With Its Destruction of Government Data Silos, DOGE Is Building a ‘Surveillance Weapon’

Generally speaking, the United States has a piss poor track record when it comes to data privacy. One of the few protections that the federal government offers people is siloing data. Information the U.S. Census Bureau collects about you isn’t handed over to the Internal Revenue Service and so on and so forth. But as President Donald Trump mounts attacks on one of the federal government’s few safeguards, the U.S. must also confront its overall messy surveillance history.

A quick Google search on data silos will tell you that they’re inefficient and need to be eliminated. But as John Davisson, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told Gizmodo: “Personal information held by the federal government is siloed for good reason.” For the U.S., that reason is Watergate. The scandal revealed that the federal government conducted extensive surveillance on “opposing political parties, civil rights activists, and others it sought to silence,” Victoria Noble, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, explained via email.

In response, Congress implemented the Privacy Act of 1974, which placed restrictions on how agencies can share data, amongst other things. But in March, Trump issued an executive order titled “Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos” that basically directed agencies to give the federal government “unfettered access” to information. Then, last month, two whistleblowers confirmed that the Department of Government Efficiency is building a master database at the Department of Homeland Security. Per Wired, DOGE is using information from DHS alongside other agencies like the Social Security Administration and voting records.

Don Bell, policy council at the Project On Government Oversight, told Gizmodo via email that these moves are part of an “unprecedented effort to dismantle longstanding guardrails to protect our privacy rights and civil liberties.” Or, as Davisson more bluntly stated, “The DOGE isn’t hoarding our personal data for efficiency, fraud detection, or any of the other flimsy reasons it’s cited. The DOGE is building a surveillance weapon…That’s what this is about: consolidating power.”

There’s really no getting around the federal government having information about you. Sometimes, it’s needed for legitimate business. Limiting access to that information is one way of “preventing authoritarian abuses,” Noble said. And by itself, DHS is already pretty damn authoritarian. It operates an extensive surveillance network that has targeted immigrants, Muslims, communities of color, and more. Still, it doesn’t know everything about everyone. However, as Bell explained, “Giving [DHS] virtually unfettered access to sensitive information on millions of people…would enable the government to use its already powerful tools to supercharge mass surveillance.”

The master database will likely target immigrants first and foremost, but its use would likely expand, which would have even more chilling consequences. As Davvison noted, “The more a government entity knows about us, the more it can exert control over us.” His words echo a warning by former Sen. Sam J. Ervin (D-NC), the Privacy Act’s authorizer, who stated in its introduction, “The more the Government or any institution knows about us, the more power it has over us. When the Government knows all of our secrets, we stand naked before official power.”

Noble says that control could lead to authorities “retaliat[ing] against criticism of government officials, undermin[ing] political opponents or perceived personal enemies, and target[ing] marginalized groups.” Keep in mind this is the same president who labeled election workers, journalists, judges, and really anyone who doesn’t agree with him as “enemies”. DOGE has already used AI to look for disloyalty amongst federal workers, according to Reuters.

For advocates, there is still time to strengthen existing protections and develop new ones. Davisson recommended the “expan[sion] [of] the ability of judges and individuals to step in when the executive branch goes rogue.” In addition, Bell said Congress should conduct more oversight and recommended “strengthening the independence of the inspector general”.

But in addition to strengthening protections, it’s important to look at what got us here. It’s easy to frame the Trump administration as uniquely evil, but as the saying goes, nothing comes from nothing. At the same time that the Trump administration ignores some laws, it is building on a precedent established by others. Overall, the federal government has dedicated more of its energy to legislating surveillance than establishing guardrails against it. For example, the Patriot Act authorized unprecedented levels of surveillance, and, last year, Congress reauthorized Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows for warrantless surveillance, including domestically.

Yes, DOGE’s actions are cartoonishly evil. But how can it be a surprise that someone would eventually blatantly ignore laws when legislators know about and have failed to prevent federal agencies from buying data from brokers to circumvent the Bill of Rights?

At some level, it is silly to expect the same government that tracks and watches you to protect you from its surveillance. However, the Trump administration shows the consequences of a federal government that has historically poured its energy into establishing and justifying its mass surveillance.