“The bipartisan duo is seeking stronger warrant requirements for the surveillant data constantly accumulated by people’s cellphones. They argue that it shouldn’t matter whether a company is willing to accept payment from the government in lieu of a judge’s permission.”
The government’s own experts called the data it buys “the same type” the Supreme Court shielded from warrantless searches in 2018. Agencies skip the judge and pay a data broker instead. The Davidson-Jacobs amendment would ban that, riding on a defense bill for a Pentagon budget near $890 billion. Last year a weaker version that only required disclosure got stripped from the final bill. The Fourth Amendment has a price, and the government keeps paying it.