Data Security
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What is data security?
Data security protects sensitive information held by the government — names, birthdates, Social Security numbers, financial data, tax history, immigration status, medical records, and more — from unauthorized access, theft, corruption, and abuse. This encompasses both physical security (of storage devices, hardware, and facilities) and access to databases, APIs, and other digital systems.
The federal government:
- Regulates the collection, maintenance, use, and distribution of personal information held by federal agencies, including restricting disclosure of that information without consent.
- Protects sensitive health information from being disclosed without a patient’s consent.
- Guarantees the confidentiality of all taxpayer information.
- Protects Americans from fraud, predatory data use, and other abuses of the financial system, through monitoring and enforcement of federal financial laws.
- Establishes the Chief Information Officers Council and special offices, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and former US Digital Service and 18F, to improve the government’s digital systems using, among other things, data security practices.
What is happening?
Since day one, the Trump administration has recklessly exploited Americans’ sensitive data in efforts to deport immigrants, restrict access to critical benefits and services, and gut the federal workforce. The administration is undermining data security by:
- Gathering and consolidating personal data, which breaks existing rules and norms by obtaining and combining sensitive data from multiple sources in ways that violate multiple laws — this includes feeding federal data into private databases and unvetted artificial intelligence systems.
- Expanding access to data from federal and local systems for unintended uses, including disclosing civilian data to law enforcement authorities and allowing unauthorized people access to highly sensitive systems.
- Weakening protections against misuse of data by removing or undermining existing data security systems, firing federal employees responsible for data protection, and ignoring official information requests about how sensitive data has been accessed or used.
Timeline of events
| Date | What happened? | CASE TAG | DATE ADDED TAG | CONTENT TAG |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 14, 2026 | The Supreme Court declines the government’s request to overturn a preliminary injunction that blocks the US Postal Service from sending ballots only to voters on lists submitted by states, as proposed in the agency’s final Ballot Mail rule (USPS v. California). | $cases: California v. USPS | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Sep 13, 2026 | A whistleblower says that, as part of an effort to validate President Trump’s bogus claims about noncitizen voting, federal agents are using information from error-riddled databases to unlawfully impersonate people checking their own voter history on state websites. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: whistleblowers and leaks;election data;improper access; | |
| Sep 13, 2026 | Judge Carl J. Nichols grants a preliminary injunction against the Ballot Mail rule, finding that USPS did not have authority from Congress to issue such a rule, and determining that political parties, voter groups, and others have standing to challenge it (DSCC v. Trump). | $cases: DSCC v. Trump | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Sep 10, 2026 | The Department of Homeland Security publishes procurement documents establishing a $440 million-plus budget for bulk-purchasing face-, iris-, fingerprint-, and palm-scanning devices. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: biometrics and identity data; | |
| Sep 8, 2026 | DHS asks the Supreme Court to pause Judge Sooknanan’s June 2026 order barring the agency from using its SAVE database to verify voter rolls while the case is under appeal. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals refused a similar request on September 4, 2026 (DHS v. League of Women Voters, League of Women Voters v. DHS). | $cases League of Women Voters v. DHS | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: lawsuits;data consolidation;election data; |
| Sep 8, 2026 | The DC Circuit Court of Appeals affirms a November 2025 district court decision, paused while it was being appealed, preventing the IRS from sharing taxpayers’ personal data with ICE, ruling that this agreement violates the US Tax Code (Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS). | $cases: Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: lawsuits;data consolidation; |
| Sep 8, 2026 | 404 Media reports that Customs and Border Patrol has established countrywide “Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams” that flag people for spurious searches and traffic stops by local law enforcement, based on data about their movements and finances rather than probable cause. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: local law enforcement collusion; | |
| Sep 8, 2026 | The American Postal Workers Union, representing more than 200,000 postal workers, files an amicus brief (PDF) with the US Supreme Court opposing the US Postal Service’s new Ballot Mail rule, arguing that it would “cause catastrophic wholesale non-delivery of mail to hundreds of thousands of voters.” | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: election data; | |
| Sep 8, 2026 | Prompted by a whistleblower’s disclosures, the Office of Inspector General for the US Postal Service will perform an “independent review” of the agency’s inadequate attempt to build a system for restricting mail ballot delivery. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: whistleblowers and leaks;election data; | |
| Sep 7, 2026 | Reports surface that the military is searching the protected health records of service members in order to identify and discharge transgender troops who have not outed themselves. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: private medical data; | |
| Sep 4, 2026 | Judge Indira Talwani issues a preliminary injunction blocking the USPS Ballot Mail rule for the 2026 election, finding that the rule was issued without Congressional authority and is likely unconstitutional. Both Judge Talwani and the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals decline to pause the injunction while DOJ appeals (League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump, California v. USPS). | $cases: League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump; California v. USPS | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Sep 4, 2026 | One day before the required record retention period for the 2024 election expires, the DOJ tells election officials in at least 30 of the states it is suing for unredacted voter rolls to preserve related records, citing unspecified investigations of those officials. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: election data;targeting political opponents; | |
| Sep 3, 2026 | Federal judge Eric R. Komitee allows the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to share Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) recipients’ data with immigration enforcement and other federal agencies while a lawsuit over the practice goes forward (Make the Road States v. HHS). | $cases: Make the Road States v. HHS | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: lawsuits;data consolidation; |
| Sep 3, 2026 | The Nevada Secretary of State’s Office confirms that the FBI sent it seven subpoenas in three months, pursuing Nevada voter information. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: election data;state and local government opposition; | |
| Sep 3, 2026 | Twelve Congressional Democrats write the Acting Chairman (PDF) of the Consumer Product Safety Commission demanding an immediate halt to the commission’s plan to consolidate private health data collected by a private contractor from US emergency rooms. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: corporate collusion;congressional opposition;private medical data; | |
| Sep 3, 2026 | Court filings reveal that the Trump Administration will miss its own pre-election deadline for USCIS and the Social Security Administration to develop “state citizenship lists” following President Trump’s March 2026 executive order on mail voting. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: election data; | |
| Sep 3, 2026 | Federal judge Vince G. Chhabria rules that Medicaid patients’ biographical data may not be shared with ICE if they are in the country lawfully (California v. HHS). | $cases: California v. HHS | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: lawsuits;private medical data; |
| Sep 2, 2026 | The Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights sues the US Department of Homeland Security, claiming that the agency is attempting to exploit incorrect, outdated information in federal databases to prevent naturalized citizens from voting (Trujillo v. DHS). | $cases: Trujillo v. DHS | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: lawsuits; |
| Aug 31, 2026 | Local media reports that Namibia has joined several other African countries refusing proposed bilateral agreements with the US that demand broad US government access to private medical data in exchange for health aid. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: data consolidation;private medical data; | |
| Aug 31, 2026 | A court filing (PDF) divulges that DHS Investigations agents used a loophole in customs law to serve a summons to REI for information about customers who purchased a specific beanie, as part of DHS’s effort to identify anti-ICE activists in Minnesota. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: exploiting commercial data;targeting protesters and observers; | |
| Aug 31, 2026 | In a letter (PDF) demanding answers from Postmaster General David Steiner, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) reveals a whistleblower report alleging that the USPS has already built a shoddy, untested system for comparing mail ballots against state-submitted voter lists, in violation of multiple court orders. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags:whistleblowers and leaks;defying court orders;election data; | |
| Aug 31, 2026 | The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) sues the US Customs and Immigration Service, the Social Security Administration, DHS, and the State Department over the agencies’ plan to combine private information in a State Citizenship List Portal under Trump’s mail voting executive order. The complaint (PDF) asks a judge to force the departments to unlink and delete sensitive data already compiled (EPIC v. USCIS). | $cases: EPIC v. USCIS | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: lawsuits;data consolidation;election data; |
| Aug 31, 2026 | Judge Indira Talwani rejects defendants’ motion for a hold on her temporary restraining order in the Ballot Mail litigation, pointing out that the court will conduct a hearing on a more permanent block on September 3, 2026 (League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump, California v. USPS). | $cases: League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump; California v. USPS | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Aug 28, 2026 | Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro joins bipartisan calls to ban Flock cameras across the state. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: state and local government opposition; | |
| Aug 27, 2026 | Nurses across the US stage a day of walkouts and civil disobedience to protest ICE’s sharing of Medicaid data with surveillance company Palantir. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: private medical data; | |
| Aug 27, 2026 | North Carolina election officials send a list of the state’s mail voters to the USPS to comply with the agency’s Ballot Mail rule, even though the state is challenging the rule in federal court. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: election data; | |
| Aug 27, 2026 | Judge Indira Talwani issues a 14-day temporary restraining order blocking the USPS’s final Ballot Mail rule (League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump, California v. USPS). | $cases: League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump; California v. USPS | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Aug 27, 2026 | Federal judge Rita F. Lin overturns the Pentagon’s ban (PDF) on Anthropic’s Claude AI tools, ruling that the government violated Anthropic’s first amendment rights when it declared the company a supply chain risk over terms and conditions that forbid Claude’s use in autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance (Anthropic v. Department of War II). | $cases: Anthropic v. Department of War II, Claude Product Ban | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: lawsuits; |
| Aug 27, 2026 | The Department of Homeland Security appoints Kyle Schutt, a former DOGE staffer who helped shut down DHS’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, as its next CIO. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: DOGE;staffing sabotage; | |
| Aug 27, 2026 | Texas Governor Greg Abbott blocks funding for Flock cameras across state agencies amid backlash against the technology and its abuse by law enforcement. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags:state and local government opposition; | |
| Aug 26, 2026 | The National Housing Law Project files a complaint (PDF) in the Northern District of California against the Department of Housing and Urban Development, DHS, and USCIS regarding the agencies’ rejections of FOIA requests for details about how they share data to target people receiving rental assistance and living in public housing for immigration enforcement (NHLP v. HUD). | $cases: National Housing Law Project v. HUD | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: lawsuits;data consolidation; |
