The ever-growing market for personal data has been a boon for American spy agencies. The U.S. intelligence community is now buying up vast volumes of sensitive information that would have previously required a court order, essentially bypassing the Fourth Amendment. But the surveillance state has encountered a problem: There’s simply too much data on sale from too many corporations and brokers.

So the government has a plan for a one-stop shop.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is working on a system to centralize and “streamline” the use of commercially available information, or CAI, like location data derived from mobile ads, by American spy agencies, according to contract documents reviewed by The Intercept. The data portal will include information deemed by the ODNI as highly sensitive, that which can be “misused to cause substantial harm, embarrassment, and inconvenience to U.S. persons.” The documents state spy agencies will use the web portal not just to search through reams of private data, but also run them through artificial intelligence tools for further analysis.

Rather than each agency purchasing CAI individually, as has been the case until now, the “Intelligence Community Data Consortium” will provide a single convenient web-based storefront for searching and accessing this data, along with a “data marketplace” for purchasing “the best data at the best price,” faster than ever before, according to the documents. It will be designed for the 18 different federal agencies and offices that make up the U.S. intelligence community, including the National Security Agency, CIA, FBI Intelligence Branch, and Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis — though one document suggests the portal will also be used by agencies not directly related to intelligence or defense.

“In practice, the Data Consortium would provide a one-stop shop for agencies to cheaply purchase access to vast amounts of Americans’ sensitive information from commercial entities, sidestepping constitutional and statutory privacy protections,” said Emile Ayoub, a lawyer with the Brennan Center’s liberty and national security program.

“ODNI is working to streamline a number of inefficient processes, including duplicative contracts to access existing data, and ensuring Americans civil liberties and Fourth Amendment rights are upheld,” ODNI spokesperson Olivia Coleman said in a statement to The Intercept. Coleman did not answer when asked if the new platform would sell access to data on U.S. citizens, or how it would make use of artificial intelligence.

Spy agencies and military intelligence offices have for years freely purchased sensitive personal information rather than obtain it by dint of a judge’s sign-off. Thanks largely to unscrupulous advertisers and app-makers working in a regulatory vacuum, it’s trivial to

© The Intercept