It felt more like summer than spring in Greensboro on Sunday, as temperatures climbed to 86 degrees and set a new record for March 22. The previous record for the date was 85 degrees, set in 1948. The unseasonably warm weather drew people outdoors across the city, from parks and patios to ice cream shops, as many took advantage of the sunshine after weeks of colder temperatures.

Your data is everywhere. The government is buying it without a warrant

A whole industry of data brokers buys up vast quantities of electronic information from cell phone apps and web browsers and sells it to advertisers who use that data to target ads. The same industry also sells that data, including bulk cell phone location data, to police departments and federal government agencies in ways that can reveal intimate details about Americans without a warrant.

Now, privacy advocates say that the best chance for Congress to close the well-known loophole around the Fourth Amendment that allows for that sort of governmental snooping is coming up in just a few weeks. After a 2015 change to the law, federal agencies are not supposed to collect data on U.S. citizens in bulk. But some found a workaround to requesting warrants by simply buying the data instead.

Last week, some 130 civil society organizations signed on to a letter urging members of Congress to include closing the data broker loophole in FISA 702 reauthorization, citing the “unprecedented expansion of warrantless mass surveillance that is sweeping up the private information of communities across America” and the potential for the loophole to be used “to supercharge AI-powered surveillance.”

COSCO’s ships are a new gauge for the Hormuz crisis