| Aug 26, 2026 | Twenty-five states sue the USPS in Massachusetts federal court, saying the agency’s final Ballot Mail rule is unconstitutional and seeking emergency relief, including a temporary restraining order (California v. USPS). | $cases: California v. USPS | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Aug 26, 2026 | Judge Indira Talwani cancels the remaining nationwide injunction against the USPS Ballot Mail rule, finding that it would likely fail the Supreme Court “ripeness” standard. The plaintiffs immediately file a supplemental complaint and motion for a temporary restraining order (League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump). | $cases: League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Aug 26, 2026 | Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Representative Shontel Brown (D-OH) send a letter (PDF) to acting Comptroller General Orice Brown, requesting a GAO investigation of the Department of Transportation’s privacy practices after multiple incidents in which airline passengers’ private data was exposed or sold. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags:congressional opposition;data consolidation; | |
| Aug 25, 2026 | The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) tells field staff to stop performing six essential cybersecurity assessments that it had previously offered for free to utilities and state and local governments. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: destroying data regulators and protections; | |
| Aug 25, 2026 | Judge Indira Talwani rules that USPS violated her nationwide injunction by publishing its final Ballot Mail rule, but imposes no remedies for the violation (League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump). | $cases: League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Aug 25, 2026 | The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP) and LatinoJustice PRLDEF (LJP) report that New York police have used Flock’s license plate database to support immigration enforcement, often using vague rationale to justify queries. The report asserts that the searches violate New York’s new Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, which prohibits cooperation between ICE and local law enforcement. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: local law enforcement collusion; | |
| Aug 25, 2026 | Injustice Watch reports that prosecutors in more than 15% of Illinois counties have shared information with DHS and ICE since Trump’s second inauguration, possibly in violation of Illinois’ 2017 TRUST Act. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: improper access;local law enforcement collusion; | |
| Aug 25, 2026 | US Immigration and Customs Enforcement issues a request for information seeking a contractor to provide consolidated access to public voter registration and voting history data in order to “support HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) ‘fraud detection and data segmentation.’” | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags:election data;data consolidation; | |
| Aug 24, 2026 | The Supreme Court lifts one of two injunctions blocking the USPS Ballot Mail rule in a case brought by 24 states, ruling 6-3 that since the rule had not yet been made effective, the issue was not “ripe” for review (California v. Trump). | $cases: California v. Trump | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Aug 24, 2026 | The National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, a union representing about 130,000 postal employees, issues a statement (PDF) strongly opposing the USPS final Ballot Mail rule and saying it will continue to “oppose efforts to turn [the Postal Service] into an election enforcement agency.” | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: election data; | |
| Aug 24, 2026 | The General Services Administration appoints former DOGE staffer and current Treasury CIO Sam Corcos to three additional “acting” positions overseeing the GSA’s procurement services, its Technology Transformation Services, and its single sign-on product for the public, Login.gov. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: DOGE;staffing sabotage; | |
| Aug 24, 2026 | Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), sends a letter (PDF) to Attorney General Todd Blanche demanding records of undercover DHS and DOJ agents surveilling protesters in Minneapolis during and after Operation Metro Surge. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags:congressional opposition;targeting protesters and observers; | |
| Aug 24, 2026 | Federal judge Indira Talwani orders the disclosure of records and correspondence regarding DOGE’s role in sharing noncitizen data with the US Department of Homeland Security (Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts v. Bessent). | $cases: Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts v. Bessent | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags:DOGE;improper access;lawsuits; |
| Aug 21, 2026 | The USPS announces the final “Ballot Mail for Federal Elections” rule, requiring state election administrators to provide lists of voters who will receive mail ballots. The rule acknowledges that the federal court injunctions blocking it will govern whether it takes effect. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: election data; | |
| Aug 20, 2026 | The New York Times reports that, less than a month after claiming that it found nearly 16,000 noncitizens (PDF) registered to vote in Nevada, DHS provided state officials with a list of only 185 possibly illegitimate voters. | $date: 2026-09-17 | $tags: election data; | |
| Aug 20, 2026 | Federal judge Anthony J. Trenga issues a temporary restraining order preventing the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators from providing 17 million commercial driver’s license-holders’ private information to the US Department of Transportation and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (Illinois v. DOT). | $cases: Illinois v. DOT | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: lawsuits; |
| Aug 18, 2026 | Reports surface that Flock cameras have been installed in Yosemite National Park and en route to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: | |
| Aug 18, 2026 | Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee encourages local governments to stop installing and activating Flock cameras while State Police and the Department of Public Safety review automatic license plate reading technology. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: state and local government opposition; | |
| Aug 18, 2026 | In a memo, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement bars all employees from using “Meta Glasses or similar devices,” citing privacy and legal concerns as well as existing prohibitions on personal recording devices. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: biometrics and identity data;exploiting AI; | |
| Aug 17, 2026 | Acting independently within Republican-controlled states, Nashville and three other jurisdictions sue the US Department of Homeland Security for conditioning disaster relief funding on adoption of a dubious set of rules giving the federal government control over state elections (Metropolitan Government Of Nashville And Davidson County Tennessee v. DHS). | $cases: Metropolitan Government Of Nashville And Davidson County Tennessee v. DHS | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Aug 17, 2026 | Federal judge Katherine M. Menendez dismisses the DOJ’s lawsuit for Minnesota’s unredacted voter roll, finding that neither the Civil Rights Act nor the Help America Vote Act requires the state to turn over those records (US v. Simon). | $cases: US v. Simon | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: lawsuits; election data; |
| Aug 16, 2026 | WGCU Public Media reveals that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has built an immigration enforcement database containing the personal data of more than 30,000 people — mostly Latino men without criminal records — who officers suspect are undocumented. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: local law enforcement collusion; | |
| Aug 14, 2026 | The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that telehealth provider QueerDoc must give data on employees and gender-affirming care patients to the DOJ in response to an administrative subpoena, reversing an October 2025 district court decision (QueerDoc v. DOJ). | $cases: QueerDoc v. DOJ | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: lawsuits;private medical data; |
| Aug 14, 2026 | Federal judge Anne R. Traum dismisses the government’s suit to obtain voter rolls from Nevada, agreeing with 21 other district courts that have dismissed similar suits (US v Aguilar). | $cases: US v. Aguilar | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Aug 13, 2026 | Twenty-two states sue the US Department of Transportation to block a subpoena seeking extensive private data on 17 million holders of commercial driver’s licenses (Illinois v. DOT). | $cases: Illinois v. DOT | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: lawsuits;biometrics and identity data; |
| Aug 13, 2026 | A court filing (PDF) reveals that four days after ICE killed Alex Pretti, DHS started surveilling progressive groups in Minnesota who challenged immigration raids. | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; | |
| Aug 13, 2026 | Wired obtains 13 years of records alleging that immigration officers and contractors misused and abused their access to government databases to monitor, harass, and share sensitive information about individuals unrelated to any investigation. | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: improper access; | |
| Aug 12, 2026 | Reports surface that federal and state law enforcement agencies are tracking social media posts and accounts that oppose Flock and other mass surveillance tools. | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; | |
| Aug 11, 2026 | Eight Senate Democrats send a letter (PDF) to Secretary of State Marco Rubio questioning the State Department’s demand that African countries hand over their citizens’ health data as a condition of receiving aid. | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: congressional opposition;private medical data; | |
| Aug 11, 2026 | Federal judge Indira Talwani, in a second ruling against the president’s executive order on mail balloting, issues a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking USPS and its officials from implementing the proposed rule in the November 2026 election (League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump). | $cases: League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Aug 10, 2026 | The DOJ ends its attempt to obtain the private gender care records of minor patients at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, filing a motion to drop its appeal (PDF) of Judge Cathy Bissoon’s rejection of the agency’s initial subpoena (In re: 2025 UPMC Subpoena). | $cases: Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: lawsuits;private medical data; |
| Aug 6, 2026 | DHS delays its plan to capture the personal data of millions of cash assistance participants from state databases until September 1, 2026. | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: data consolidation; | |
| Aug 6, 2026 | Federal judge Randolph D. Moss dismisses the government’s suit demanding DC voter rolls, citing rulings by other federal courts in similar cases. He finds that the government failed to provide the basis for its demand, and that its request violates federal and District privacy laws (US v. Evans). | $cases: US v. Evans | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Aug 5, 2026 | A group representing about 200 employees of Canadian data broker Thomson Reuters calls on company leadership to cancel contracts with DHS and ICE. | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: exploiting commercial data; | |
| Aug 4, 2026 | As part of a class-action lawsuit against DHS’s use of data collection to intimidate Maine ICE observers, attorneys push back against DHS requests for expanded access to community Signal chats. They provide partial access, redact names of non-defendants, and cite First Amendment concerns regarding requests for information about the number of chat participants, inclusion of any public officials, and “rapid response” communication tactics (Hilton v. Noem). | $cases: Hilton v. Noem | $date:2026-09-03 | $tags: lawsuits;targeting protesters and observers; |
| Aug 4, 2026 | Federal judge Philip A. Brimmer dismisses the government’s action seeking sensitive Colorado voter information, agreeing with 19 other district courts. He finds that the voter rolls do not constitute a record under Title III of the Civil Rights Act (US v. Griswold). | $cases: US v. Griswold | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Aug 3, 2026 | Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) introduces a bill to prohibit the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from accessing or sharing private traveler information from the TSA with ICE or Customs and Border Protection. The bill would also prohibit DHS from purchasing that information from data brokers or other private entities. | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: congressional opposition;biometrics and identity data;exploiting commercial data; | |
| Aug 3, 2026 | New reporting reveals that ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility, in charge of investigating misconduct by its agents, is now awarding millions of dollars in contracts to monitor social media for speech disparaging the agency and collect material for subpoenas to unmask and intimidate critics. | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; | |
