On December 16, the Brennan Center submitted a joint comment with Demand Progress, EPIC, S.T.O.P., as well as 12 other civil society organizations in response to OMB’s Request for Information (RFI) on federal agencies’ handling of CAI.
The comment focuses on one dangerous aspect of agencies’ handling of CAI that demands OMB’s attention: law enforcement and intelligence agencies’ access to and use of CAI in ways that circumvent legal requirements set forth in the Fourth Amendment and various privacy laws. In the absence of a comprehensive federal privacy law regulating the commercial collection and sale of personal data, commercial entities like data brokers aggregate and sell all types of our personal information, including deeply personal information like our location data, search and browsing history, financial information, and health data. Government agencies have increasingly turned to these data brokers to purchase Americans’ data without legal process. This practice poses serious threats to privacy, civil liberties, and national security. The comment urges OMB to use its statutory authorities (1) to prohibit law enforcement and intelligence agencies from obtaining CAI without a warrant, court order, or subpoena, if the information acquired would otherwise be subject to statutory or constitutional protections; and (2) to require greater oversight and transparency over agencies’ access to and use of CAI. The full comment is available below.
