Briefing: Data Security + more
As people across the country — including many of us at Unbreaking — come together this May Day to participate in an economic blackout and demand a better future, we offer another dispatch from our all-volunteer collective. Our Data Security team has an in-depth briefing, and we have quick updates from Infectious Disease Control, Archives & History, and Trans Healthcare.
Data Security
By the end of 2025, the Trump administration had made significant progress toward creating a universal database of Americans’ personal information, an outcome previously prevented by privacy laws and agency rules the federal government is now ignoring. Federal officials have merged protected data from the IRS, the Social Security Administration, Medicaid, and state SNAP recipients with a deeply flawed and untrustworthy Department of Homeland Security data-query program called SAVE, which was originally created to verify the immigration status of people applying for benefits. This consolidated pool of data forms the foundation of a surveillance state targeting immigrants, trans people, and critics of the administration.
The government’s greed for data has only intensified in 2026. We’ve learned that the FBI is buying location data so it can track people without warrants and that ICE is planning to develop smart glasses that can pair facial recognition with federal and commercial data lookups. DHS is trying to access a highly sensitive, comprehensive database of employment and salary information, and the Treasury Department is creating another consolidated database of everyone who has received aid through its programs. The panopticon is expanding to reach all of us.
Recently, the administration has shown an alarming focus on election data. Since fall 2025, it has requested and received unredacted voter rolls from at least 12 states and sued more than 30 states that refused its initial requests. Rights groups and election officials fear that such noncompliance will be used as an excuse to question the integrity of 2026 elections in Democratic-led states. The administration was forced to admit in court that it is combining and analyzing voter data from the states that complied, in apparent violation of the Privacy Act of 1974. Even though the Constitution puts states in charge of election administration, President Trump is attempting to restrict mail voting nationwide, purportedly to reduce ineligible voting (a vanishingly rare problem). Trump signed an executive order at the end of March directing the heads of the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to compile lists of eligible voters by state and requiring the Postal Service to refuse to deliver ballots for voters who are not on those lists. The DOJ has also requested voter data from individual counties (and in some cases ballots from the 2020 election), though the purpose of those requests isn’t clear.
We don’t yet know which executive actions will survive inevitable legal challenges. Congressional Democrats, multiple state governments, and civil society groups are suing to defend voter protections and privacy rights, and federal courts have so far declined to force states to turn over voter rolls.
In addition to actively undermining our privacy and attempting to use data aggregation to assert control over election processes, the Trump administration has decimated teams that keep our data safe from external threats. It has pushed out a third of the staff and demolished critical capabilities at the government’s main data security body, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Trump and his supporters have targeted CISA since the agency confirmed the integrity of the 2020 election results. Under the administration’s control, CISA has removed support for a key election security cooperative and reassigned cybersecurity staff to border security jobs. And the problems aren’t limited to CISA: In November 2025, the Federal Communications Commission voted to reduce cybersecurity oversight of telecommunications companies. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects banking and mortgage data, failed a cybersecurity audit in October. Congress is also investigating a whistleblower’s claims that a DOGE staffer shared two massive Social Security databases with his private-sector employer after leaving the government.
In the deluge of attacks, it can be hard to keep track of the administration’s actions, let alone all the efforts to stop them. But we are tracking more than 90 lawsuits in our timeline, and more than 60 of them are against the administration. We also follow community responses and are encouraged by the many efforts underway, such as a recent protest at the headquarters of Flock, the license plate tracking company whose commercial data is most exploited by ICE. Congress is also paying attention.
There’s no way to sugarcoat the fact that we are much less safe than we were a year and a half ago. The administration’s misuse of our data enables much of what Trump has been able to achieve in his second term. Our advice? Stay informed, encourage your representatives to act, and protect yourself and your neighbors as best you can. We’ll keep watching and documenting.
Infectious Disease Control & Prevention
The Infectious Disease Control team added 10 new entries to our timeline. President Trump nominated Dr. Erica Schwartz, a highly qualified and pro-vaccine public health leader, to the position of CDC Director. In a contentious series of congressional hearings, HHS Secretary Kennedy stated that he supported the nomination but did not rule out interfering with her vaccine policies. He’s certainly still engaged in the war on vaccines: After a federal judge blocked Secretary Kennedy’s changes to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), he issued a new charter for the committee, deemphasizing expertise. More than 130 medical and health-related organizations have publicly objected to the new charter. Elsewhere, Defense Secretary Hegseth canceled the longstanding requirement for annual seasonal flu vaccines in the military and NIH Director Bhattacharya blocked publication of a CDC study demonstrating the efficacy of the COVID vaccine. In the absence of funding from the US government, Moderna began clinical trials for an mRNA-based pandemic influenza (bird flu) vaccine with funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).
Archives & History
The Archives & History team added 5 new entries to our timeline, and most of them are about legal and legislative efforts to protect historical records. After the DOJ issued new guidance to disregard the Presidential Records Act, multiple watchdog groups are attempting to preserve and enforce it. American Oversight and the American Historical Association asked for an emergency injunction to prevent the administration from destroying records. The Freedom of the Press Foundation and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington are suing the administration to stop federal officials from deleting their text messages. Fifteen senators are trying to block the use of already allocated funds for efforts to censor and whitewash National Parks exhibit materials, warning that “If the Department of the Interior succeeds in altering or erasing these stories, the public’s ability to fully understand and learn from our complex history may be compromised.”
Transgender Healthcare
The Trans Healthcare team added 2 new entries to our timeline this week. A federal appeals court has reversed a 2025 ruling that housing trans women in men’s facilities constitutes cruel and unusual punishment by placing them at risk of physical and sexual violence. This follows the February announcement that the federal Bureau of Prisons will medically and socially detransition trans people incarcerated in federal prisons. Judge Kasubhai has released his final ruling vacating the “Kennedy Declaration” that restricted gender-affirming care for trans youth. The judge wrote that “[The Declaration] caused chaos and terror for all those people and institutions of our great nation. Secretary Kennedy’s unlawful declaration harmed children.” We expect the decision to be appealed and will continue to track this case, and many others.
Two other recent developments didn’t quite meet our criteria for inclusion on the timeline itself, but we think you should know about them. The FCC announced that it intends to implement new content rating requirements for television shows that depict or discuss transgender people — which would, among other things, chill speech related to gender-affirming care. Meanwhile, the America First Policy Institute, which was established by former Trump staffers after his 2020 election loss, has now stated that the administration is completely aligned with its long-term goal of unilaterally eliminating transgender care for both youth and adults. It’s nice to have that on the record.
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