More from the article:
"For years now, and with little real oversight or restrictions, the government has been compiling massive databases comprised of all manner of sensitive information on the citizenry.

Biographical information. Biometric information. Criminal backgrounds. Travel records.

There is not a single person in the U.S. who is not in some government database or another, and these databases are increasingly being shared between agencies, fusion centers, and the police.

The government has also, with little oversight and few guidelines, been adding to its massive trove of data on Americans by buying commercially available information (CAI) from third-party sources. As a report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed:

“[Commercially purchased data] can reveal sensitive and intimate information about the personal attributes, private behavior, social connections, and speech of U.S. persons and non-U.S. persons. It can be misused to pry into private lives, ruin reputations, and cause emotional distress and threaten the safety of individuals. Even subject to appropriate controls, CAI can increase the power of the government’s ability to peer into private lives to levels that may exceed our constitutional traditions or other social expectations.”

In other words, this is the diabolically sneaky way in which the government is attempting to sidestep the Fourth Amendment, which requires that government agents have probable cause and a warrant before spying on Americans or searching and seizing their private property.

It’s bad enough that the government is building massive databases comprised of our personal information without our knowledge or consent, but then they get hacked and we suffer for it.

Earlier this year, for instance, several federal agencies, state governments and universities were targeted in a global cyberattack that compromised the sensitive data of millions of Americans.

Did that stop the government’s quest to keep building these databases which compromise our privacy and security? Of course not.

In fact, the government has also been selling our private information. According to Vice, Departments of Motor Vehicles in states around the country have been selling drivers’ personal information “to thousands of businesses, including private investigators who spy on people for a profit.”

Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and the government has become a master at finding loopholes that allow it to exploit the citizenry."