The Feds Get Greedy for State Data

The federal government is moving quickly to operationalize its plan to build a massive central storehouse containing extensive data on every American citizen. As we reported previously, it’s part of an executive order issued in March, “Stopping Waste, Fraud and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos.”

Now, as NPR reports, part of that executive order includes requiring states to allow “unfettered access” to data from state programs that receive federal funds.

This unprecedented surveillance expansion is flimsily premised on notions of “efficiency” (who’s not for that?), of eliminating “bureaucratic duplication” (overlooking that information silos exist between, say, the databases of the IRS and the FBI precisely to keep government from abusing our personal information), and of vague accusations of “fraud” proffered without evidence (which does nothing to address actual fraud such as the Russian-backed $10 billion Medicare scheme U.S. prosecutors announced last week).

And so now the federal government wants to harvest the private data of Americans held in the trust of the 50 states. This is a power grab designed to facilitate the careful, silent, and utterly unconstitutional surveillance of every American, and especially those who don’t play by whatever rules the future database’s administrators arbitrarily write.

Yet the data grab has already begun. According to NPR:

• “The Department of Agriculture told states last month they will need to turn over the names, Social Security numbers, addresses and dates of birth of the tens of millions of people who applied for federal food aid.”

• “Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued subpoenas to states and localities for records that include the personal information of noncitizens.”

• “Federal health officials shared data about millions of Medicaid recipients from a handful of states with the Department of Homeland Security.”

• The IRS “has reached an agreement to share highly regulated taxpayer information.”

• “Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ordered staff at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to share with DHS sensitive data from a handful of states about millions of their Medicaid enrollees.”

These requests are likely in direct violation of at least one federal law, the Privacy Act of 1974 (which is why many of these moves are on pause while being challenged in the courts). The Privacy Act requires government to let the public know how they intend to use and safeguard personal data before any of it is even collected, and, once collected, to use it for nothing other than the stated purposes.

Besides tossing out memes like efficiency, the central excuse the government makes for the expansion of surveillance is “national security.”

Nicole Schneidman of Protect Democracy put it bluntly: “It is critical for every American to understand there is no 'undo' button here.”
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Whether you are MAGA, traditional conservative, liberal, progressive, or libertarian, you have skin in this game. As Geena Davis said in the horror-classic The Fly, “Be afraid, be very afraid …”

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