US Senator Ron Wyden has released documents that confirm the National Security Agency (NSA) purchases Americans’ internet browsing data without a court order. Senator Wyden’s letter reveals that the acquired data are collected from citizens’ smartphones by app developers, sold to data brokers, resold to defense contractors, and then sent to the government.
Wyden claims in his letter that until recently, the data broker industry and the intelligence community’s acquisition of data from these companies have operated in a legal gray area. This ambiguity is primarily attributed to the secrecy surrounding these practices.
