FBI Director confirms bureau buys location data on Americans, March 2026

On March 18, 2026, FBI Director Kash Patel testified alongside Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and DIA Director Lt. Gen. James Adams III at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats. During questioning, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon confronted Patel with testimony his predecessor, Christopher Wray, gave the same committee in 2023: that the FBI did not, to his knowledge, currently purchase commercial database information including location data derived from internet advertising.

Wyden asked Patel directly whether that was still the case, and whether he would commit to not buying Americans’ location data. Patel did not make that commitment. He confirmed the FBI purchases commercially available information and stated it has produced valuable intelligence.

Government agencies generally need a warrant supported by probable cause to obtain someone’s location history directly from a wireless carrier, a rule the Supreme Court established in Carpenter v. United States in 2018. What Patel confirmed is a separate path: buying substantially similar location data from a private data broker instead, a channel the Carpenter ruling did not address and does not require a warrant to use.

Wyden characterized the practice as an outrageous end run around the Fourth Amendment. Representative Warren Davidson, who has introduced legislation aimed at closing this specific gap, called it a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment. Not every senator present agreed with that characterization; Senator Tom Cotton defended the practice as a legitimate use of publicly purchasable data.

In 2023 testimony to the same committee, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray stated the bureau was not currently purchasing commercial database information that includes location data derived from internet advertising, while acknowledging the FBI had done so in the past. Patel’s 2026 testimony confirms the practice has resumed, marking the first time since 2023 that a sitting FBI Director has affirmed it on the record.

Five days before Patel’s testimony, on March 13, 2026, Senators Wyden and Mike Lee introduced the bipartisan Government Surveillance Reform Act, which would require a court-authorized warrant before federal agencies could purchase Americans’ personal information from data brokers. A companion measure has been introduced in the House by Representatives Davidson and Zoe Lofgren. Neither bill had passed as of this testimony. A related measure, the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, passed the House in April 2024 by a vote of 219 to 199 and was never taken up by the Senate.

This testimony establishes, under oath and in the congressional record, that the FBI currently purchases commercially available location data on Americans, that its director declined a direct request to commit to stopping, and that this represents a confirmed reversal from the bureau’s 2023 position. This is sworn public testimony, not a leak or an anonymous source.

What it does not establish is the specific volume of data purchased, which brokers the FBI uses, how frequently the data is queried, or what internal legal review, if any, governs individual purchases. The FBI declined to answer follow-up questions on these specifics when contacted by reporters following the hearing.