now critical for Americans to know "why the laws you might think are protecting your data do not apply or are ignored." On March 18, 2026, FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed to Congress that the FBI is buying Americans' data from data brokers, including location histories, to track American citizens.... But in buying your data in bulk on the commercial market, the government is circumventing the Constitution, Supreme Court decisions and federal laws designed to protect your privacy from unwarranted government overreach... Supreme Court cases require police to get a warrant to search a phone or use cellular or GPS location information to track someone. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act's Wiretap Act prohibits unauthorized interception of wire, oral and electronic communications.
Despite some efforts, Congress has failed to enact legislation to protect data privacy, the use of sensitive data by AI systems or to restore the intent of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Courts have allowed the broad electronic privacy protections in the federal Wiretap Act to be eviscerated by companies claiming consent. In my opinion, the way to begin to address these problems is to restore the Wiretap Act and related laws to their intended purposes of protecting Americans' privacy in communications, and for Congress to follow through on its promises and efforts by passing legislation that secures Americans' data privacy and protects them from AI harms.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the article.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration's national policy framework for artificial intelligence, released on March 20, 2026, urges Congress to use grants and tax incentives to fund "wider deployment of AI tools across American industry" and to allow industry and academia to use federal datasets to train AI. Using federal datasets this way raises privacy law concerns because they contain a lifetime of sensitive details about you, including biographical, employment and tax information....
The author argues that it's now critical for Americans to know "why the laws you might think are protecting your data do not apply or are ignored." On March 18, 2026, FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed to Congress that the FBI is buying Americans' data from data brokers, including location histories, to track American citizens.... But in buying your data in bulk on the commercial market, the government is circumventing the Constitution, Supreme Court decisions and federal laws designed to protect your privacy from unwarranted government overreach... Supreme Court cases require police to get a warrant to search a phone or use cellular or GPS location information to track someone. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act's Wiretap Act prohibits unauthorized interception of wire, oral and electronic communications.
Despite some efforts, Congress has failed to enact legislation to protect data privacy, the use of sensitive data by AI systems or to restore the intent of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Courts have allowed the broad electronic privacy protections in the federal Wiretap Act to be eviscerated by companies claiming consent. In my opinion, the way to begin to address these problems is to restore the Wiretap Act and related laws to their intended purposes of protecting Americans' privacy in communications, and for Congress to follow through on its promises and efforts by passing legislation that secures Americans' data privacy and protects them from AI harms.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the article.
Cui bono? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't like it, but I'm willing to hear arguments in favor of mass surveillance, then we can make a cost/benefit chart and compare and see how it turns out.
But they have nothing! How many terrorist events have they prevented through mass surveillance? Zero! Let the program die! We'll save money that way.
Re: Cui bono? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I read an article a few years ago that even the NSA themselves said they collect so much data that it takes too long to sift through it to be effective at stopping a terrorist attack
Ahem... NSA barely "collects" any data. Think of it as information stockpiling .. data collection doesn't count as collection until accessed and should never be confused with collecting data.
Re:Cui bono? (Score:5, Informative)
Mass surveillance is only useful for establishing authoritarian states. Anybody that still thinks differently does not have a working mind. As soon as these mechanisms exist, they are used for control. It has never been different and it will not be different now.
Terrorism? Nonsense. Since when are terrorists communication in ways that mass-surveillance covers? Organized crime? Same thing.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I guess they will just find a way to lie and make up some fantastic success stories. Like "you only know about the terrorist ploys we did not stop" or some equally obvious crap.
Re: (Score:2)
you speak as though the government is here to serve you. It isn't - it is here to serve itself. You are merely tax cattle to pay for it. go back to your circuses on your phone, peasant.
Re: (Score:2)
you speak as though the government is here to serve you. It isn't - it is here to serve itself. You are merely tax cattle to pay for it. go back to your circuses on your phone, peasant.
I'd say that the government is here to serve the Epstein class. But then, that doesn't necessarily contradict what you said. I guess it's pretty easy to argue that the Epstein class IS the de facto government.
Re: (Score:1)
How many terrorist events have they prevented through mass surveillance? Zero! Let the program die! We'll save money that way.
That depends on how you define "terrorist event". The current administration seems to define being an immigrant (illegal or otherwise), or being "woke", or being against mandated religious instruction in schools, or exercising one's right to peaceful protest, or being against Israel's genocide in Gaza, or any of a zillion other things, as terrorist activities.
By those definitions, mass surveillance can indeed prevent terrorism!
Re: (Score:2)
The real argument for mass surveillance is that it is lucrative, which in the US makes it a moral prerogative. That it concentrates power into a god approved hierarchical structure is just a bonus. Anything else is just thin rationalization to comfort people who like to call themselves 'moderate'.
H.R. 8470 - the Surveillance Accountability Act (Score:5, Informative)
The Surveillance Accountability Act closes the loopholes, ends warrant-less data purchases, and for the first time creates a private right of action allowing Americans to personally sue federal agents who violate their constitutional rights.
Re: H.R. 8470 - the Surveillance Accountability Ac (Score:2)
The Supreme Court will strike down that pesky right of action as violating qualified immunity
Re: (Score:2)
Link the TFA! Please (Score:3)
Come on, I know Slashdot is far from real journalism, but this is an important news item. From a source (credited, at least by name in text) I hadn't encountered, but that appears to have valuable credentials. To find TFA I had to first search up The Conversation's [theconversation.com] site, then search there for the article. The Slashdot post doesn't even include enough of the TFA title to easily search it.
Yet even an outrage piece about a fucking Pokemon Go tournament leads with a link to TFA. Entertainment above journalism.
US government ramps up mass surveillance with help of AI tech, data brokers – and your apps and devices [theconversation.com]
You're welcome
Welcome to the machine... (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome, my son, welcome to the machine
Where have you been?
It's alright we know where you've been
Welcome my son
Welcome to the machine
What did you dream?
It's all right, we told you what to dream
(thank you Pink Floyd)
Re: (Score:3)
I agree with everything in your post except your sig. Liberals are always correct, but we're seldom right. That territory mostly belongs to those other folks... ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
Right!
I'll fix it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And yet... (Score:3)
...one of the contract terms which caused the Anthropic brouhaha precluded using Claude for AI-mediated mass surveillance. At the time, the Government claimed they had no plans to do anything like that so the restriction was unnecessary.
You choose which story you believe.
Person of Interest Anyone? (Score:1)
"Accuses"? (Score:2)
Can you say "Palantir", boys and girls? How about the news stories of AI glasses for ICE-47 (another gang, just like but bigger than MS-13) to identify anyone they look at?