If the data brokers sell data, then even if they didn't sell it to the government, they would sell it to "PR/Lobbying Firms" who lobby the government. They would sell it to "security contracting firms" who the government contracts with to, um, escort "aid" shipments to widows and orphans in places like Yemen or Colombia, or Nebraska. And so on and so forth.
The fundamental mistake was never about the government. The fundamental mistake was in allowing the data brokers to exist, collect, and sell the data in the first place.
The only ways these status quos change is when people hate the industry so much that being in bed with it threatens the reelection of the politicians and the legitimacy of the institutions can the tide shift.
It's so clear to me now that it was foolish to go after the government for what was, at root, a problem emanating from private industry practices. That was unimaginably dumb. It's clear the issue was obviously the private industry practices the whole time. Those practices are what we should have been trying to stamp out from the start.
Couple this with the idea that we soft-spy on our Allies and then trade that data for their spying on our people and yeah, wow.