[davidkellis]

My tin-hat alter ego says the three letter agencies are creating these companies for the sole purpose of then purchasing the data and skirting the law. But that guy is crazy. ha ha.

[brightlancer]

Why would the three letter agencies need to do that? There's plenty of money to be made by private businesses doing it with fewer risks of violating the law.

And the TLAs aren't interested in selling this info to state and local agencies, while that's probably the bigger dollar for private businesses.

[TechBro8615]

It doesn't even need to be nefarious or direct. Companies founded by an "ex TLA employee" have increased credibility, and might even procure investment from openly CIA-affiliated venture capital firms like In-Q-Tel. And since the founder has a security clearance (they're "in the club"), the company will have no issues procuring government contracts.

The revolving door works in both directions.

[kevin_thibedeau]

I know one prominent TLA (nominally banned from domestic surveillance) that had a contract with a data broker 25 years ago. Third party doctrine lets them ignore 4A protection.

[colechristensen]

Because sometimes there are laws that prevent governments from doing things which don't prevent them from buying the results.

[quantified]

TLAs aren't interested in making some money on the side?

[jonathankoren]

They don't need to create the companies. They just buy from them.

Anyway, license plate info isn't considered a search because it's in public, and the SCOTUS doesn't care about how scale makes what used to be tolerable, a very different beast.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/how-law-enforcement-ar...

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/auto...

[jonhohle]

I’m sure there are more than a few instances where TLAs legal said they couldn’t do it but they could buy data so they had an employee spin off a company and became the first customer.

There are always individuals and likely groups at TLAs who don’t have what most people would consider normal morals and/or think the ends justify the means. The CIA has been found to kill, torture, defame, bribe, and work with criminal organizations and enemy states to meet their ends consistently since their inception. Starting a company or organizing parties to create a company to satisfy legal requirements is about the least controversial thing they could do.

[hermitdev]

Some enterprising individual should purchase the data for the sole purpose of publishing activity of politicians, judges, and so on. I bet you the laws would change in a hurry.

[robbywashere_]

It wouldn’t need to be a conspiracy. An employee of a three letter agency just gets “poached” by said company. Resigns from agency. Works for company, still keeps in contact with his friends at agency. Setting up those demos and meetings for their latest product are easy now.

[afpx]

That’s not far from the truth. A lot of these companies are located in Northern Virginia, and the sales people are tied into the intelligence community.

[thefurdrake]

What do you mean?! A three letter agency creating an entire company and product just for the sole purpose of collecting information on people?

Preposterous!

cough

https://www.engadget.com/fbi-anom-phone-arcaneos-180523267.h...

[throwaway-PII]

The guy who created TLO was a former cocaine smuggler.

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

[twiddling]

Total Information Awareness

[bob1029]

One of my managers at Samsung constantly brought up this theory that google was an extension of the CIA. Back in 2012 I thought he was nuts. Not so much anymore. Killed by google dot com is my #1 red flag...

[didntknowya]

more likely they fund these companies through "research grants" then buy their services