According to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, the Founders saw fit to make clear in the most explicit terms possible that the government cannot arbitrarily comb through the property of citizens in the absence of a warrant “particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized” based on probable cause to indicate a crime has taken place.
“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," reads the amendment.
Obviously, the Founders, without Nostradamus-like powers of prescience, could not have foreseen the creation of a sprawling digital information ecosystem wherein virtually every piece of information on a person’s life, down to their exact location in real time, is captured from afar and recoverable by anyone with access to the dataset with a few keystrokes.
Related: Chinese Communist Party Literally Names Its Domestic Surveillance Program 'Skynet'
In a congressional hearing earlier this month, FBI Director Kash Patel asserted the bureau’s authority to purchase Americans’ digital data from private-sector tech companies without probable cause or warrants — the sifting through and collation of which, whereas it was once constrained by limited resources, is made all the more viable at scale by artificial intelligence.
Sen. Ron Wyden:
Fine. Director Patel, a question for you. In 2023, your predecessor testified that, and I quote, "To my knowledge, we do not currently purchase commercial database information that includes location data derived from internet advertising." Is that the case still? And if so, can you commit this morning to not buying Americans' location data?
FBI Director Kash Patel:
Thank you. The FBI uses all tools, Senator, thank you for the question, to do our mission. We do purchase commercially available information that's consistent with the Constitution and the laws, under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. And it has led to some valuable intelligence for us to be utilized with our private and partner sectors.
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The legal framework by which the government is allowed to harvest said data is called “third-party doctrine,” the gist of which is that, because this data is, in theory, volunteered to third-party private-sector actors by customers, Constitutional limits on the government’s ability to later purchase it for law enforcement purposes do not apply.
Via Notre Dame Law School (emphasis added):
Today, information is shared almost constantly. People share their DNA to track their ancestry or for individualized health information; they instruct Alexa to purchase products or provide directions; and, now more than ever, they use videoconferencing technology in their homes. According to the third-party doctrine, the government can access all such information without a warrant or without infringing on Fourth Amendment privacy protections. This exposure of vast amounts of highly personal data to government intrusion is permissible because the Supreme Court has interpreted the third-party doctrine as a per se rule.
Insofar as the right is happy, or at least apathetic, that the FBI claims the liberty to sweep up mass amounts of data to feed into its increasingly AI-powered surveillance machine because it believes the agency will ostensibly use said to target the likes of Antifa, it’s worth remembering that whatever powers the national security state accumulates for itself will be definitely be weaponized against the right by a future administration; what’s more, the left, which is to say the Deep State, as the two are indistinguishable when it comes to targeting the “far right domestic terrorists” or whatever buzzword du jour, is far more vindictive and ruthless than the right.
Presidents come and go; like a diamond, the bureau is forever.
(As I covered at PJ Media last week, the Biden CIA had the audacity to put together an Intelligence Assessment framing housewives who promote traditional lifestyles of motherhood and homemaking as potential domestic terrorists.)
Related: German Minister Announces Pre-Crime Surveillance, Prosecution of ‘Far-Right Extremists’
Furthermore, I have little faith that the intelligence agencies have been reformed in any meaningful way. One indicator, among others, is that there have literally been zero Deep State arrests during the second Trump administration.
Even if they are behaving themselves at the moment, more or less, the careerists in the Department of Justice middle management are just biding their time until they can get rid of the current administration and usher in a new one friendlier to their interests so they can get back to business as usual, targeting mothers at local school board meetings who don’t want their kids indoctrinated into trannyhood.
That’s what these people do — and it’s anti-American to the core.
