Even CIA Agents Are Vulnerable to Being Tracked by Purchased Data

Sam Biddle of The Intercept is reporting anew on the secretive surveillance startup (three words that should never go together) “Anomaly Six,” or A6.

Records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal the company currently has a multimillion-dollar contract with the U.S. Air Force office responsible for investigating Havana Syndrome, the cluster of unexplained maladies that has affected U.S. intelligence community members since 2016.

But, as the new article notes, A6 is a curious choice of contractor. In 2022, The Intercept published an exposé detailing the company’s disturbing approach to pitching its capabilities – spying on American intelligence officers.

The A6 modus operandi illustrates why Congress must use the reauthorization of FISA Section 702 to enact meaningful reforms that address glaring threats to Americans’ privacy. What the company and others like it are doing relies on a practice that clearly allows the government to circumvent the Fourth Amendment by purchasing Americans’ personal information from third-party data brokers. Specifically, A6’s intelligence is based on “bulk cellular location data harvested from millions of unwitting smartphone users around the world.”

If A6 can refine this purchased data to the point of tracking CIA agents in the field, just imagine what any private company, hacker, or government agency can do with your location history and data.

Of course, the capabilities of private companies pale in comparison to what state actors with unlimited resources can perform.

“This fusion of publicly available data, privately procured personal records, and computerized analysis isn’t the future of governmental surveillance, but the present,” warns The Intercept.

The present moment is a particularly vulnerable one. Increasingly sophisticated technology and a paucity of legal guardrails are creating a Wild West marketplace where the means to track anyone for any reason can be purchased or otherwise obtained.
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Congress must embrace its responsibility and stand up for Americans’ privacy. The Fourth Amendment is based on an inherent understanding that Americans’ basic rights and our data are one and the same. The ongoing debate over the reauthorization of FISA Section 702 is a rare opportunity to close such surveillance loopholes.

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