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Comment by ldoughty | Hacker News Reader

According to the article, the data was being made available to other businesses... From the detail level involved, I imagine the NSA has some sweeter deal with telcos... And they have much richer data.

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The NSA buys all of the data available from data brokers. 4A? What 4A? With telcos they have the extra advantage of ordering them around with an NSL.

For those not deeply versed in US federal regulations: Part 4a of Title 15 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), which covers the "Classification, Declassification, and Public Availability of National Security Information" for the National Security Agency (NSA).

<https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-4a?toc...>

Not entirely sure, but I thought they were talking about the 4th amendment, which also is relevant. It prevents the government from spying on Americans without a warrant. The NSA works around it so openly by buying the spy data from third parties, and saying the 4th Amendment doesn’t apply since they didn’t collect the data themselves, so it’s fine. It’s a giant middle finger to the Constitution of the US.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_Unit...

Possibly. And on reflection, perhaps more plausibly.

In either regard, unambiguous comments are preferable to ambiguous ones.

The principle function of speech or writing is to accurately convey one's own state of mind to others.

New lines of business. Another way for them to sell your data. The NSA is quaint. The Valley knows everything about everyone already, and even has their current GPS coordinates.

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