The Fire Alarm We Should All Heed According to a New York Times investigation, talks between Anthropic and the Department of Defense (DOD) regarding the use of Anthropic's AI systems collapsed after Anthropic insisted on safeguards to prevent the use of its AI for the mass surveillance of Americans. The story reveals that the government specifically wanted Anthropic "to allow for the collection and analysis of unclassified, commercial bulk data on Americans, such as geolocation and web browsing data." The Data Broker Loophole The government buying data to avoid constitutional or statutory protections is known as the data broker loophole. The implications of allowing the government to simultaneously buy massive amounts of Americans' data while applying advanced AI systems to this data cannot be understated. "The conflict between Anthropic and the DOD is a fire alarm we should all heed—the threat to our privacy posed by unaccountable AI systems scrutinizing the massive amounts of data collected about us all cannot be underestimated." — EPIC Surveillance Oversight Program Section 702 and the Backdoor Search Loophole This comes at a time when Congress is considering the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Section 702 is a surveillance authority that collects vast amounts of foreign communications data, but in doing so "incidentally" collects Americans' communications. The government claims the right to conduct warrantless searches of the "incidentally" collected communications—a practice known as the backdoor search loophole. The AI Amplification Effect No longer limited by the constraints of human capacity to manually sort through data or the shortcomings of previous analytical tools, the government will be able to analyze unthinkable amounts of data. Information that is a window into our lives, creating the basis for inferences as to: Whether we own guns What religion we practice Who we associate with Our political leanings and involvement Sensitive medical information Our place of residence and employment The Surveillance Capitalism Pipeline Data about us is collected through almost every single device that connects to the internet, with our smartphones being the biggest offender. Companies sell surveillance as a service: Scanning all our images online Scraping all our social media posts Consolidating all our web browsing Tracking our cars through automated license plate readers Fighting Back EPIC has endorsed critical legislation to close these loopholes: Government Surveillance Reform Act - Closes data broker and backdoor search loopholes Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act - Ends warrantless surveillance of Americans Sources and Further Reading EPIC: Government AI Is Coming for Your Data EPIC: Data Broker Resource EPIC: Reforming Section 702 Brennan Center: Section 702 Abuses --- Take Action: Contact your representatives and demand they close the data broker and backdoor search loopholes as part of any reauthorization of Section 702 of FISA.