The Lawfare Podcast

The Hidden Alliance Between Tech and Government

Mar 8, 2024

Explore the hidden alliance between tech and government as they purchase private data for intelligence purposes. Learn about the unregulated private broker market, potential threats to privacy, and the importance of data for government operations. Discover the evolution of data brokers, government use of open source intelligence, and the debate on data privacy versus national security.

38:26

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Episode guests

Byron Tau

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

US government purchases bulk data for intelligence purposes from commercial marketplaces, raising privacy concerns.

Data brokers provide extensive data sets to governments, including social media data and geolocation data for surveillance purposes.

Deep dives

Government's Purchase of Commercial Data

The US government purchases bulk data from the commercial marketplace for intelligence and law enforcement purposes, gaining access to information like geolocation data, social media data, and wireless base station scans. This practice, detailed in Myron Tao's book Means of Control, raises concerns about privacy and civil liberties as governments increasingly rely on commercially available data to fulfill their missions.

Introduction

5min

Evolution and Usage of Data Brokers by Government Agencies

8min

Government Use of Open Source Intelligence and Commercial Data Collection

4min

Prioritizing Personal Well-being through Therapy and Data Privacy

6min

Government Data Collection and Privacy Concerns

18min

Predicting Judicial Reform in Data Privacy

4min

The practice of surveillance capitalism—the widespread private collection and commodification of personal data—is well understood. Less well understood is the extent to which the U.S. government purchases this data in the commercial marketplace to use it for intelligence and law enforcement purposes.

Byron Tau, when he was a reporter with The Wall Street Journal, did more than anyone to bring this practice to public light. Jack Goldsmith sat down recently with Tau to discuss his new book on the topic, “Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government is Creating a New American Surveillance State.” They discussed how the private broker market works, why the government is able to purchase bulk private data with relatively few legal restrictions, and the threat to privacy and civil liberties that inheres in the practice. They also discussed why this form of data is so important to the government and the prospects for reform of the relatively unregulated practice.

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