| Aug 3, 2026 | Twenty-five states and a coalition of rights groups separately sue the Trump administration to block a new policy that lets the Administration for Children and Families requisition personal data on states’ recipients of cash assistance and share that data with other agencies (New York v. ACF, Make the Road States v. HHS). | $cases: New York v. ACF; Make the Road States v. HHS | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: lawsuits;state and local government opposition; |
| Aug 3, 2026 | An analysis by the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law finds that ICE added about 920,000 detainees’ DNA to its CODIS criminal DNA data warehouse in 2025; almost none of the detainees have been charged with a crime. | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: biometrics and identity data; | |
| Jul 31, 2026 | Federal judge Colleen Lawless dismisses the government’s suit demanding voter rolls from Illinois, agreeing with the 18 other district courts that have dismissed such suits (US v. Matthews). | $cases: US v. Matthews | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jul 31, 2026 | The DOJ announces a new data-sharing agreement with Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina, allowing the federal government to routinely access data from those states’ SNAP, Medicaid, and Small Business Association loan recipients. | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: data consolidation; | |
| Jul 29, 2026 | Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt sends a letter (PDF) to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding to know what data sources and methods DHS used to purportedly identify over 14,000 non-citizen voters on Pennsylvania’s rolls, without the state’s cooperation. | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: state and local government opposition;election data; | |
| Jul 29, 2026 | Federal Judge Zahid N. Quraishi dismisses the government’s efforts to obtain New Jersey’s voter rolls, agreeing with other federal courts that have considered related cases (US v. Caldwell). | $cases: US v. Caldwell | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jul 29, 2026 | A federal judge turns down the government’s motion to dismiss a suit over DOGE’s access to payment systems and millions of employee records at the Treasury Department and the Office of Personnel Management (EPIC v. OPM). | $cases: Electronic Privacy Information Center v. OPM | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: DOGE;lawsuits;improper access; |
| Jul 28, 2026 | A court filing (PDF) reveals that the Secret Service, over internal objections, worked with Verizon to track James Comey’s cell phone location as part of its criminal investigation into his Instagram post showing shells on a beach that spelled “86 47.” | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: targeting political opponents; | |
| Jul 28, 2026 | American Oversight obtains and releases a memorandum of agreement between the TSA and ICE after suing to enforce a FOIA request. The memorandum details the agencies’ data-sharing partnership, including ICE’s intent to retain TSA data, contradicting Congressional testimony by acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill (American Oversight v. TSA and ICE). | $cases: American Oversight v. TSA and ICE | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: data consolidation;biometrics and identity data; |
| Jul 24, 2026 | The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and three observers file a lawsuit alleging that DHS illegally used a comprehensive surveillance system to retaliate against ICE protestors. (EPIC v. Mullin). | $cases: EPIC v. Mullin | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: lawsuits;targeting protesters and observers; |
| Jul 24, 2026 | The leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party asks the Canadian government to block a $125 million contract between ICE and Canadian-owned data broker Thomson Reuters. | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: exploiting commercial data; | |
| Jul 23, 2026 | Led by Illinois, 26 states sue to stop the Department of Homeland Security from withholding disaster relief funds from states that reject dubious rules giving the federal government unprecedented control over states’ elections (Illinois v. FEMA). | $cases: Illinois v. FEMA | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jul 23, 2026 | New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill refuses a new DOJ request to turn over the state’s voter data after acknowledging that a software error registered 6,600 noncitizens to vote. | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: election data; | |
| Jul 23, 2026 | Citing the recent ruling of the Sixth Circuit in the suit over Michigan’s voter rolls, Judge Claria Horn Boom dismisses the government’s action seeking voter information from Kentucky (US v. Adams). | $cases: US v. Adams | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jul 23, 2026 | The Department of Justice withdraws subpoenas for the testimony and phone records of New York Times journalists who reported concerns about the safety of Trump’s new Air Force One plane, after federal judge Arun Subramanian questions whether the DOJ followed the law and its own procedures. (Challenge to DOJ Subpoenas of New York Times reporters) | $cases: Challenge to DOJ Subpoenas of New York Times reporters | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: lawsuits;targeting protesters and observers; |
| Jul 23, 2026 | California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber sends a letter (PDF) to Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, demanding to know how the administration developed its claim that California has thousands of non-citizens on its voter rolls, since California has never shared private voter data with the federal government. | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: election data;state and local government opposition; | |
| Jul 23, 2026 | The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission rescinds its January 2026 subpoena requiring that the university provide names of Jewish people affiliated with the campus in relation to a 2023 civil rights claim (EEOC v. University of Pennsylvania). | $cases: EEOC v. University of Pennsylvania | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: lawsuits; |
| Jul 22, 2026 | ICE issues a $6.7 million contract to data broker LexisNexis, accessing 82 billion records that the agency claims will help them identify “potentially criminal and fraudulent behavior before crime and fraud can materialize.” | $date:2026-08-20 | $tags: exploiting commercial data; | |
| Jul 22, 2026 | Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) send a letter (PDF) to Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank Bisignano demanding answers about DOGE’s handling of sensitive data at the agency, and calling Bisignano’s answers to earlier inquiries “inadequate,” “unresponsive,” and “disproved.” | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: DOGE;congressional opposition; | |
| Jul 21, 2026 | Following official determinations of impropriety by both the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) send a letter (PDF) to Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent demanding answers about DOGE’s access to key federal payment systems by August 4. | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: DOGE;congressional opposition;improper access; | |
| Jul 21, 2026 | Reports emerge that ICE is using information from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), created to support asylum seekers, to arrest undocumented people who attempt to sponsor unaccompanied minors held in immigration custody. Since January 2025, ORR has shared more than 460,000 pieces of data about children, their sponsors (usually relatives), and other household members. | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: biometrics and identity data;destroying data regulators and protections; | |
| Jul 21, 2026 | The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announces a plan to require thousands of hospitals to share unredacted records of emergency room visits with a private contractor. Hospital lawyers and former agency staff say the move appears to exceed the CPSC’s authority and mission. | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: corporate collusion;private medical data; | |
| Jul 20, 2026 | Federal judge Georgette Castner dismisses a lawsuit by the Republican National Committee seeking access to New Jersey’s confidential voter roll records, ruling that the RNC does not have standing to obtain them (RNC v. Way). | $cases: RNC v. Way | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags:lawsuits;election data; |
| Jul 18, 2026 | The New York Times asks a court to quash newly issued DOJ subpoenas for several of its reporters’ personal phone records. The DOJ seeks that data to investigate Times reporting and sources regarding President Trump’s new Air Force One jet (Challenge to DOJ Subpoenas of New York Times reporters). | $cases: Challenge to DOJ Subpoenas of New York Times reporters | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags: lawsuits;targeting protesters and observers; |
| Jul 17, 2026 | The DC Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocks Judge Sullivan’s July 1 order blocking the US Postal Service’s proposed mail voting rule, saying the government is likely to succeed in its appeal of the ruling (NAACP v. USPS). | $cases: NAACP v. USPS | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jul 17, 2026 | 404 Media reports that ICE is offering a $125 million, no-bid contract to data broker Thomson Reuters for always-on access to its extensive data on individuals, to hunt for “voter fraud” and “immigration fraud.” | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags: exploiting commercial data; | |
| Jul 17, 2026 | Federal judge Kari A. Dooley dismisses the DOJ’s lawsuit for Connecticut’s complete voter roll, ruling that the government does not have the authority to commandeer the data (US v. Thomas). | $cases: US v. Thomas | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jul 16, 2026 | In a primetime address to the nation, President Trump issues false claims, immediately debunked by state officials and election experts, that his administration has identified more than 250,000 non-citizen voters in 4 states using the SAVE database and commercial data. | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags: election data;exploiting commercial data; | |
| Jul 16, 2026 | A court filing reveals that ICE shared millions of Medicaid records in Microsoft Teams chat messages with government software contractor Palantir — data that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had unlawfully shared with ICE in January (California v. HHS). | $cases: California v. HHS | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags: corporate collusion;lawsuits;private medical data;improper access; |
| Jul 14, 2026 | Federal judge Roderick C. Young dismisses the DOJ’s lawsuit seeking Virginia’s unredacted voter roll, ruling that the state is not required to provide the data under the Civil Rights Act (US v. Beals). | $cases: US v. Beals | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jul 14, 2026 | Federal judge Judith C. Herrera dismisses the DOJ’s lawsuit for New Mexico’s sensitive voter data, ruling that the suit lacked a sufficient legal basis (US v. Oliver). | $cases: US v. Oliver | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jul 13, 2026 | Federal judge Thomas E. Johnston dismisses the DOJ’s lawsuit demanding West Virginia’s complete voter rolls, ruling that the demand has no factual basis and pretextually attempts to use voter rolls for immigration enforcement (US v. Warner). | $cases: US v. Warner | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jul 10, 2026 | Federal judge Mae A. D’Agostino dismisses the DOJ’s lawsuit seeking New York’s unredacted voter rolls, ruling that none of the laws the government cited allow it to requisition the data (US v. New York). | $cases: US v. New York | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jul 7, 2026 | Federal judge T. Kent Wetherall II enforces a 2025 settlement between four red states and DHS that requires the department to enrich the SAVE database with data from other agencies, contradicting a different court’s June 22 ruling blocking DHS from doing so. Judge Wetherall later allows the League of Women Voters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center to file an appeal (Florida v. DHS). | $cases: Florida v. DHS | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags: lawsuits;data consolidation;election data; |
| Jul 7, 2026 | Federal judge William Ray quashes a DOJ subpoena that sought the identifying information of Georgia poll workers and employees from the 2020 presidential election, which Trump continues to falsely claim was “rigged” (Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of Fulton County). | $cases: Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of Fulton County | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags:lawsuits;election data; |
| Jul 6, 2026 | The Department of Justice (DOJ) appeals its rejected attempts to access complete voter rolls in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals refuses to set an accelerated schedule for the Massachusetts, Maine, and Rhode Island appeals, so those decisions will likely come after the start of the Voting Rights Act’s 90-day pre-election “quiet period” when voter rolls may not be purged (US v. Amore, US v. DeMarinis, US v. Pennsylvania, US v. New Hampshire, US v. Galvin, US v. Bellows). | $cases: US v. Amore; US v. DeMarinis; US v. Pennsylvania; US v. New Hampshire; US v. Galvin; US v. Bellows | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jul 4, 2026 | The temporary authority establishing DOGE expires, soon after Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Russell Vought testifies to Congress that the administration will not conduct any assessment of DOGE’s impact. | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: DOGE; | |
