Dan Bishop: Intelligence Agencies ‘Skirt the Law’ to Spy on Americans

Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) said that American intelligence agencies often look to “skirt the law” to avoid obtaining a court order to review Americans’ private information.

“Intelligence agencies need a court order to obtain your data directly. But as usual, they look for any way to avoid scrutiny and skirt the law. The Deep State will go to any length to spy on the American people. The entire enterprise is rotten,” Bishop wrote.

The North Carolina congressman commented on a New York Times report that found that the National Security Agency (NSA) buys certain logs related to Americans’ domestic internet activities from commercial brokers.

In a letter to the director of national intelligence, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), a staunch privacy advocate, argued that “internet metadata” can often be equally sensitive.

The New York Times explained:

In the letter, General Nakasone wrote that his agency had decided to reveal that it buys and uses various types of commercially available metadata for its foreign intelligence and cybersecurity missions, including netflow data “related to wholly domestic internet communications.”

Netflow data generally means internet metadata that shows when computers or servers have connected but does not include the content of their interactions. Such records can be generated when people visit different websites or use smartphone apps, but the letter did not specify how detailed the data is that the agency buys.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has increasingly scrutinized the internet data broker industry. It has been cracking down on companies that trade in personal location data and sell without users’ consent.

The Times also noted that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has been buying commercially available databases, including location data from smartphone apps. Other federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), have previously bought Americans’ private data; CBP has said it would stop buying this private data.

WATCH: Jim Jordan: There Are 204k Reasons to Oppose FISA Reauthorization

The House Judiciary Committee advanced the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act, which would not only rein in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) but end the “data broker” loophole allowing law enforcement agencies to purchase sensitive data.

WATCH: Rep. Andy Biggs: CDC Purchased $420k Worth of Data to Surveil Americans During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.