Cate and Dempsey note the "expansive aggregation" of personal data in the hands of private companies: "Governments understandably want access to this data.… Essentially every government in the world claims the power to compel disclosure of this data by the companies that hold it." Had it not been for surveillance exceptionalism, it is possible that these data would not even exist, at least not in their current volume and detail.

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 383