'This Is What We Were Always Scared of': DOGE Is Building a Surveillance State

[cliffside]

Rachel covered this story tonight.


https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/opinion/musk-doge-data-ai.html?unlocked_article_code=1.D08.wM9J.LUKIOA-Md2ip&smid=url-share

"... President Trump could soon have the tools to satisfy his many grievances by swiftly locating compromising information about his political opponents or anyone who simply annoys him. The administration has already declared that it plans to comb through tax records to find the addresses of immigrants it is investigating — a plan so morally and legally challenged, it prompted several top I.R.S. officials to quit in protest. Some federal workers have been told that DOGE is using artificial intelligence to sift through their communications to identify people who harbor anti-Musk or -Trump sentiment (and presumably punish or fire them).

What this amounts to is a stunningly fast reversal of our long history of siloing government data to prevent its misuse. In their first 100 days, Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump have knocked down the barriers that were intended to prevent them from creating dossiers on every U.S. resident. Now they seem to be building a defining feature of many authoritarian regimes: comprehensive files on everyone so they can punish those who protest.

“This is what we were always scared of,” said Kevin Bankston, a longtime civil liberties lawyer and a senior adviser on A.I. governance at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a policy and civil rights organization. “The infrastructure for turnkey totalitarianism is there for an administration willing to break the law.”

Over the past 100 days, DOGE teams have grabbed personal data about U.S. residents from dozens of federal databases and are reportedly merging it all into a master database at the Department of Homeland Security. This month House Democratic lawmakers reported that a whistle-blower had come forward to reveal that the master database will combine data from such federal agencies as the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health and Human Services. The whistle-blower also alleged that DOGE workers are filling backpacks with multiple laptops, each one loaded with purloined agency data..."

[elleng]

1. Not something I've ever feared personally, but well-covered by Rachel tonight.

[markodochartaigh]

2. I wonder

if it is possible that the NSA facility in Utah is holding out from giving complete access to the anti-democracy forces. That would be some good news for a change.

[B.See]

3. It's what Trump tried to do immediately after his first occupation...

By creating a so-called "election integrity" commission that attempted to get his grubby little hands on the personal information of every American voter. But the states told him to fuk off back then. So they're using another approach.

[dweller]

4. Repugs always try again

If they are ruled against , they ignore it and try again with a different judge hoping to get a ruling in their favor . They are basically ignoring SCOTUS now .

✌🏻

[SunSeeker]

5. AND, stealing our data for use at his AI venture and X, which mine our data for money.

Musk is literally looting the most valuable and protected data banks in the world for his own enrichment. He is a money hoarder, he can never have enough money. His empty soul will always need more, more, MORE MONEY.

[AZJonnie]

6. And more children

Don't forget the children

[mopinko]

7. and who r they going to sell it to?

how long b4 it’s all over the dark web?

[Ollie Garkie]

8. More Orwellian shit

from the party that says they're against big government.

[ancianita]

9. This is also why we might not have another presidential election.

Last edited Fri May 2, 2025, 10:12 PM - Edit history (1)

Digital profiling and AI one-stop shopping dossiers.

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/02/how-the-government-is-quietly-repurposing-everyones-data-for-surveillance/

EDIT: Oh, and THIS ... no more CISA state election oversight
https://www.wired.com/story/cisa-election-security-freeze-memo/

[cliffside]

10. Unfortunately, the ramifications are still to be seen or maybe ...

people are overreacting, personally I would rather be overly prepared.

Thanks for the links, from Wired ...

"In a memo sent Friday to all CISA employees and obtained by WIRED, CISA’s acting director, Bridget Bean, said she was ordering “a review and assessment” of every position at the agency related to election security and countering mis- and disinformation, “as well as every election security and [mis-, dis-, and malinformation] product, activity, service, and program that has been carried out” since the federal government designated election systems as critical infrastructure in 2017.

“CISA will pause all elections security activities until the completion of this review,” Bean added. The agency is also cutting off funding for these activities at the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing & Analysis Center, a group funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that has served as a coordinating body for the elections community...'

[ancianita]

11. Thanks for the excerpt. We need to always be aware of how evil Noem and Homeland really are.