| Jul 2, 2026 | Federal judge P. Casey Pitts issues a temporary restraining order blocking the DOJ from obtaining any data related to gender-affirming care for a provisional class of patients at a Stanford hospital in California (ZA v. Stanford Children’s Hospital). | $cases: ZA v. Stanford Children’s Hospital | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: lawsuits;private medical data; |
| Jul 1, 2026 | Judge Emmet G. Sullivan rules that the Postal Service’s proposed rule implementing President Trump’s mail voting executive order violates its 2021 settlement with the NAACP and orders the Postal Service to refrain from putting the rule into effect (NAACP v. USPS). | $cases: NAACP v. USPS | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jun 30, 2026 | Reports surface that hackers were twice detected breaching the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) in May and June 2026. Although the activity was initially considered “benign,” intruders altered files and stole account data. | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags: security failures; | |
| Jun 29, 2026 | The Supreme Court rules that individuals have legitimate expectations of privacy in their cell phone location data. The ruling says that the Fourth Amendment requires warrants based on probable cause for geofence searches, which track all mobile devices in a given area. (Chatrie v. US). | $cases: Chatrie v. US | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: lawsuits;exploiting commercial data; |
| Jun 29, 2026 | Judge Joseph N. LaPlante dismisses the DOJ’s lawsuit seeking New Hampshire’s complete voter roll, ruling that the demand is illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (US v. New Hampshire). | $cases: US v. New Hampshire | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jun 27, 2026 | Federal judge Cathy Bissoon dismisses the DOJ’s lawsuit demanding Pennsylvania’s unredacted voter roll, ruling that the administration has not shown it is entitled to the records (US v. Pennsylvania). | $cases: US v. Pennsylvania | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jun 26, 2026 | The federal government sues Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania to obtain their data on SNAP participants, which the USDA requested in May. (US v. Kentucky CHHS, US v. Michigan DHHS, US v. Minnesota DCYF, US v. Pennsylvania DHS). | $cases: US v. Kentucky CHHS; US v. Michigan DHHS; US v. Minnesota DCYF; US v. Pennsylvania DHS | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: lawsuits;biometrics and identity data; |
| Jun 25, 2026 | Judge Indira Talwani declares major sections of President Trump’s mail voting executive order unconstitutional and issues an injunction forbidding DOJ, Commerce, USPS, DHS, and the President from taking any action to implement those sections, at least for the November 2026 elections (California v. Trump). | $cases: California v. Trump | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: lawsuits;election data;data consolidation; |
| Jun 25, 2026 | The Brennan Center for Justice sues the DOJ to enforce its urgent FOIA requests seeking details about the department’s compilation of states’ voter data in the lead-up to the midterm elections (Brennan Center v. DOJ). | $cases: Brennan Center v. DOJ | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: lawsuits;election data;defying court orders; |
| Jun 24, 2026 | The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirms the district court’s decision denying the DOJ access to Michigan’s complete voter roll (US v. Benson). | $cases: US v. Benson | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jun 24, 2026 | Federal judge Katherine Polk Failla issues a temporary restraining order blocking DOJ from obtaining gender-affirming care data from New York City hospitals, and further blocking New York University hospitals from providing such data to DOJ (Coe v. Blanche). | $cases: Coe v. Blanche | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: lawsuits;private medical data; |
| Jun 24, 2026 | In testimony before the Senate, Postmaster General David Steiner says that the USPS’s proposed rule implementing President Trump’s mail voting executive order would require the Post Office to refuse to deliver mail-in ballots in some states. | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags:election data; | |
| Jun 24, 2026 | Mother Jones reports that the FBI extracted data from phones confiscated by local police from at least 13 people arrested at a June 2025 ICE protest in Spokane, Washington. | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: targeting protesters and observers;local law enforcement collusion; | |
| Jun 22, 2026 | Judge Sooknanan bars DHS from using its expanded SAVE database to verify voters’ citizenship, ruling (PDF) that the huge system combining personal data from multiple agencies violates the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act of 1974, and the Administrative Procedure Act (League of Women Voters v. DHS). | $cases: League of Women Voters v. DHS | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: lawsuits;election data;data consolidation; |
| Jun 19, 2026 | The federal court of appeals for DC extends a district court injunction against mass-firing Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) employees, but sends the agency’s new staff cuts plan back to the judge who issued the injunction for reconsideration (NTEU v. Vought). | $cases: National Treasury Employees Union v. Vought | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: destroying data regulators and protections;lawsuits;staffing sabotage; |
| Jun 18, 2026 | Judge Stephanie A. Gallegher dismisses the DOJ’s lawsuit seeking Maryland’s unredacted voter roll, on the grounds that the suit did not present a valid legal claim (US v. DeMarinis). | $cases: US v. DeMarinis | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jun 17, 2026 | 404 Media reveals that ICE may be sidestepping court-imposed prohibitions on receiving data from the IRS by buying immigrants’ personal tax information from data brokers. | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags:exploiting commercial data;defying court orders; | |
| Jun 17, 2026 | ProPublica reports that the State Department is conditioning billions of dollars of health aid to African nations on agreements that would give the US effectively unregulated access to the private health data of millions of people. | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: data consolidation;private medical data; | |
| Jun 15, 2026 | The state of Delaware and the Republican National Committee agree to dismiss the RNC’s lawsuit attempting to access Delaware’s confidential voter roll records (RNC v. Albence). | $cases: RNC v. Albence | $date:2026-08-06 | $tags: election data;lawsuits; |
| Jun 13, 2026 | Records obtained by Democracy Forward reveal that ICE and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) continue to request individual voter files from US counties, and obtained them from Forsyth County, NC in November and Webb County, TX in May. | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: election data; | |
| Jun 12, 2026 | New Treasury guidelines let banks more readily share customer information, including data that may relate to immigration status. | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags:destroying data regulators and protections; | |
| Jun 10, 2026 | President Trump appoints Brian Johnson, a longtime critic of the CFPB mission and status as an independent agency, to lead the bureau as the administration continues efforts to shut it down. | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: staffing sabotage;destroying data regulators and protections; | |
| Jun 8, 2026 | Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) introduces a bill to restore federal funding for the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), defunded by the administration in 2025. The cybersecurity program supported thousands of local and state governments. | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: congressional opposition; | |
| Jun 6, 2026 | Judge Pitts declines to block (PDF) a California children’s hospital from complying with a DOJ subpoena for data on minors receiving gender-affirming care. Judge Pitts rules that while the plaintiffs have a “serious risk of harm,” such orders are only enforceable against the government. (ZA v. Stanford Children’s Hospital). | $cases: ZA v. Stanford Children’s Hospital | $date:2026-06-11 | $tags:lawsuits;private medical data; |
| Jun 5, 2026 | The DOJ appeals the dismissals of its lawsuits seeking complete voter rolls from Maine and Wisconsin. (US v. Bellows, US v. Wisconsin Elections Commission). | $cases: US v. Bellows; US v. Wisconsin Elections Commission | $date:2026-07-09 | $tags: lawsuits;election data; |
| Jun 5, 2026 | 404 Media reports that ICE plans to roll out an app that will let local police scan and match a person’s face against multiple federal databases to assess their immigration status. | $tags:data consolidation;biometrics and identity data;local law enforcement collusion; | ||
| Jun 5, 2026 | The American Postal Workers Union publishes a statement opposing the US Postal Service’s proposed rule implementing President Trump’s mail voting executive order, saying the Post Office “is not a tool for politicians to pick which Americans get which benefits.” | $tags:election data; | ||
| Jun 4, 2026 | Reports surface that New York’s Mount Sinai Health System, having stopped providing gender-affirming care to minors in January, is informing former patients’ parents that it will comply with a subpoena and give the federal government their children’s private medical records. | $tags:private medical data; | ||
| Jun 4, 2026 | Reports surface that HHS is negotiating for access to state health information exchange systems, seeking identifiable patient data in pursuit of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s spurious efforts to link vaccines to autism. | $tags:private medical data; | ||
| Jun 4, 2026 | Following President Trump’s executive order restricting mail voting, DHS finalizes its plan to implement a new voter verification system based on the unreliable SAVE database, plus sharing data from the US Customs and Immigration Service, the Social Security Administration, and the State Department with state officials, by June 30. | $tags:election data;data consolidation; | ||
| Jun 4, 2026 | The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration publishes a report (PDF) from its year-long internal investigation of the IRS’s data sharing with ICE. The report confirms that ICE failed to safeguard data, and that the IRS shared erroneous information as part of a program to identify immigrants for deportation. | $tags:security failures; | ||
| Jun 3, 2026 | The Trump administration appeals district court rulings rejecting access to voter roll information in Rhode Island and Arizona. The government has now appealed six failed voter roll cases. (US v. Amore, US v. Fontes). | $cases: US v. Amore; US v. Fontes | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Jun 3, 2026 | A Social Security Administration whistleblower alleges that DOGE members planned to add 2.7 million people, including US citizens, to the agency’s “Death Master File” in hopes that they would voluntarily leave the country after losing all access to banking and credit. | $tags:DOGE;whistleblowers and leaks;improper access; | ||
| Jun 3, 2026 | The NAACP asks a federal court to force the US Postal Service to withdraw its proposed rule implementing a Trump executive order directing USPS to review mail ballots against federal citizenship lists. The organization says the rule violates the court-ordered settlement in its lawsuit about 2020 election mail, in which the Post Office committed to quick delivery of election mail through 2028 (NAACP v. USPS). | $cases: NAACP v. USPS | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Jun 2, 2026 | Newly reported contract details for the creation of a previously announced API confirm that Palantir is working to make “IRS data easily accessible to any app,” combining many siloed databases into one stream in order to aid the IRS in investigations. Federal judges have already blocked the IRS from sharing data with ICE. | $tags:data consolidation;corporate collusion; | ||
| Jun 2, 2026 | The US Postal Service publishes a proposed rule to update standards for absentee ballots, saying that, beginning with the fall 2026 election, it will track individual ballots and refuse to deliver them for states that don’t turn over their voter lists. | $tags:election data; | ||
| Jun 2, 2026 | Minors who received gender care from facilities in the NYU Langone Health System sue DOJ and the hospitals to block a subpoena seeking data on their care (Coe v. Blanche). | $cases: Coe v. Blanche | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| Jun 1, 2026 | Democratic Party organizations appeal a ruling denying a preliminary injunction of President Trump’s mail voting executive order. They seek an expedited hearing as the 2026 election approaches (DSCC v. Trump). | $cases: DSCC v. Trump | $tags:lawsuits;election data; | |
| Jun 1, 2026 | The DOJ appeals its lawsuit seeking Massachusetts’s complete voter roll to the First Circuit. In April, a federal district judge dismissed the case for lacking a basis for the administration’s demand (US v. Galvin). | $cases: US v. Galvin | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Jun 1, 2026 | Sixteen Democratic senators send a letter (PDF) to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, demanding that he stop working to implement President Trump’s executive order on mail voting. The letter requests details on Commerce’s involvement in writing the order and coordinating with USPS by June 15. | $tags:congressional opposition;election data; | ||
