U.S. Spy Chief Report Warns Tech Devices Giving Intel Community ‘Unfettered Access’ To Americans Personal Info | Eastern NC Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Hank Berrien.

    A newly declassified report released by a top U.S. spy agency raises chilling concerns that the massive amount of information available to the intelligence community could be misused and undermine constitutional protections.

    The report, from a panel gathered by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, focuses on "commercially available information (CAI)," data that is available to the general public. The report warns that an explosion in the volume and sensitivity of CAI is being driven by digital technology advances, including location-tracking and other features of smartphones and advertising-based monetization models used by companies selling goods and services online.

    "Today, in a way that far fewer Americans seem to understand, and even fewer of them can avoid, CAI includes information on nearly everyone that is of a type and level of sensitivity that historically could have been obtained, if at all, only through targeted (and predicated) collection, and that could be used to cause harm to an individual's reputation, emotional well-being, or physical safety," the report stated.

    The report further warns that even though much of the data is "anonymized," it is often possible to identify the individuals to which the information pertains. Matching up people and their sensitive data can result in serious risk, the report warned.

    "Without proper controls, CAI can be misused to cause substantial harm, embarrassment, and inconvenience to U.S. persons," it stated.

    The report noted that "under the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and internal procedures of the intelligence community, CAI is generally less strictly regulated than other forms of information acquired by the IC, principally because it is publicly available."

    But it pointed out that times have changed.

    "In our view, however, changes in CAI have considerably undermined the historical policy rationale for treating [publicly available information] categorically as non-sensitive information, that the Intelligence Community can use without significantly affecting the privacy and civil liberties of U.S. persons," the report found.

    Warning that CAI can be misused, the report states, "In the wrong hands, sensitive insights gained through CAI could facilitate blackmail, stalking, harassment, and public shaming."

    "The government would never have been permitted to compel billions of people to carry location tracking devices on their persons at all times, to log and track most of their social interactions, or to keep flawless records of all their reading habits," the report stated. "Yet smartphones, connected cars, web tracking technologies, the Internet of Things, and other innovations have had this effect without government participation. While the IC cannot willingly blind itself to this information, it must appreciate how unfettered access to CAI increases its power in ways that may exceed our constitutional traditions or other societal expectations."

poll#174

Among the many other lackluster performance standards by the Biden Administration - the most recent, allowing the Chinese Spy Balloon unfettered access to the skies above this Sovereign Republic - Joe Biden's foreign policy is considered by most true experts to be mediocre to abysmal at best. If one were to give a fair assessment of the quality of this apex duty of this Executive Branch: What would be your opinion of the Biden Administration's Foreign Policy initiatives and, or obvious faux pas?

  President Biden is a Foreign Policy expert of consummate skill just like his brother, Jim, and his son, Hunter.

  America's First Idiot President is corruptly committed to making the World far less safe, while surrendering OUR United States of America's sovereignty whenever, wherever possible.

  Mr. Biden is MY President because I pay close attention to only what rewards me, thus demanding as little sacrifice as is my nature to offer, or shrug.

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