Brickbat: Closely Tracked
(Sergey Chuyko / Dreamstime.com)
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's inspector general is investigating whether Customs and Border Protection's purchase of cellphone location data without warrants is improper. The agency has paid nearly half a million dollars to access a database compiled by a marketer that collects data from cellphone apps. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the government must generally obtain a warrant to obtain such data from cellphone carriers, but Customs and Border Protection argues that because it is buying the information from a third party, not carriers, the decision does not apply.
