A “great leap forward”
However, according to Schwartz, both under the leadership of Democrats and Republicans, the consolidation of government data has continued over the years.
He claimed that surveillance is “biased, unforgivably.”
However, the process accelerated with Trump’s second term. According to Schwartz, the Trump administration’s actions violate privacy laws, indicating a “dangerous” transition away from protections from the Nixon era.
The elimination of the safeguards from Watergate, which were meant to keep databases separated, has been the top issue with the federal government, he said.
Schwartz noted that Trump’s consolidation efforts have been hampered by the use of the new, fully integrated data systems.
According to Schwartz, “as the current administration has made a significant leap forward in terms of surveillance and invasion of privacy, so has it also been a less transparent government in terms of the general public understanding what it is doing.”
Trump had already signed an executive order on March 20 that forbade government organizations from “taking all necessary steps” to end what he called “data silos.”
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the IRS struck a deal in April to exchange taxpayers’ personal information, including their names and addresses.
In order to accomplish Trump’s goal of deporting immigrants, the memo was seen as a tool.
The agencies’ data-sharing agreement was put on hold by a federal court in November. However, other initiatives are still being made.
The Supreme Court upheld DOGE’s request to gain access to sensitive Social Security data in June. And just this month, the Trump administration pressed states to share information about food aid recipients in order to avoid losing funding.
While the data consolidation project appears to focus on immigrants, Venzke argued that people of all races shouldn’t be surprised if their personal information is later used to evade detection.
There is no justification for it to be restricted to people without legal documents. They are vastly expanding the existing system to include all kinds of information about US citizens, according to Venzke.
Source: Aljazeera
Leave a Reply