Daily Surveillance Briefing: March 26, 2026

Today's Headlines:

25 days until Section 702 expires. The Congressional Progressive Caucus won't budge. Neither will the Senate. No vote scheduled.
NPR published a deep dive on the data broker loophole. FBI Director Kash Patel won't commit to not buying your location data. Anthropic's CEO warned Congress about AI-powered mass surveillance.
Berkeley delayed its Flock vote until June. Hundreds of residents spoke past 1 a.m. The mayor now opposes renewal.
RSA Conference wrapped up. Four days without federal officials. The industry noticed.
New York Senate passed facial recognition study bill. S3699 heads to Assembly. No ban yet—just a task force.

NPR: "Your Data Is Everywhere. The Government Is Buying It Without a Warrant."

NPR dropped a piece yesterday that deserves your attention.^[1] The headline cuts right to it: federal agencies are buying your location data, browsing history, and personal details from data brokers—sidestepping the Fourth Amendment entirely.

Here's the mechanism: The Electronic Communications Privacy Act prohibits phone and internet companies from selling customer data directly to the government. But that law was written in 1986. Data brokers didn't exist. So those same companies sell to brokers, and brokers sell to the FBI, ICE, DHS, and DOD. Legal loophole, constitutional nightmare.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei submitted a statement to Congress warning that these purchased records, combined with AI, could create "a comprehensive picture of any person's life—automatically and at massive scale." This is the same Amodei who told the Pentagon that Claude wouldn't be used for domestic mass surveillance. The Pentagon blacklisted his company in response.^[1]

FBI Director Kash Patel was asked directly whether the FBI would stop buying Americans' location data. His answer: the FBI "uses all tools" and purchases "commercially available information." That's a no.

Privacy advocates say the best chance to close this loophole is Section 702 reauthorization. The Government Surveillance Reform Act from Senators Wyden and Lee would require warrants for government data purchases.^[2] But Congress is deadlocked. Twenty-five days left.

Our analysis of Wyden-Lee's reform bill

25 Days: Section 702 Countdown

April 20. That's the deadline. Congress has no plan.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus voted formally to oppose any clean reauthorization—that's 98 House members who won't vote yes without reforms.^[3] A dozen Republicans want warrant requirements. Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton keeps pushing for a "clean" 18-month extension with zero reforms. Speaker Johnson can't build a coalition in either direction.

The SAFE Act from Senators Durbin and Lee would add a warrant requirement for accessing Americans' communications. It hasn't moved. The Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act would close the data broker loophole. Also stuck.^[2]

EFF called Congress out this week: "Congress is dropping the ball with a clean extension of FISA." Courts have been flagging Fourth Amendment issues for years. Congress keeps ignoring them.^[4]

Here's what expires April 20 if Congress does nothing: the NSA's authority to collect communications between Americans and foreign targets without individual warrants. FBI's ability to query that database for domestic investigations. The entire upstream and downstream collection infrastructure.^[5]

Intelligence officials call this unthinkable. Privacy advocates call it long overdue. Either way, 25 days.

Our Section 702 explainer | Progressive Caucus opposition

Berkeley Punts Flock Vote to June After Marathon Session

The Berkeley City Council was supposed to vote on a $2 million Flock Safety expansion Tuesday night. They didn't.^[6]

Hundreds of residents showed up. The public comment period stretched past 1 a.m. Speaker after speaker denounced the proposed drones, PTZ cameras, and investigative software. The council pushed the decision to a special meeting on June 2.^[7]

What changed: Mayor Adena Ishii now opposes the renewal. Her proposal states the city "opposes the renewal, approval, or authorization of any contract with Flock Safety." That's a reversal from the March 24 agenda item that was headed for approval.^[8]

The context: In the last three months, Santa Cruz, Mountain View, and Los Altos Hills all terminated their Flock contracts. Privacy concerns, yes. But also fear of federal access. Under the Trump administration, residents worry ICE could tap into license plate reader databases to target immigrants, women seeking reproductive healthcare, or protesters.

Berkeley already has 52 Flock cameras. The June vote decides whether that number grows—or whether the entire system gets axed.

Our previous coverage of Berkeley's Flock expansion

RSA Conference Ends Without Feds

RSA Conference 2026 wrapped up yesterday. 44,000 security professionals. Four days. Zero federal officials on stage.^[9]

CISA's official explanation: "good stewardship of taxpayer dollars." The industry read it differently. Former CISA director Jen Easterly—fired in January—co-chairs RSA. The Trump administration's cybersecurity officials didn't want to share a stage.

What the conference did cover: agentic AI security dominated. Geordie AI won the Innovation Sandbox as "Most Innovative Startup 2026." Varonis CEO Yaki Faitelson keynoted on "Robots vs. Robots" and the autonomous security operations center future. Quantum-safe cryptography got serious attention—the post-quantum transition is coming whether agencies are ready or not.^[10]

What it didn't: any official word from FBI, NSA, or CISA on the Salt Typhoon fallout, Section 702 negotiations, or the federal cybersecurity posture. For the biggest security conference of the year, that silence was loud.

New York Senate Passes Facial Recognition Study Bill

The Facial Recognition Technology Study Act (S3699) passed the New York State Senate and heads to the Assembly.^[11]

What it does: creates a task force to review how facial recognition is used in public and private sectors, identify privacy risks and misuse concerns, examine best practices from other states, and develop recommendations.

What it doesn't do: ban anything. No new penalties. No immediate restrictions. This is a study bill—policy comes later.

Sponsor Senator James Sanders Jr. framed it as laying groundwork: "Facial recognition is already being used in ways that affect every day New Yorkers, and while it may offer benefits in security and efficiency, it also raises serious concerns about privacy, surveillance, and misuse."^[11]

The timing matters. Fargo is still dealing with fallout from a facial recognition wrongful arrest. UK police just suspended their system over racial bias findings. New York's Assembly will be voting on this while those headlines are fresh.

Our coverage of S3699

ICE Surveillance of Protesters: The NPR Connection

NPR's data broker story connects to something we've been tracking: ICE isn't just using surveillance tools against immigrants targeted for deportation. They're using them against people who record federal agents and protesters who show up at immigration enforcement actions.^[1]

The ACLU filed suit in Minnesota over exactly this. More than 30 people gave statements under oath describing similar encounters with immigration agents. Surveillance, threats, arrests, force—against U.S. citizens exercising First Amendment rights.^[12]

ICE has Mobile Fortify, the facial recognition app. They have Clearview AI access through CBP. According to Illinois and Chicago's lawsuit, DHS has used Mobile Fortify in the field more than 100,000 times since it launched.^[12]

The data broker purchases make this worse. ICE doesn't need a warrant to buy your phone's location history from a broker. They can track who showed up at a protest, where they live, where they work.

Our full investigation on ICE surveillance of protesters

What to Watch

IAPP Global Privacy Summit (March 30-31): The largest privacy industry event. AI governance and U.S. privacy laws dominate the agenda. Expect announcements.
Meta's Markey deadline (April 6): Senators Markey, Wyden, and Merkley demanded answers about facial recognition plans for Ray-Ban smart glasses by April 6. Clock's ticking.
Anthropic injunction ruling: Judge Rita Lin's decision on the preliminary injunction could come any day. If Anthropic wins, the Pentagon blacklist gets blocked.
Section 702: 25 days and counting. Watch for any movement from Senate Intel or House leadership.