And then governments use this data, but can wash their hands of it saying "we didn't collect it"
These are CMMS and HHS data. The government literally collected it. On government forms.
This thread is Exhibit A for how the tech-privacy community so often trips itself up. We have abuse of government data at hand. It’s clear. It’s sharp. Nobody denies the government has the data, how they got the data or how they’re using it.
So instead we go into parallel construction and advertising dragnets and a bunch of stuff that isn’t clear cut, isn’t relevant, but is someone’s bogeybear that has to be scratched.
Also, don't forget that profit maximization means selling to the highest bidder, which might not be US govt. Certainly, there is means, motive, and opportunity for individuals with access to sell this info to geopolitical adversaries, and it is BY FAR the easiest way for adversaries to acquire it.
It has happened before and it will happen again.
In this case the story didn’t make it clear whether or not they even had an administrative warrant. I’d be interested to find out if they did.
* https://www.wired.com/story/us-judge-rules-ice-raids-require...
* https://www.minnpost.com/metro/2026/01/judge-orders-release-...
> A federal judge in Minnesota on Thursday ordered the release of a Liberian man four days after heavily armed immigration agents broke into his home using a battering ram and arrested him.
> U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan said in his ruling that the agents violated Garrison Gibson’s Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure.
Maybe what we're really seeing now though is the feedback loop, the information laundering industrial complex that is the surveillance economy.