Government agencies could just buy some of the data they needed straight from commercial entities. One technology consultant who works on projects for the US government explained it this way to me: “The #advertising #technology ecosystem is the largest information-gathering enterprise ever conceived by man. And it wasn’t built by the #government. #adtech #privacy
https://www.wired.com/story/how-pentagon-learned-targeted-ads-to-find-targets-and-vladimir-putin/