During a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Mar. 18, FBI Director Kash Patel admitted the agency has been purchasing data that can be leveraged to track a person’s movement and location history. The United States Supreme Court ruled in 2018 (in the case of Carpenter v. United States) that law enforcement agencies must secure a warrant in order to access a person’s location data from cellphone providers; however, data brokers provide another option: purchasing the data directly. 

During the hearing, Patel stated that the FBI does “purchase commercially available information that’s consistent with the Constitution and the laws under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act,” adding that this choice to buy American’s data “has led to some valuable intelligence” for the agency. Furthermore, Director James Adams of the Defense Intelligence Agency admitted his agency likewise buys commercially available data. 

“Doing that without a warrant is an outrageous end run around the Fourth Amendment, it’s particularly dangerous given the use of artificial intelligence to comb through massive amounts of private information,” said Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) at the hearing. 

However, Committee Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) supported this move from the FBI. 

“The key words are commercially available,” Cotton asserted. “If any other person can buy it, and the FBI can buy it, and it helps them locate a depraved child molester or savage cartel leader, I would certainly hope the FBI is doing anything it can to keep Americans safe.”