“It’s critical we uncover how federal agencies are accessing bulk databases of Americans’ location data and why,” Nathan Freed Wessler, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a statement. “There can be no accountability without transparency.”
Senate Democrats, such as privacy advocate Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), had written a letter to DHS asking for more information on how such data was being used. On Wednesday morning, they disclosed that the department’s inspector general would take up the matter.
“If federal agencies are tracking American citizens without warrants, the public deserves answers and accountability,” Wyden said in a statement. “I won’t accept anything less than a thorough and swift inspector general investigation that sheds light on CBP’s phone location data surveillance program.”
The lawsuit highlights how the explosion of private-sector data and location-tracking services can be leveraged by the government.
Government agencies typically