NSA Confirms Purchasing Data on American Citizens’ Internet Behavior, Circumventing the Need for Warrants

NSA Confirms Purchasing Data on American Citizens’ Internet Behavior, Circumventing the Need for Warrants

The NSA’s long history of often legally sketchy mass surveillance continues, despite some of the agency’s activities getting exposed more than a decade ago by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Now, the National Security Agency has had to reveal, in response to a senator’s questions, that it is, as one report put it, “sidestepping” obtaining warrants first before it buys people’s information, put on sale by data brokers.

This came to light in an exchange of letters between Senator Ron Wyden and several top security officials.

And this time – because of NSA’s own interest being at stake – he has been able to reveal the information he obtained.

Wyden’s January 25 letter to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines contained a fairly straight-forward request: US intelligence agencies should only buy American’s data “that has been obtained in a lawful manner.”