{"id":43994,"date":"2025-06-25T06:10:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T11:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=43994"},"modified":"2025-06-26T03:11:24","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T08:11:24","slug":"trump-knocks-down-barriers-around-personal-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=43994","title":{"rendered":"Trump knocks down barriers around personal data"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The Trump administration is shattering norms around the handling of Americans\u2019 personal \u2014 and sometimes private \u2014 information, dismantling barriers concerning data in the name of government efficiency and rooting out fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Privacy experts say the moves bring the country closer to a<strong>&nbsp;surveillance state<\/strong>, increases the government\u2019s vulnerability to cyberattacks and risk pushing people away from public services.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The Department of Government Efficiency (<strong>DOGE)<\/strong>&nbsp;has sought, and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/administration\/5154329-elond-musk-department-government-efficiency\/?email=467cb6399cb7df64551775e431052b43a775c749&amp;emaila=12a6d4d069cd56cfddaa391c24eb7042&amp;emailb=054528e7403871c79f668e49dd3c44b1ec00c7f611bf9388f76bb2324d6ca5f3&amp;utm_source=Sailthru&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=06.25.25 Tech SL\"><u>nearly always received<\/u><\/a>, access to Social Security numbers, addresses, medical histories, tax histories, welfare benefits, bank accounts, immigration statuses and federal employee databases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">These moves have shattered walls that have long kept data within the agencies that collect it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>John Ackerly<\/strong>, a former technology policy adviser under former President&nbsp;George W. Bush&nbsp;and founder of data security firm Virtru, said government agencies need to strike a balance in handling data.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cFoundationally, more information being shared more widely can provide greater insight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBureaucracy&nbsp;<strong>shuts down access<\/strong>&nbsp;to information,\u201d he added. \u201cBut that does not mean that there should be unfettered access.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Groups such as the&nbsp;<strong>American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)<\/strong>&nbsp;see the risk of abuse as outweighing any potential gains.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe should be limiting federal agencies to access data about us only to the extent they need to perform their duties for the American people,\u201d said Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel on surveillance, privacy and technology at the ACLU<strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere\u2019s no reason why these data silos need to be broken down,\u201d he added.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Despite outrage from Democrats and some pushback from the courts, the Trump administration has charged ahead.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c<strong>President Trump<\/strong>&nbsp;signed an executive order keeping his promise to eliminate information silos and streamline data collection across all agencies to increase government efficiency and save hard-earned taxpayer dollars,\u201d Taylor Rogers, a White House assistant press secretary, said in a statement.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/newsletters\/technology\/5369972-trump-shatters-data-privacy-norms\/\">thehill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trump administration is shattering norms around the handling of Americans\u2019 personal \u2014 and sometimes private \u2014 information, dismantling barriers concerning data in the name of government efficiency and rooting out fraud. Privacy experts say the moves bring the country closer to a&nbsp;surveillance state, increases the government\u2019s vulnerability to cyberattacks and risk pushing people away [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":43995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5783],"tags":[1484,33744,1230],"class_list":["post-43994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-tech","tag-data","tag-privacy-norms","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43996,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43994\/revisions\/43996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}