| May 28, 2026 | Federal judge Carl J. Nichols refuses to block President Trump’s executive order instructing the US Post Office to create rules to restrict mail ballots to people on federal citizenship lists, since the Post Office has not yet begun rulemaking (DSCC v. Trump). | $cases: DSCC v. Trump | $tags:lawsuits;election data;data consolidation; | |
| May 26, 2026 | The FCC proposes a rule requiring telecoms to collect personally identifying information from anyone purchasing or renewing a mobile phone plan, which would effectively outlaw burner phones in the US. | $tags:biometrics and identity data; | ||
| May 26, 2026 | City workers in Dayton, OH, cover Flock cameras with bags after concerns that supposedly deactivated cameras continued recording footage. City leaders originally took the cameras offline after learning that police had shared Flock camera data with outside entities they could not identify violating guidelines meant to protect the community from federal surveillance. | $tags:local law enforcement collusion; | ||
| May 22, 2026 | DHS awards a $25 million no-bid contract to BI2 Technologies, which specializes in iris scanners, to support mass deportation operations starting in June. | $tags:biometrics and identity data; | ||
| May 21, 2026 | A suit filed on behalf of a South Carolina voter to stop the state election commission from sharing voter roll information with the Department of Justice is dismissed after DOJ agrees not to share the data with other agencies. (Crook v. SC Election Commission). | $cases: Crook v. SC Election Commission | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| May 21, 2026 | State technology officials from Florida, New York, and Tennessee testify before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, asking Congress to restore funding for election cybersecurity grants and other programs that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) supported before the Trump administration slashed its budget. | $tags:destroying data regulators and protections;state and local government opposition; | ||
| May 21, 2026 | Federal judges Lance E. Walker in Maine and James D. Peterson in Wisconsin dismiss DOJ suits seeking those states’ complete voter rolls. Courts have now rejected 8 such data grabs, with 23 cases still pending (US v. Bellows; US v. Wisconsin Elections Commission). | $cases: US v. Bellows; US v. Wisconsin Elections Commission | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| May 21, 2026 | Representatives Scott Perry (R-PA) and Jesús García (D-IL) introduce an amendment to the Highway Bill to ban the use of automated license plate readers (such as Flock cameras) for any purpose other than collecting tolls on roads that receive federal funding. | $tags:congressional opposition; | ||
| May 19, 2026 | The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals refuses to shield Rhode Island Hospital from a requirement to send gender-affirming care patients’ data directly to Judge O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas, pending an appeal to the 5th Circuit of his order requiring the hospital to turn over those records to the DOJ (Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of Rhode Island Hospital I, Rhode Island; Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of Rhode Island Hospital II, Texas). | $cases: Challenges to DOJ Subpoena of Rhode Island Hospital | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| May 19, 2026 | President Trump signs EO 14406: “Restoring Integrity to America’s Financial System,” directing banks and government agencies to investigate the citizenship status of people applying for loans or opening accounts. The order stops short of requiring banks to collect proof of citizenship. | $tags: | ||
| May 19, 2026 | Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee Ranking Member Delia C. Ramirez (D-IL) send a letter (PDF) demanding a briefing from Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) acting director Nick Andersen after a security researcher finds passwords and other CISA credentials in plain text on the public software repository GitHub. | $tags:congressional opposition;security failures; | ||
| May 18, 2026 | Newly revealed email exchanges show that Department of Health and Human Services officials are not cooperating with the GAO’s audit of sensitive HHS information that DOGE employees accessed and may have inappropriately shared. | $tags:DOGE;whistleblowers and leaks;obstructing oversight; | ||
| May 14, 2026 | Ten Democratic senators send a letter (PDF) to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding that he remove the department’s 2027 budget proposal to develop smart glasses with federal database access for immigration enforcement officers. The letter requests further information on involved companies and any planned restrictions on sharing data gathered by such glasses. | $tags:congressional opposition; | ||
| May 13, 2026 | The USDA releases a preliminary report (PDF) on the “integrity” of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), investigating duplication in SSNs of recipients based on comparison with the SAVE database, concluding that “the median percentage of each issue within States appear small, general [sic] under 1.2%,” but warning of large financial risks that it does not explain further. | $date:2026-06-11 | $tags:data consolidation; | |
| May 11, 2026 | The FBI issues a call for contractors, seeking to buy access to an integrated system of license-plate-scanning cameras covering all US states, territories, and tribal lands. | $tags:exploiting commercial data; | ||
| May 9, 2026 | Eleven families file a federal class action to invalidate Department of Justice subpoenas seeking private health information from more than 20 providers of transgender healthcare nationwide (Challenge to DOJ Subpoenas of Children’s Hospitals Nationwide). | $cases: Challenge to DOJ Subpoenas of Children’s Hospitals Nationwide | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| May 6, 2026 | Four people forced to provide DNA samples after their arrests at Chicago anti-ICE protests sue DHS, the DOJ, the FBI, and other government agencies, seeking to have law enforcement’s collection of genetic data from people arrested for minor offenses declared unconstitutional (Briggs v. Mullin). | $cases: Briggs v. Mullin | $tags:lawsuits; biometrics and identity data;targeting protesters and observers; | |
| May 5, 2026 | The Rural Organizing Project sues the Oregon State Police for violating the state’s sanctuary law by granting ICE access to law enforcement databases. | $cases: Rural Organizing Project v. Oregon State Police | $tags:lawsuits;improper access;local law enforcement collusion; | |
| May 5, 2026 | At a conference on border security, ICE assistant director of Law Enforcement Systems & Analysis Matthew Elliston reveals that agents’ iPhones now have access to the personal data of 20 million people. | $tags:data consolidation;biometrics and identity data; | ||
| May 5, 2026 | Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate announces that he has turned over the state’s complete voter roll, including driver’s license numbers, party affiliations, and partial Social Security numbers, to the DOJ. | $tags:election data; | ||
| May 4, 2026 | The administration publishes its 2026 National Drug Control Strategy (PDF), which advocates consolidating, and using “AI” to analyze, records from hospital visits, lab results, government databases, wastewater monitoring, payment platforms, and social media and messaging apps. | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags:data consolidation;exploiting AI;private medical data; | |
| May 4, 2026 | After Rhode Island Child Advocate Katelyn Medeiros blocks the DOJ from obtaining gender-affirming care records from Rhode Island Hospital, Judge Mary McElroy rejects a government motion to transfer the case to the administration-friendly Northern District of Texas (Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of Rhode Island Hospital I, Rhode Island). | $cases: Challenges to DOJ Subpoena of Rhode Island Hospital | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| May 4, 2026 | Lawyers for Fulton County, GA, file a motion in federal court to block the DOJ’s subpoena for the personal details of 2020 election workers and volunteers, calling the demand harassment (Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of Fulton County). | $cases: Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of Fulton County | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| May 4, 2026 | An unnamed Canadian, who critiques the Trump administration online but has not visited the US in over 10 years, sues DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin for violating his rights after DHS used a customs summons — an administrative document not reviewed or signed by a judge — to demand a year of his personal data from Google (Doe v. Mullin). | $cases: Doe v. Mullin | $tags:lawsuits;targeting political opponents; | |
| May 1, 2026 | After informing the agency, the Washington Post reveals that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unintentionally published health care workers’ Social Security numbers in a database intended to help seniors find providers who accept their insurance. | $tags:whistleblowers and leaks;security failures; | ||
| Apr 30, 2026 | Federal judge Reed O’Connor of the administration-friendly Northern District of Texas orders Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University Health to comply with the DOJ’s administrative subpoena — a document neither reviewed nor signed by a judge — for information on doctors providing and minor patients receiving gender-affirming care (Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of Rhode Island Hospital II, Texas). | $cases: Challenges to DOJ Subpoena of Rhode Island Hospital | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| Apr 30, 2026 | The House and Senate pass a short extension authorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), delaying debate over the controversial warrantless data extraction law until mid-May. | $tags: | ||
| Apr 30, 2026 | Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee send investigative letters (PDF) to TransUnion and Experian, demanding to know why they have left mistakes in consumers’ credit report data uncorrected more frequently since 2025. The letters tie these problems to the Trump administration’s gutting of the companies’ regulator, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. | $tags:congressional opposition;destroying data regulators and protections; | ||
| Apr 30, 2026 | The House Ways and Means Committee’s Social Security subcommittee launches an investigation into a DOGE staffer for allegedly copying confidential information from Social Security databases. | $tags:DOGE;congressional opposition;security failures; | ||
| Apr 29, 2026 | The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) awards Palantir a $3.9 million contract to surveil agency employees’ comings and goings from government buildings. | $tags:corporate collusion; | ||
| Apr 28, 2026 | A GAO investigation (PDF), requested by Congressional Democrats after a whistleblower report, reveals that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) deleted records of DOGE staffers’ system access at the agency. | $date:2026-07-23 | $tags:DOGE;whistleblowers and leaks;obstructing oversight; | |
| Apr 28, 2026 | The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the independent Congressional agency auditing DOGE’s activities, confirms in its first report (PDF) that the Department of the Treasury broke its own rules by allowing DOGE staff to access sensitive Bureau of Fiscal Service payment systems and data. | $tags:DOGE;improper access; | ||
| Apr 28, 2026 | Judge Susan Brnovich rules against the Trump administration, preventing the DOJ from accessing Arizona’s complete voter roll. This is the sixth lawsuit for state voter rolls to be dismissed (US v. Fontes). | $cases: US v. Fontes | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Apr 27, 2026 | California Privacy Protection Agency executive director Tom Kemp sends a letter (PDF) to leaders of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce opposing the proposed SECURE Data Act, which would override California’s stronger privacy protections. | $tags:state and local government opposition; | ||
| Apr 27, 2026 | After the University of Pennsylvania notifies Judge Pappert that it will appeal his ruling requiring it to give the EEOC the names of community members who complained of antisemitism, the judge grants a stay, preventing that data’s disclosure while the appeal is in process. (EEOC v. University of Pennsylvania) | $cases: EEOC v. University of Pennsylvania | $tags:lawsuits; | |
| Apr 24, 2026 | Public records reveal that the IRS has paid Palantir $130 million since 2018 to supplement the tax agency’s criminal investigations by combining IRS and Treasury information with personal healthcare, banking, cryptocurrency, and telecommunications data. | $tags:data consolidation; | ||
| Apr 24, 2026 | Representatives Robert Garcia (D-CA) and Joe Morelle (D-NY) send a letter (PDF) to the Postmaster General and Board of Governors of the US Postal Service, demanding to know whether and how the independent agency will implement Trump’s executive order requiring that the Post Office screen states’ mail ballots against a federally compiled list of citizens. The representatives, whose committees oversee the Postal Service and elections, request a written response by May 1, 2026. | $tags:election data;congressional opposition; | ||
| Apr 23, 2026 | Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO) introduce the Surveillance Accountability Act, which would restrict use of surveillance technology and require the federal government to obtain a warrant before searching American citizens’ personal information. | $tags:congressional opposition; | ||
