Adtech Surveillance and Government Surveillance are Often the Same Surveillance

In the absence of comprehensive federal privacy legislation in the United States, the targeted advertising industry, fueled by personal information harvested from our cell phone applications, has run roughshod over our privacy. Worse, the boundaries between corporate surveillance and government surveillance are eroding. Unless your data is fully encrypted or stored locally by you, the government often can get it from a communications or computing company.

Traditionally, that required a court order. But increasingly, the government just buys it …