DENVER ‒ For decades, the government has been able to watch where you drive and where you walk. It can figure out where you shop, what you buy, and who you spend time with.
It knows how much money you have, where you’ve worked, and in many cases, what medical procedures you’ve had. It can figure out if you’ve attended a protest or bought marijuana, and can even read your emails if it wants.
But because all of those data points about you were scattered across dozens of federal, state and commercial databases, it wasn’t easy for the government to easily build a comprehensive profile of your life.
That’s changing ‒ fast.
With the help of Big Tech, in just a few short months, the Trump administration has expanded the government surveillance state to a whole new level as the president and his allies chase down illegal immigrants and suspected domestic terrorists, while simultaneously trying to slash federal spending they've deemed wasteful, and prevent foreigners from voting.
And in doing so, privacy experts warn, the federal government is inevitably scooping up, sorting, combining and storing data about millions of law-abiding Americans. The vast data storehouses, some of which have been targeted for access by Elon Musk’s DOGE teams, raise significant privacy concerns and the threat of cybersecurity breaches.
“What makes the Trump administration’s approach so chilling is that they are seeking to collect and use data across federal agencies in ways that are unprecedented,” said Cody Venzke, a senior policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union. “The federal government’s collection of data has always been a double-edged sword.”
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Privacy experts say that while all of that data has long been collected and kept separate by different government agencies or private vendors ‒ like your supermarket frequent shopper card and cell phone provider ‒ the Trump administration is dramatically expanding its compilation into comprehensive dossiers on Americans. Much of the work has been kicked off by Elon Musk's DOGE teams, with the assistance of billionaire Peter Thiel’s Denver-based Palantir.
Critics say such a system could track women who cross state lines for abortions - something a police officer in Texas is accused of doing - or be abused by law enforcement to target political critics or even stalk romantic partners. And if somehow accessed by hackers, the centralized systems would prove a trove of information to commit fraud or blackmail.
Read the rest at the Courier-Journal.
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