| Apr 22, 2026 | Senators Alex Padilla (D-CA), Gary Peters (D-MI), and Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduce the Absentee MVP Act (PDF), intended to thwart Trump’s executive efforts to restrict mail voting. The bill would prevent DHS and DOJ from collecting and sharing state voter roll data, and reaffirm the right to vote by mail. | $tags:election data;congressional opposition; | ||
| Apr 22, 2026 | The Alaska branch of the League of Women Voters and the Alaska Black Caucus sue state election officials, alleging that their release of voter information to the DOJ violates Alaska’s voting laws and constitutional right to privacy (League of Women Voters of Alaska v. Dahlstrom). | $cases: League of Women Voters of Alaska v. Dahlstrom | $tags:lawsuits; election data;state and local government opposition; | |
| Apr 22, 2026 | After 13 months without a Senate hearing, CISA director nominee Sean Plankey withdraws from consideration, leaving newly appointed acting director Nick Andersen in charge of the cybersecurity agency. | $tags:destroying data regulators and protections; | ||
| Apr 22, 2026 | House Republicans introduce two new bills to set nationwide standards for protecting digital privacy, including financial privacy. Rights organizations say the bills would override and weaken stronger state laws. | $tags: | ||
| Apr 21, 2026 | After the CDC, DHS, ICE, IRS, and the Social Security Administration fail to answer detailed FOIA requests regarding their dealings with Palantir Technologies, American Oversight sues the agencies in federal court in DC, requesting all relevant non-exempt records (American Oversight v. CDC). | $cases: American Oversight v. CDC | $tags:lawsuits;exploiting commercial data; | |
| Apr 21, 2026 | Common Cause sues the DOJ in federal court in DC, arguing that the agency’s effort to consolidate legally siloed federal data with state voter information violates the Constitution, the Privacy Act, and other laws (Common Cause v. DOJ). | $cases: Common Cause v. DOJ | $tags:lawsuits; election data;data consolidation; | |
| Apr 20, 2026 | Thirty-seven Democratic senators send a letter (PDF) to the Board of Governors of the US Postal Service, demanding that the Post Office refuse to comply with Trump’s “unconstitutional” executive order attempting to compel the independent agency to determine mail ballots’ eligibility based on a national citizenship list. | $tags:congressional opposition;election data; | ||
| Apr 19, 2026 | Democratic Senators submit a letter (PDF) to Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor demanding that the agency rescind a Dec 12, 2025 notice that may violate HIPAA laws by requiring insurers to divulge current and former federal workers’ medical information. | $tags:private medical data;congressional opposition; | ||
| Apr 17, 2026 | The Department of Justice sends a grand jury subpoena (PDF) to Fulton County, Georgia officials, demanding the names, addresses, and other personal details of all professional and volunteer election workers from the 2020 general election. | $tags:election data;biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Apr 17, 2026 | Twenty House Republicans defy Trump administration lobbying and vote against extending authorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which empowers federal intelligence agencies to spy on Americans’ private communications without warrants. | $tags: | ||
| Apr 17, 2026 | Judge McElroy dismisses the DOJ’s suit seeking Rhode Island’s voter rolls, finding that the agency’s demand lacks a legally sufficient purpose that a proposed “curing elaboration letter” would not fix. (US v. Amore). | $cases: US v. Amore | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Apr 17, 2026 | Metro Atlanta residents protest at Flock headquarters against law enforcement’s use of the company’s license-plate-scanning cameras to monitor community spaces, supplement immigration operations, and support abortion prosecutions. | $tags:local law enforcement collusion; | ||
| Apr 14, 2026 | The DOJ sends a letter (PDF) to Wayne County, Michigan, to demand ballots from the 2024 election, citing three individual instances of attempted voter fraud and one discredited lawsuit. | $tags:election data; | ||
| Apr 10, 2026 | After a lower court blocks DOGE’s access to sensitive Social Security data, a majority of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals vacates the preliminary injunction. The court rules for the Trump administration despite finding the government’s admission that it may have improperly shared data “alarming”; a district court can consider those facts when it rehears the case (AFSCME v. SSA). | $cases: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees v. Social Security Administration | $tags:lawsuits;improper access; DOGE; | |
| Apr 9, 2026 | The National Health Law Program and American Oversight file a suit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS) for information about how the agencies are sharing sensitive health data for use in immigration enforcement (National Health Law Program v. HHS). | $cases: National Health Law Program v. HHS | $tags:lawsuits;data consolidation; private medical data; | |
| Apr 9, 2026 | Judge Leo Sorokin dismisses the DOJ’s suit to obtain Massachusetts voter rolls, finding that the government did not state a legal basis for its demand. Five of the 31 DOJ cases seeking access to state voter rolls have been dismissed (US v. Galvin). | $cases: US v. Galvin | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Apr 8, 2026 | The DC Circuit Court of Appeals denies Anthropic’s request to temporarily block the Department of Defense’s designation of the company as a supply chain risk while a second case about Anthropic’s refusal to allow its AI products’ use in mass domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons proceeds (Anthropic v. Department of War II). The DoD and its contractors remain barred from using Anthropic’s products for defense-related work. (Anthropic v. Department of War I). | $cases: Anthropic v. Department of War I, Supply Chain Risk Designation | $tags:lawsuits; | |
| Apr 7, 2026 | A leaked internal analysis shows that the TSA has shared the information of at least 31,000 airline passengers with ICE since the beginning of the second Trump administration, enabling over 800 immigration arrests. | $tags:whistleblowers and leaks;biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Apr 6, 2026 | 404 Media reveals that Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has been using Flock license plate cameras nationwide to perform searches for ICE, allowing them to find vehicles targeted in immigration investigations. | $tags:local law enforcement collusion; | ||
| Apr 3, 2026 | In a budget request (PDF) to Congress, the Department of Homeland Security says it intends to develop prototype “smart glasses” with “biometric identification capabilities” for ICE and CBP agents. | $tags:biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Apr 3, 2026 | Judge Saylor grants a preliminary injunction blocking the Department of Education from collecting demographic data for millions of students and applicants to public universities in 17 states (Massachusetts v. DOE). | $cases: Massachusetts v. DOE | $tags:lawsuits; | |
| Apr 2, 2026 | Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) sends a letter (PDF) to Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank Bisignano asking how the SSA will safeguard Americans’ data and voting rights under President Trump’s mail voting executive order. Wyden’s letter emphasizes Social Security data rules that require individuals’ written consent before the government can disclose their information. | $tags:congressional opposition;biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Apr 1, 2026 | Between April 1 and April 3, the Democratic Party, the League of Women Voters and other civil rights groups, 24 states, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and the NAACP separately file challenges to President Trump’s executive order attempting to regulate mail voting and compile lists of citizens over 18 from federal records (DSCC v. Trump; League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump; California v. Trump; League of United Latin American Citizens v. Executive Office of the President; NAACP v. Trump). | $cases: DSCC v. Trump; League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump; California v. Trump; League of United Latin American Citizens v. Executive Office of the President; NAACP v. Trump | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Apr 1, 2026 | The Department of Justice sues Idaho to obtain personal information about the state’s voters. Idaho is the 31st jurisdiction sued for refusing to hand over comprehensive voter roll data (US v. McGrane). | $cases: US v. McGrane | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Apr 1, 2026 | In response to an investigative letter (PDF) from Democratic members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons confirms that ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division is using the spyware program Graphite, which can access encrypted messages on cell phones, inside the United States. | $tags:congressional opposition;improper access; | ||
| Mar 31, 2026 | Thomson Reuters, a media company that also brokers data, provides personal data to ICE, 404 Media reports. The company feeds data, including names and Social Security numbers, into ICE investigation tools, some developed by Palantir. | $tags:corporate collusion;biometrics and identity data;exploiting commercial data; | ||
| Mar 31, 2026 | Siding with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), District Judge Gerald J. Pappert orders the University of Pennsylvania to divulge contact information of employees associated with campus Jewish organizations or events, or who’ve reported or witnessed antisemitic discrimination. (EEOC v. University of Pennsylvania) | $cases: EEOC v. University of Pennsylvania | $tags:lawsuits; | |
| Mar 31, 2026 | Trump signs EO 14399, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections," which attempts to severely restrict mail voting, demanding that the US Postal Service and states match voters requesting mail ballots against a list of voting-age U.S. citizens drawn from federal agencies’ data. | $tags:election data; | ||
| Mar 27, 2026 | After initially assuring Judge Mary McElroy that it had safeguarded the voter data it collected from states, as the Privacy Act of 1974 requires, the DOJ files a clarification in its lawsuit seeking Rhode Island’s voter rolls, revealing that it is combining and analyzing states’ data to search for ineligible voters (US v. Amore). | $cases: US v. Amore | $tags:lawsuits; election data;data consolidation; | |
| Mar 26, 2026 | Federal judge Rita Lin issues a preliminary injunction stating that the Department of Defense’s ban on contracts for Anthropic was illegal retaliation against First Amendment–protected corporate expression. The company refuses to allow its AI products’ use in mass domestic surveillance (Anthropic v. Department of War II). | $cases: Anthropic v. Department of War II, Claude Product Ban | $tags:lawsuits; | |
| Mar 24, 2026 | The DOJ drops its lawsuit seeking Oklahoma’s complete voter rolls after state officials agree (PDF) to provide the requested data (US v. Ziriax). | $cases: US v. Ziriax | $tags:lawsuits;election data; | |
| Mar 20, 2026 | The Freedom of the Press Foundation sues the Office of Management and Budget to enforce FPF’s FOIA requests about efforts to consolidate government records in a centralized database and about how federal agencies have implemented an executive order demanding the elimination of information silos (Freedom of the Press Foundation v. Office of Management and Budget). | $cases: Freedom of the Press Foundation v. OMB | $tags:lawsuits; data consolidation; | |
| Mar 18, 2026 | In sworn testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, FBI Director Kash Patel confirms that the Bureau has begun buying Americans’ location data from commercial sources. | $tags:exploiting commercial data; | ||
| Mar 16, 2026 | Trump signs EO 14395: “Establishing the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud,” which directs the Vice President to chair a committee focused on denying public benefits and demands increased federal access to data from “state, local, tribal, and territorial” governments. | $tags:data consolidation; | ||
| Mar 14, 2026 | A new analysis of court records and annual Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reports shows that DOGE’s widespread firings led to fewer and smaller FOIA offices, longer wait times for information, and more lawsuits over information not provided, weakening a key mechanism of accountability for data security questions. | $tags:DOGE;obstructing oversight;staffing sabotage; | ||
| Mar 13, 2026 | Federal judge Edward J. Davila rules (PDF) that the administration may not shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by refusing to request reserved funding from the Federal Reserve (Rise Economy v. Vought). | $cases: Rise Economy v. Vought | $tags:lawsuits;destroying data regulators and protections; | |
| Mar 12, 2026 | A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers introduces the Government Surveillance Reform Act of 2026, which aims to restrict the intelligence community’s warrantless collection of phone data and to close surveillance loopholes such as purchasing data from data brokers. | $tags:congressional opposition;exploiting commercial data; | ||
| Mar 11, 2026 | A coalition of 17 states sues the Department of Education over a new requirement to provide extensive data on college students and applicants. Federal judge F. Dennis Saylor responds two days later by temporarily extending the deadline (PDF) to comply with the new policy (Massachusetts v. DOE). | $cases: Massachusetts v. DOE | $tags:lawsuits;state and local government opposition; | |
| Mar 11, 2026 | Current and former federal officials reveal that DHS is attempting to access the Federal Parent Locator Service, an exhaustive and highly sensitive repository of employer, salary, and address data ordinarily restricted to use in child support cases. | $tags:biometrics and identity data;improper access;whistleblowers and leaks; | ||
