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.”
Americans value their privacy
Americans have always fiercely guarded and worried about their privacy even from the country’s earliest days: The Constitution’s Fourth Amendment specifically limits the government’s ability to invade a person’s privacy.
Those concerns have only grown as more and more government functions are conducted online.
A 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 71% of Americans worry about the government’s use of data about them, up from 64% in 2019. The survey found the concern was greatest among those people who lean or consistently vote Republican, up from 63% to 77%. The level of concern among people who lean or consistently vote Democrat remained steady at 65%, the survey found.
That same survey found that Americans overall are almost as concerned about government access to their data as they are about social media companies having access. People who had attended college were more worried about data privacy, while people with high school degrees were in general “confident that those who have access to their personal information will do the right thing.”
In acknowledgment of those concerns, the federal government carefully stores most data about Americans in separate databases, from Social Security payments to Medicare reimbursements, housing vouchers and food stamps. That limits the ability of government workers to surreptitiously build comprehensive profiles of Americans without court oversight.
In the name of rooting out fraud, and government inefficiency, however, President Donald Trump in March ordered federal agencies under his control to lower the walls between their data warehouses.
The Government Accounting Office estimates the federal government loses $233 billion to $521 billion to fraud annually, much of that due to improper payments to contractors or falsified medical payments, according to an April GAO report. The report also noted significant losses via Medicare or unemployment fraud, and pandemic-era stimulus payments.
“Decades of restricted data access within and between agencies have led to duplicated efforts, undetected overpayments, and unchecked fraud, costing taxpayers billions,” President Donald Trump said in a March 20 executive order that helped create the new system. “This executive order dismantles unnecessary barriers, promotes inter-agency collaboration, and ensure the Federal Government operates responsibly and efficiently to safeguard public funds.”
Merging of commercial and government databases
Supporters say this kind of data archive, especially video surveillance coupled with AI-powered facial recognition, can also be a powerful tool to fight crime. Authorities in New Orleans used video footage collected by privately owned security cameras to help capture at least one of the men who recently escaped jail.
And systems that read license plates helped Colorado police track down a suspect accused of repeatedly vandalizing a Tesla dealership. White House officials are now prosecuting some Tesla vandalism cases as terrorism.
But the new White House efforts go far beyond anything ever previously attempted in the United States, allowing the government to conduct intrusive surveillance against almost anyone by combining government and commercial databases.
Privacy experts say it’s the merging of government and commercial databases that poses the most significant concern because much of it can be done without court oversight.
As part of the broader White House effort, contractors are currently building a $30 million system to track suspected gang members and undocumented immigrants, and buying access to a system that tracks passengers on virtually every U.S.-based airplane flight.
And federal officials are also making plans to compile and share state-level voting registration information, which the president argues is necessary to prevent foreign nationals from illegally voting in federal elections.
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.
The nonpartisan nonprofit Project on Government Oversight has been warning about the risks of federal surveillance expansion for years, and noted that both Democrats and Republicans have voted to expand such information gathering.
“We need our leaders to recognize that as the surveillance apparatus grows, it becomes an enticing prize for a would-be autocrat,” POGO said in an August 2024 report. “Our country cannot build and expand a surveillance superstructure and expect that it will not be turned against the people it is meant to protect.”
Starting with immigration, ending where?
Trump campaigned in 2024 on a platform of tough immigration enforcement, including large-scale deportations and ending access by undocumented people to federal programs. Immigrant-rights advocates point out that people living illegally in the United States are generally barred from federal programs, although those who have children born as U.S. citizens can often access things like food assistance or health care.
Supporters say having access to that data will help them prioritize people for deportation by comparing work history and tax payments to immigration status, work that previously was far more labor intensive.
Because federal officials don’t know exactly who is living illegally in the United States, the systems by default must to scoop up information about everyone first.
One example: a newly expanded program to collect biometric data from suspected illegal immigrants intercepted at sea can also be used to collect the same information on American citizens under the vague justification of “officer safety.” That data can be retained for up to 75 years, according to federal documents.
“It’s only a matter of time before the harmful ripples from this new effort reach other groups,” Venzke said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump’s emerging surveillance state hits privacy concerns
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