this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024
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This has been commonplace for decades. The government agencies went big into it after 9/11. Funny thing was that I found out about it from a competing company telling me about how the company I worked for at the time was doing it.
I should note that I'm firmly against it, just that it's not new.
It's illegal to spy on your own citizens in the US, but completely okay if someone else does the spying and you buy the data.
Hell, Verizon got caught installing spy hardware for the government in phone data centers in the mid-90's.
There was a brief storm about it, then the news media moved on to something else.
I'm sure it's still there, at every phone provider, or something like it.
It was AT&T
There was no Verizon until 2000. It might have been Bell Atlantic.
Try puri.sm
You may as well consider them government employees if they're doing it at the government's buying power.