| Mar 10, 2026 | American Oversight sues the Department of Justice and ICE for records documenting their collection, storage, and sharing of voter data from state and local election officials (American Oversight v. DOJ). | $cases: American Oversight v. DOJ | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Mar 10, 2026 | Reports surface that multiple Customs and Border Protection privacy officers were reassigned within DHS in 2026 after raising concerns about agency orders to shield surveillance technology records from public release. | $tags:staffing sabotage; | ||
| Mar 10, 2026 | Congressional Democrats expand investigations of Social Security Administration (SSA) data security in response to whistleblower claims that a former DOGE employee planned to share two databases containing records of more than 500 million Americans with his private sector employer. Reports indicate that the SSA inspector general is investigating these claims and has shared them with the Government Accountability Office as part of its audit of DOGE. | $tags:DOGE;congressional opposition;security failures;whistleblowers and leaks; | ||
| Mar 9, 2026 | Anthropic sues the Department of Defense and 17 other federal agencies for violating its First and Fifth Amendment rights. The DOD declared the company a supply chain risk and barred it from receiving federal contracts after Anthropic insisted on forbidding its AI tools’ use in autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance (Anthropic v. Department of War I, Anthropic v. Department of War II). | $cases: Anthropic v. Department of War I, Supply Chain Risk Designation; Anthropic v. Department of War II, Claude Product Ban | $tags:lawsuits; | |
| Mar 7, 2026 | Shortly after OpenAI signs a deal with the Defense Department, the head of its robotics team announces her resignation, criticizing the company for “surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorization.” | $tags:resignations in protest; | ||
| Mar 6, 2026 | The National Consumer Law Center leads a group of more than 40 legal and housing aid organizations in a formal comment (PDF) objecting to the Department of the Treasury’s consolidated database of aid recipients, citing its unclear purpose and threat to privacy. The National League of Cities, US Conference of Mayors, and National Association of Counties also formally object to the database formation. | $tags:data consolidation;state and local government opposition; | ||
| Mar 6, 2026 | The Secret Service requests information from vendors about the potential creation of an online search tool to provide real-time information on domestic and international air passengers. The new system could replace the airline-operated Travel Intelligence Program, which wound down at the end of 2025 in response to lawmakers’ concerns about passenger data privacy. | $tags:biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Mar 4, 2026 | The Department of Justice secures grand jury subpoenas for the records of journalists who reported on internal Trump administration warnings about the risks of war with Iran. | $tags:targeting protesters and observers; | ||
| Mar 4, 2026 | The Information Technology Industry Council writes a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth expressing concern about the administration’s decision to officially designate Anthropic as a supply chain risk. The designation has economic and technological consequences for government agencies and contractors who must change the tools they use, including some within government systems that already use Anthropic’s AI chatbot, Claude. | $tags: | ||
| Mar 4, 2026 | Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane declines the Justice Department’s request for the state’s voter rolls, citing recent reports about the government’s inability to secure sensitive taxpayer information, despite DOJ threats to sue for the data. | $tags:election data;state and local government opposition; | ||
| Mar 3, 2026 | Following congressional Democrats’ inquiries to tech companies about DHS requests for anonymous critics’ personal data, 72 Democratic legislators request a second investigation (PDF) into DHS for its warrantless purchase of cell phone location data. | $tags:congressional opposition;exploiting commercial data;targeting political opponents; | ||
| Feb 27, 2026 | Federal judge Mustafa Kasubhai blocks ICE officers (PDF) in Oregon from arresting, detaining, and deporting people without a warrant, following a December hearing in which ICE agents testified about their use of the Elite and Mobile Fortify surveillance apps in making these arrests (M-J-M-A v. Wamsley). | $cases: M-J-M-A v. Wamsley | $tags:lawsuits;biometrics and identity data; | |
| Feb 27, 2026 | The Department of Defense awards OpenAI a contract after rival Anthropic’s refusal to engage in mass domestic surveillance leads the federal government to threaten to declare Anthropic a supply chain risk and to attempt barring all federal agencies from using its AI platform. | $tags:corporate collusion; | ||
| Feb 27, 2026 | The Department of Justice appeals its lawsuit demanding Michigan’s complete voter roll to the Sixth Circuit, shortly after appealing its lawsuits demanding California and Oregon’s unredacted voter rolls to the Ninth Circuit, because district judges dismissed all three suits for failing to prove their claims (US v. Benson, US v. Oregon, US v. Weber). | $cases: US v. Benson; US v. Oregon; US v. Weber | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Feb 26, 2026 | Following a DC Circuit ruling allowing sharing of IRS data, the government defendants file a notice (PDF) citing that ruling in a similar case pending in DC federal court where District Judge Kollar-Kotelly had blocked such sharing. The next day, the government cites the DC Circuit ruling in a motion to dismiss (PDF) another case against them in Massachusetts (Centro de Trabajadores Unidos v. Bessent; Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS; Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts v. Bessent). | $cases: Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS; Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts v. Bessent | $tags:lawsuits;data consolidation; | |
| Feb 26, 2026 | Responding to USDA efforts to refuse SNAP funds to states unless they provide recipient data, federal judge Maxine M. Chesney expands her original injunction (PDF) against this practice to include the USDA’s most recent attempts (California v. USDA). | $cases: California v. USDA | $tags:lawsuits;data consolidation; | |
| Feb 26, 2026 | Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suddenly reassigns the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Acting Director Madhu Gottumukkala to a new “strategic implementation” role in DHS, leaving CISA understaffed and leaderless as DHS continues to eliminate its programs. | $tags:destroying data regulators and protections;staffing sabotage; | ||
| Feb 26, 2026 | The Department of Justice sues five more states — Kentucky, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia — for complete voter roll information, bringing the total number of jurisdictions sued to 30. (US v. Adams, US v. Caldwell, US v. Ziriax, US v. Henderson, US v. Warner). | $cases: US v. Adams; US v. Caldwell; US v. Ziriax; US v. Henderson; US v. Warner | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Feb 25, 2026 | Reports surface that the Department of Defense and multiple intelligence agencies have connected their networks to the Compass database, a 770-million record repository containing sensitive information on targets, witnesses, and associates in domestic drug investigations, breaking a long-standing operational divide between law enforcement and intelligence agencies. | $tags:improper access; | ||
| Feb 24, 2026 | The DC Circuit Court of Appeals allows the IRS to share taxpayer address information with ICE and other agencies. The court rejects an argument (PDF) based on an earlier IRS rule that limited when addresses could be provided, citing a recent Supreme Court decision that said courts are no longer required to defer to agency interpretations of statutes (Centro de Trabajadores Unidos v. Bessent). | $cases: Centro de Trabajadores Unidos v. Bessent | $tags:lawsuits;data consolidation; | |
| Feb 24, 2026 | Judge Porter rules that the government may not search the seized devices of Washington Post journalist Hannah Natanson, stating that the administration cannot be trusted to conduct a focused search without risking the confidentiality of more than 1,000 government sources (In the Matter of the Search of the Real Property and Premises of Hannah Natanson). | $cases: In the Matter of the Search of the Real Property and Premises of Hannah Natanson | $tags: lawsuits;targeting protesters and observers; | |
| Feb 23, 2026 | Two Maine residents file a class action suit alleging DHS agents and other federal officials are using surveillance tools to track people observing ICE actions, branding them “domestic terrorists” and discouraging them from exercising their First Amendment rights. The lawsuit seeks injunctions (PDF) to block collection of this information and delete any already acquired (Hilton v. Noem). | $cases: Hilton v. Noem | $tags:lawsuits;biometrics and identity data;targeting protesters and observers; | |
| Feb 20, 2026 | WIRED reports that the Department of Homeland Security is seeking vendors to combine facial scans, fingerprints, and other biometric data gathered across its agencies into a single “matching engine” that could be used for both identity verification and investigative searches. | $tags:data consolidation;biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Feb 13, 2026 | As part of an existing case challenging ICE for constitutional violations, a group of Minnesotans including ICE observers, a journalists’ union, and an independent publisher file an amended complaint (PDF) alleging that federal officials are tracking observers in an internal database in retaliation for their actions (Tincher v. Noem). | $cases: Tincher v. Noem | $tags:lawsuits;targeting protesters and observers; | |
| Feb 12, 2026 | Democrats on the House Oversight Committee publish a preliminary report (PDF) from an investigation into DOGE, revealing that the agency introduced serious data security risks across the federal government — for example, dropping network firewall protections at the Office of Personnel Management specifically to allow external data use. | $tags:DOGE;congressional opposition;security failures; | ||
| Feb 12, 2026 | DHS awards Palantir a $1 billion, five-year blanket purchase agreement that allows its agencies to bypass the competitive bidding process and purchase Palantir’s surveillance technologies and services without review. | $tags:corporate collusion; | ||
| Feb 11, 2026 | The Office of Management and Budget approves a request from US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to collect information about the social media accounts of people applying for immigration status changes. The increased scrutiny is permitted for one year starting February 28 and was approved even though government officials dismissed it in 2021 as adding no value. | $tags: | ||
| Feb 11, 2026 | IRS chief risk and control officer Dottie Romo confirms that the agency shared confidential information about thousands of taxpayers with DHS, even though it lacked legal justification to target these individuals and was bound by a previous ruling prohibiting such data-sharing (Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS). | $cases: Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS | $tags:lawsuits;defying court orders;data consolidation; | |
| Feb 10, 2026 | The Association of Federal Health Organizations and CVS Health, among others, submit extensive formal comments objecting to the Office of Personnel Management’s new demand that insurers provide the detailed, identifiable health information of federal employees and retirees. | $tags:private medical data; | ||
| Feb 10, 2026 | Chief Judge Hala Y. Jarbou of the Western District of Michigan dismisses a DOJ lawsuit seeking the state’s voter data, finding no legal requirement to disclose the information. The following day, West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner cites this ruling in a letter declining (PDF) the DOJ’s reiterated demand for the personal information of registered voters (US v. Benson). | $cases: US v. Benson | $tags:lawsuits; election data;state and local government opposition; | |
| Feb 5, 2026 | Federal judge Indira Talwani blocks DHS and ICE (PDF) from reviewing or using taxpayer information received from the IRS under an agreement between the agencies (Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts v. Bessent). | $cases: Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts v. Bessent | $tags:lawsuits;data consolidation; | |
| Feb 5, 2026 | In response to a letter from Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine raising concerns about surveillance technology, DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari announces an audit of security processes related to biometric data and other personally identifying information, focusing on ICE and the Office of Biometric Identity Management. | $tags:biometrics and identity data;congressional opposition; | ||
| Feb 5, 2026 | Senate Democrats Edward J. Markey (MA), Jeff Merkley (OR), and Ron Wyden (OR), and Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) introduce the “ICE Out of Our Faces Act”. The act would ban CPB and ICE from using biometric surveillance systems and require the deletion of biometric data already acquired. | $tags:biometrics and identity data;congressional opposition; | ||
