How Big Tech Makes the U.S. a Spying Superpower

The intelligence community says FISA Section 702 is key to surveilling terrorists. In reality, with the help of the tech industry, the American government is spying on a lot more than its enemies.

Big Tech-Government Surveillance AP-21173406344763

More than 145,000 Meta users were impacted by FISA requests in the final six months of 2022. Jenny Kane/AP

A European Union diplomat sent an email to a group of Haitian civil society leaders last February, backing a Haitian-led opposition group in the aftermath of the former president’s assassination in 2021. It was supposed to be a private exchange; the EU was walking a delicate path, promoting democracy while pledging to stay out of Haiti’s affairs.

But there was another party eavesdropping: the U.S. government.

The Europeans were pledging $3.2 million in EU funding to support the Haitian national police, according to a summary of the correspondence that surfaced in documents leaked last year by Jack Teixeira, a U.S. air national guardsman.