What is Fog Data Science? Why is the Surveillance Company so Dangerous?

An EFF investigation of public records acquired from dozens of state and local law enforcement agencies has uncovered a widely-used mass surveillance technology. Americans are accustomed to hearing about how the National Security Agency (NSA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and even the domestically-focused Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have illegally swept up massive amounts of data on people living in the United States—but what about the state and local police? Fog Data Science LLC, a previously unknown company, provides law enforcement with easy and often warrantless access to the precise and continuous geolocation of hundreds of millions of unsuspecting Americans, collected through their smartphone apps and then aggregated by shadowy data brokers.