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The only surprise here is that they're selling it. I thought the government just had access to that info through some FAA regulation or something.
Third party doctrine. They can buy it without a warrant and buy up all of it at once and do whatever they want with the data. None of it covered by the 4th Amendment.
To use warrant access and get it for free, they need a judge and have to go individual-by-individual citing specific names.
Same reason why the government just buys advertising data now to find out what people are doing online, rather than going the full legal route.
Ah, that actually makes a lot of sense. I mean it's dumb, but it makes sense.
This loophole needs to be closed.
Same reason why the government just buys advertising data now to find out what people are doing online, rather than going the full legal route.
Tbf, this is legal. Just unethical af.
It goes to show that when you compare the rights of millions of people verses a company making a quick buck, capitalism will win every time.
They probably did, but the poor airlines were missing out on that extra revenue.
Hey y'all - it's time to learn how to protect your online privacy. This is a perfect example of why "but I have nothing to hide" only enables a surveillance police state.
With Flock and the airline data sales, its very difficult to protect offline privacy
It just occurred to me that public transportation could be advocated for under the idea that it helps the government track people.
That’s a depressing idea.
Pretty much anything more complex than a bicycle has that effect
I now have two big reasons to invest in a bike. 🤔
I strongly recommend getting a fitting and spending some time riding with a local club. The former makes sure you're comfortable, the latter can familiarize you with riding on roads and get you into better shape
If those are the only two you know about, have I got news for you:
https://www.wired.com/story/phone-data-us-soldiers-spies-nuclear-germany/
https://www.wired.com/story/how-pentagon-learned-targeted-ads-to-find-targets-and-vladimir-putin/
https://www.wired.com/story/pentagon-data-purchases-wyden-letter/
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/how-federal-government-buys-our-cell-phone-location-data
We are all already tracked and traced 24/7. Nothing surprising here. It's been a police state since the late 2000's.
You misspelled "early"
this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2025
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