The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Defense Intelligence Agency and are among several government entities known to have solicited private data brokers to access information for which a court order is generally required. A growing number of lawmakers have come to view the practice as an end run around the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment guarantees against unreasonable government searches and seizures.

“This unconstitutional mass government surveillance must end,” Ohio congressman Warren Davidson says. Members of the House Judiciary Committee, led by Ohio’s Jim Jordan, will hold a markup hearing on Wednesday to consider a Davidson bill aimed at restricting purchases of Americans’ data without a subpoena, court order, or warrant.

If passed into law, the legislation’s restrictions would apply to federal agencies, as well as state and local police departments. Known as the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, the bill is cosponsored by four Republicans and four Democrats, including the committee’s ranking member, Jerry Nadler, who first introduced it alongside California’s Zoe Lofgren in 2021.

Notably, the bill’s protections extend to data obtained from a person’s account or device even if hacked by a third party, or when disclosure is referenced by a company’s terms of service. The bill’s sponsors note this would effectively prohibit the government from doing business with companies such as Clearview AI, which has admitted to scraping billions of photos from social media to fuel a facial recognition tool that’s been widely tested by local police departments.