During a meeting held on December 14, 2016, in Trump Tower, New York City, the then vice president-elect Mike Pence witnessed Donald Trump, the president-elect at the time, extend a handshake to Peter Thiel in what would mark the first significant engagement with the leaders of the tech industry after his election. This milestone event was indicative of the forthcoming collaborations between the incoming administration and the technology sector.
Among these partnerships was the role where the Trump administration coordinated with a tech firm, Palantir, in an endeavor to compile all non-classified data pertaining to U.S. citizens. This data would then be deposited into a single, national database accessible to the chiefs of federal agencies and their appointed designees. This project aimed to unify disparate data sources, potentially offering a more streamlined approach to governance.
On March 20, an executive order named ‘Eliminating Information Silos’ was signed into effect. The idea behind this sweeping order was to dismantle the data-related barriers among various federal entities. The prime objective was enhancing government efficiency by identifying and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the system, thereby directly impacting the administrative priorities.
This move, however, wasn’t without controversy. The Trump administration faced questions from Democrats seeking detailed accounting for the agreements signed with Palantir. Of specific interest were the terms, cost, and potential implications of these contracts that now played a pivotal role in how the government gathered and accessed citizen data.
Integral to this order was the stipulation that heads of agencies would be accountable for ensuring that the U.S. government could access, unimpeded, information gathered by state programs funded by the federal government. This was a broad mandate that extended the reach of the federal government deep into data presumably safeguarded by the state.
Those granted access to this nationwide database could access a comprehensive set of data points pertaining to any U.S. citizen. Anything from tax returns and credit reports to personal health and education records would be readily available, alongside details of any affiliations citizen might have with groups deemed ‘extreme’ by the government.
As a direct outcome, any non-classified data generated by a federally funded organization that a U.S. citizen interacts with would nominally be open for inspection. This essentially would sidestep any minimum privacy assurance normally provided by the non-classified status of such data.
The ‘Eliminating Information Silos’ order was seen as a major expansion to the federal Privacy Act of 1974, a piece of legislation intended to regulate how personal information is handled within federal agencies. The apparent broadening of the Act via the executive order stirred up considerable debate.
The administration justified this paradigm shift arguing it would aid their efforts to identify and deport undocumented immigrants. The database was seen as a tool that would expedite the process by providing accessible, centralized citizen information.
Skeptics, including numerous civil libertarians and domain experts, expressed concerns that the executive order might serve to circumvent pre-existing disputes challenging the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In particular, it appeared to sidestep hurdles related to data sharing across various federal agencies.
Since its foundation in January of the same year, DOGE had been facing legal obstacles in their efforts to access multilateral data from different federal agencies. Courts frequently hindered these attempts, arguing that DOGE’s actions breached the data sharing policies enforced by the Privacy Act of 1974.
The inception of the ‘Eliminating Information Silos’ order was seen by many as a mechanism designed to bypass these legal battles, allowing unmitigated access to a pool of inter-agency data. The order essentially sought to revise the operational landscape by expanding the safety envelope around matters of privacy and data sharing within the federal machinery.
The new order signaled a shift in how the government collates and uses citizen information while evoking concerns regarding personal privacy. As with most complex issues at the intersection of governance, technology, and civil rights, the final outcome of these changes remains a topic of vigorous debate among scholars, legal experts, and policy makers.
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