I think this misses the point. It’s not that the government doesn’t have the resources or the capability, and we just need to step up and help. They do. They can and do buy cell phone location data, ad tech data, and all other sorts of bespoke data like car tire pressure unique IDs. All of this created by well-paid Silicon Valley companies and aggregated by no-name government contracting companies like Anomaly 6, VenTel and Babel Street. The reason it’s not put to better use is that the US can’t figure out whether we have a right to privacy (in which case the government needs to knock it off) or whether we should prefer safety.