DOGE's Plundering of Data Hastens Calls to Tighten Government Privacy Laws

For about a decade, lawmakers in Washington have sought to pass a comprehensive privacy law to prevent commercial platforms from misusing Americans’ data online. Now some in Congress and at the state level are increasingly raising alarm that the federal government is violating Americans’ privacy and calling for laws to prevent such abuse.

Fears about Americans’ data being mishandled have ballooned in the wake of the push by the Elon Musk-formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to force federal agencies to hand over sensitive data on United States citizens and residents, including social security numbers and the personal records of millions of federal employees and retirees.

The current law that governs the federal government’s collection and handling of personal data, The Privacy Act of 1974, was enacted in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal partly to address fears of mass government surveillance. But that law needs to be tightened to prevent the types of abuses currently being perpetrated by DOGE, said Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA), who earlier this year launched an effort to bring those protections into the modern day.

“One resounding theme from” the feedback she has received in her call for public comment “is the need for Congress to fundamentally redesign the Privacy Act, rather than simply performing a surgical, amendatory process,” Trahan said in an email.