A new opinion piece in the New York Times warns that the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, is amassing an unprecedented trove of personal data on American citizens. The system, critics say, resembles surveillance tools found in authoritarian regimes.
Investigative journalist Julia Angwin reports that the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is building what she calls a “database of ruin” — a centralized system pulling data from across federal agencies into a single master file. Citing whistleblower accounts, Angwin writes that DOGE has accessed sensitive personal data from the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration, and Department of Health and Human Services, among others.
“This is what we were always scared of,” said Kevin Bankston, a civil liberties lawyer and AI policy expert at the Center for Democracy & Technology. “The infrastructure for turnkey totalitarianism is there for an administration willing to break the law.”
DOGE workers have reportedly used artificial intelligence to analyze communications within federal agencies to identify individuals suspected of opposing Musk or Trump. In some cases, whistleblowers claim DOGE employees have physically transported laptops containing purloined data between agencies.
The Privacy Act of 1974 was designed to prevent cross-agency misuse of personal information, but Angwin argues it lacks enforcement power. Courts have so far ruled against DOGE in at least two lawsuits, temporarily blocking access to data from the Treasury and Social Security Administration. However, the fate of data already obtained remains unclear.
“In no other country could a person like Elon Musk rummage through government databases and gather up the personal data of government employees, taxpayers, and veterans,” said Marc Rotenberg, founder of the Center for AI and Digital Policy.
The revelations have sparked renewed calls for a dedicated U.S. data protection agency, a standard already adopted by all other OECD countries. Without one, Angwin argues, citizens are left to file Privacy Act requests or rely on a patchwork of court decisions.
Proposed reforms include legislation from Senators Ed Markey and Ron Wyden to strengthen privacy enforcement and defund or repeal DOGE’s mandate. As Angwin warns, “Once we create a database of ruin, none of us are safe from having our information — no matter how innocuous — used against us.”
