ICE is ‘weaponizing your private data,’ Oregon senator warns

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden is reminding Americans that he’s trying to prevent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from collecting biometric data on protesters without a court order — though the legislation he’s pushing to accomplish this remains stalled in Congress.

Oregon’s senior Democratic senator recently noticed a Bluesky post from Tressie McMillan Cottom in which the sociologist and New York Times columnist wondered if there were any politicians out there working to stop ICE from culling private information on people.

Wyden, 76, raised his hand, and in a social-media video posted Thursday noted that he’s seeking to block unreasonable searches and seizures such as these by pushing for the Fourth Amendment is Not for Sale Act.

ICE is buying Americans’ private data from “really sleazy” data brokers, Wyden says in the video. “That means that they can track your location, where you go, what you do and especially who you talk to.”

If the government wants private information about you — when you went to the doctor, where you had coffee yesterday, what phone numbers you called — it’s supposed to go to court and convince a judge it has probable cause. But because we all live in and through the internet now, it often can bypass the judge and buy that information on the sly.

Wyden said he doesn’t think that’s very American.

“Doing business online doesn’t amount to giving the government permission to track your every movement or rifle through the most personal details of your life,” Wyden said in a statement when the Fourth Amendment is Not for Sale Act was introduced.

The bill, which would prevent data brokers from providing Americans’ personal information to law enforcement and intelligence agencies without a court order, passed the U.S. House in 2024 — with more Republican votes than Democratic ones. So far it’s gone nowhere in the Senate.

Wyden plans to reintroduce the legislation “soon,” said Hank Stern, Wyden’s Oregon spokesperson, “both separately and as part of a larger surveillance reform package.”

In Thursday’s video, Wyden admitted the privacy-abuse problem stretches beyond data brokers.

“My investigators have found that ICE is using government data they collect from state departments of motor vehicles,” he says. “They are refusing to answer any questions of ours about how this data is being used.”

That’s also addressed in the Fourth Amendment is Not for Sale Act.

Wyden, who has focused on privacy issues throughout his 45 years in Congress, insists he’s determined to “stop the government from weaponizing your private data.”