Your Lawnmower could be spying on you!

[Daboo]

I'm a conspiracy theorist at heart. I remember reading the Left Behind books and how they were able to stay under the radar of Nicolae Carpathia's police state. That would be impossible today. Yet those books were written only a short time ago.

Enemy of State was a great movie of two guys trying to evade the CIA...back in 1998. What they showed on how you can be tracked is eye-opening...and yet that was what they were allowed to show the public. What would it be like if we knew the full extent of what can be tracked?

I just did a search using the Brave search engine. (FWIW, the Brave browser works to protect your privacy.) Anyway, here's some of what it said when I asked if Federal government agencies can buy your data to avoid needing a search warrant.

Yes, the FBI can purchase personal and location data from commercial brokers without a search warrant.

Despite Supreme Court rulings like Carpenter v. United States requiring warrants for direct government access to historical cell-site location information, federal agencies exploit a legal loophole by buying this data from third-party data brokers. FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed in March 2026 that the agency actively purchases commercially available information, arguing these transactions are consistent with the Constitution and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

• Legal Justification: Privacy experts and legal scholars debate whether this constitutes a "search" under the Fourth Amendment, but current precedent often treats it as a private transaction rather than state action, allowing agencies to bypass probable cause requirements.
• Scope of Data: This practice allows the FBI and other agencies (such as DHS and ICE) to acquire granular data on Americans' movements, associations, and habits derived from mobile apps and internet advertising.

Note those phrases:

• the agency actively purchases commercially available information
• granular data on Americans' movements,
• associations, and habits derived from mobile apps and internet advertising.

We don't have to look far back in history to see where citizens of a country were rounded up in the middle of the night because the gov't decided to get rid of them (Kristallnacht). It kind of goes along with the statement Ben Franklin made: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Chris

 

[ST Gui]

We don't have to look far back in history to see where citizens of a country were rounded up in the middle of the night because the gov't decided to get rid of them

We don't have to look far either. Japanese were rounded up, interred, and their property sold off pennies on the dollar. A bit of a silver lining on a dark era we got the 442d Regimental Combat Team.

Rarely has a nation been so well served by a people it had so ill-treated…They did more
than defend America; in the face of painful prejudice, they helped to define America
at its best.

–President Bill Clinton

 

[Chris09]

I think most people especially people early in their careers have accepted there is no practical way to function and compete in society without giving up on any real privacy concerns.
It's one thing that the FBI can obtain detailed information on the whereabouts and activities of anyone but all of these data centers are obviously about a lot more than that. And by more I mean money
and not so much the disposable income we have, but the disposable income we perhaps shouldn't have.
I had the good fortune of being audited many years back while I was in business and what started as a "GST" audit fanned out into an examination of all business activities and personal financial
transactions.
In two days I was compelled to produce all records associated with I think they called fifteen transactions involving GST I'd say about an inch stack of papers interlocking all sorts of details not directly referenced.
Early on the second day the auditor requested my personal banking records. Which I agreed to without hesitation. At that point, the auditor who stationed herself essentially in my kitchen informed me that
either frequently or most of the times, this is the point in the audit where the interaction ends, and the auditor leaves and subpoenas [or whatever] those and any other records they want.
So that's some more than twenty years ago, well we all know how direct face to face interactions that can become confrontational between ordinary working people and tax collectors have improved -
they haven't.
We live in a text me email me work from home world where most of the nasty aspect of the job can and will be avoided. Cell phones, Computers, bank and credit cards, your car my lawnmower [well, maybe not my lawnmower]
Going online and filling out the 2026 Census [a legal requirement] compels disclosure of more information than it used to but it does provide a comment section where you can write any concerns - hope they don't read mine,
I think if I don't hear a knock at the door for a couple days I'll be alright.