I think US intelligence should have access to any data that is already out there for purchase. If you have an issue with that, then regulate the sale of data.
Otherwise, this is all just PR, due to agreements such as Five Eyes where for example British intelligence buys American data and shares with CIA, etc.
3) Three letter agency can buy commercial information
With your logic the government will have access to everything because these laws are written to be circumvented, by the right people, just like tax laws. Stop Give eyes instead, simple, but impossible.
I understand this technicality; it doesn’t seem to answer my question, though I may have presented it poorly. If it’s ostensibly “wrong” (as some proxy) to collect something, it doesn’t matter how it was acquired given there’s still some intact collection.
As someone else already answered I'll just add another point in case you didn't know the full picture:
4) when neither three letter agency nor big business can collect data, contract with three letter agency in another country that can legally collect and get it from them.
That's how Five Eyes share data, basically removing the need to follow the law against data harvesting on Americans by NSA etc. (as shown by Edward Snowden).
Maybe this is what I’m missing: if US intelligence goes to UK intelligence for information about a US citizen, is US intelligence allowed to retain a copy? For how long? At what point are they “collecting” data in an overreaching manner?
Perhaps this relies too much on the phrasing in your initial comment but it was a (seeming) contradiction that stuck out to me.
Otherwise, this is all just PR, due to agreements such as Five Eyes where for example British intelligence buys American data and shares with CIA, etc.