| Feb 4, 2026 | The Department of the Treasury posts a required notice that it is creating a new database consolidating the financial and identity information of people and small businesses that have received aid through programs administered by the Treasury in any way, including special pandemic programs. | $tags:data consolidation;biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Feb 3, 2026 | Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA) sends a letter (PDF) to ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons regarding DHS officials’ reported use of a “domestic terrorists” database containing information on US citizens protesting ICE’s actions. Senator Markey gives Lyons until February 24, 2026, to provide information about the alleged database, any DHS officials who may be involved, and other details on DHS’s guidance to ICE agents for interactions with people exercising their First Amendment rights. | $tags:congressional opposition;targeting protesters and observers; | ||
| Feb 2, 2026 | Victims of Jeffrey Epstein ask judges in the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases to order that case files released by the DOJ be taken down because the files contain unredacted names, photos, and other identifying information (US v. Epstein; US v. Maxwell). | $cases: US v. Epstein; US v. Maxwell | $tags:lawsuits;biometrics and identity data; | |
| Jan 28, 2026 | Seeking ballots, voter rolls, and other records from the 2020 presidential elections, the FBI executes a search warrant on an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia, even though a judge previously denied them access to these materials. | $tags:election data;improper access; | ||
| Jan 27, 2026 | The DOJ refiles its lawsuit seeking Georgia’s voter data after it was dismissed by federal district judge C. Ashley Royal on the technicality that the suit was filed in the wrong district (US v. Raffensperger). | $cases: US v. Raffensperger | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Jan 27, 2026 | A Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency spokesperson confirms that the agency’s Acting Director, Madhu Gottumukkala, who requested special permission to use ChatGPT because it is usually blocked for DHS employees, uploaded sensitive information to the public service. | $tags:security failures;exploiting AI; | ||
| Jan 24, 2026 | Attorney General Pam Bondi sends a letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz requesting that the state “restore law and order” by repealing unspecified “sanctuary policies”, ordering Minnesota prisons to “cooperate fully” with ICE, and handing over data about its voters and Medicaid and SNAP beneficiaries. | $tags:election data;biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Jan 23, 2026 | The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the FBI withdraw from the RSA Conference, a major gathering of government and private cybersecurity experts from around the world, after the conference hires the Biden Administration’s CISA director, Jen Easterly, as CEO. | $tags:destroying data regulators and protections; | ||
| Jan 22, 2026 | American Oversight sues the TSA and ICE to get records of the agencies’ agreement that allows the TSA to share identifying information about passengers with ICE, expanding ICE’s purview into domestic air travel (American Oversight v. TSA and ICE). | $cases: American Oversight v. TSA and ICE | $tags:lawsuits;data consolidation;biometrics and identity data; | |
| Jan 21, 2026 | Federal magistrate judge William B. Porter blocks government officials from accessing information stored in the devices they seized from Washington Post journalist Hannah Natanson’s home until litigation over the search is resolved. (In the Matter of the Search of the Real Property and Premises of Hannah Natanson) | $cases: In the Matter of the Search of the Real Property and Premises of Hannah Natanson | $tags:lawsuits;improper access;targeting protesters and observers; | |
| Jan 21, 2026 | Federal judge Julie R. Rubin grants a motion to block a DOJ subpoena [PDF] for records of patients receiving gender affirming care at the Washington, DC-based Children’s National Hospital (In Re: 2025 Subpoena to Children’s National Hospital). | $cases: Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of Children’s National Hospital | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| Jan 21, 2026 | Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly pauses her ruling (PDF) blocking the IRS from sharing taxpayer data with ICE pending appeal, but she instructs the IRS to provide notice to plaintiffs before any connection of computer systems to share information (Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS). | $cases: Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS | $tags:lawsuits;data consolidation; | |
| Jan 21, 2026 | In a suit challenging DOGE’s access to sensitive Social Security information, Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander grants the plaintiffs’ motion [PDF] to supplement the appeals court records with information revealing DOGE personnel may have violated a restraining order and misused data by sharing it with a right-wing advocacy group, although the Supreme Court has blocked Hollander’s order while the case is under appeal (AFSCME v. SSA). | $cases: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees v. Social Security Administration | $tags:lawsuits; DOGE;defying court orders; | |
| Jan 20, 2026 | Minnesota Deputy Secretary of State Justin Erickson denies a DOJ request for some of the state’s voter records, saying the DOJ didn’t identify any legal authority for its request (US v. Simon). | $cases: US v. Simon | $tags:lawsuits; election data;state and local government opposition; | |
| Jan 16, 2026 | Former leaders of the US Digital Service, the agency that was hollowed out to create DOGE, announce Tech Viaduct, which will come up with plans, as early as 2029, to restore and reboot the agency’s work under the next Democratic administration. | $tags:DOGE; | ||
| Jan 15, 2026 | Federal judge David Carter dismisses a DOJ lawsuit seeking the release of California’s voter rolls, and District Court judge Mustafa Kasubhai grants a motion to dismiss a similar case in Oregon. The following day, however, the DOJ still files a suit, its 25th such case, seeking Virginia’s voter data (US v. Weber; US v. Oregon; US v. Beals). | $cases: US v. Weber; US v. Oregon; US v. Beals | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Jan 13, 2026 | Reports show ICE is exploiting unrestricted license plate data from state and private sources to identify and intimidate immigration enforcement observers in Minnesota. After running license plates to obtain observers’ names and addresses, ICE agents greet them by name and drive to their houses. | $tags:exploiting commercial data;biometrics and identity data;targeting protesters and observers; | ||
| Jan 8, 2026 | University of Washington researchers show CBP uses license plate data held by the Washington Department of Licensing to conduct immigration arrests, despite the state earlier blocking ICE’s access. | $tags:improper access; | ||
| Jan 8, 2026 | Hennepin Healthcare, Minnesota’s largest safety-net hospital, announces that it will comply with a DHS subpoena of its employment records, including home addresses and Social Security numbers. The DHS audit of the hospital was announced two days after state and local officials told ICE to stop interfering with patient care and family visits. | $tags:biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Jan 7, 2026 | As part of a general withdrawal from international cooperation announced in a White House memo, the Trump administration pulls out of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, a capacity-building and mutual assistance group for cybersecurity. | $tags:destroying data regulators and protections; | ||
| Jan 6, 2026 | The DOJ, in suing Arizona and Connecticut, has brought lawsuits against 24 states that refuse to disclose personal information from voter rolls (US v. Fontes; US v. Thomas). | $cases: US v. Fontes; US v. Thomas | $tags:lawsuits;election data; | |
| Jan 5, 2026 | Federal magistrate judge Cyrus Y. Chung recommends (PDF) that a DOJ subpoena seeking data on gender-affirming care from Colorado Children’s Hospital be quashed. The ruling must be reviewed by the federal district judge (In re: Department of Justice Administrative Subpoena No. 25-1431-030). | $cases: Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of Children’s Hospital of Colorado | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| Dec 29, 2025 | Federal judge Vince G. Chhabria issues a preliminary injunction (PDF) that allows ICE to obtain “biographical, contact, and location information” about all Medicaid recipients as part of immigration enforcement, but he blocks the release of health information (California v. HHS). | $cases: California v. HHS | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data;biometrics and identity data; | |
| Dec 24, 2025 | Citing the rulings in several similar cases, Judge Cathy Bissoon rejects a DOJ subpoena (PDF) for minors’ gender care records sent to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in the first case of the DOJ targeting patients instead of the hospital (In re: 2025 UPMC Subpoena). | $cases: Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| Dec 23, 2025 | Texas provides the DOJ with information on all 18.4 million of its registered voters in response to a DOJ agreement that was sent to states that expressed willingness to disclose the voter data. | $tags:election data;data consolidation; | ||
| Dec 22, 2025 | Twenty-two states challenge CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought’s efforts to defund and otherwise close the agency, which includes systems for protecting consumer financial data. The suit alleges Vought is misinterpreting the law that requires the Federal Reserve to fund the agency (New York v. Vought). | $cases: New York v. Vought | $tags:lawsuits;destroying data regulators and protections; | |
| Dec 18, 2025 | The DOJ sues Georgia, Illinois, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia in its ongoing litigation against states that refuse to provide voter information (US v. Raffensperger; US v. Matthews; US v. Wisconsin Elections Commission; US v. Evans). | $cases: US v. Raffensperger; US v. Matthews; US v. Wisconsin Elections Commission; US v. Evans | $tags:lawsuits;election data; | |
| Dec 17, 2025 | The DC Circuit Court of Appeals rules en banc (as a full court) that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may not proceed with mass firings, overturning an August 2025 ruling by a panel of its judges (NTEU v. Vought). | $cases: National Treasury Employees Union v. Vought | $tags:lawsuits;staffing sabotage;destroying data regulators and protections; | |
| Dec 12, 2025 | The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) notifies insurance providers that it will require them to submit detailed medical records from federal employees and retirees, including appointment and prescription data, with no stated provision for redacting identifying information. | $tags:private medical data;exploiting commercial data; | ||
| Dec 12, 2025 | The New York Times reports that the TSA has, since March, been regularly providing ICE with lists of domestic air travelers, an arrangement that neither agency has publicly announced, and which has led to at least one deportation. | $tags:data consolidation; | ||
| Dec 12, 2025 | The DOJ sues Massachusetts and Nevada over their refusal to disclose voter roll and individual citizen’s details, bringing the number of such lawsuits to 18 (US v. Galvin; US v. Aguilar). | $cases: US v. Galvin; US v. Aguilar | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Dec 11, 2025 | A federal judge in Washington unseals a September 3 order blocking a DOJ subpoena sent to Seattle Children’s Hospital for information on patients seeking gender-affirming care (Seattle Children’s Hospital v. DOJ). | $cases: Seattle Children’s Hospital v. DOJ | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| Dec 11, 2025 | The DOJ sues Colorado and Hawaii over their refusal to disclose the addresses, driver’s license numbers, and other personal information of individual voters (US v. Griswold; US v. Nago). | $cases: US v. Griswold; US v. Nago | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Dec 9, 2025 | CBP proposes a rule (PDF) requiring visitors from visa waiver countries to provide extensive personal information in visa applications, including five years of social media history, email and IP addresses used in the last ten years, and details about family members. The proposed rule would affect over 2.2 million visitors, who would also have to submit photos of their faces through an app that records device location and metadata from the submitted images. | $tags:biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Dec 4, 2025 | The Government Accountability Office (GAO) follows through on a November 17 congressional request and confirms it is investigating FHFA Director Bill Pulte for referring Democratic politicians to the DOJ with accusations of mortgage fraud. | $tags:congressional opposition;targeting political opponents; | ||
| Dec 4, 2025 | Attorneys general representing 21 states file an amicus brief (PDF) in support of Children’s Hospital of Colorado’s suit to block a DOJ subpoena for data on patients receiving gender-affirming care, calling the subpoena a pretext intended to intimidate medical providers (In re: DOJ Administrative Subpoena No. 25-1431-030). | $cases: Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of Children’s Hospital of Colorado | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| Dec 3, 2025 | The DHS Privacy Office updates its rules to require that Privacy Threshold Analyses, which document new systems that access personal data, must be labeled as draft documents. The change allows DHS to shield this information from being disclosed under public records law. | $tags:obstructing oversight; | ||
| Dec 2, 2025 | The DOJ sues Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington over their refusals to provide the administration with unredacted copies of their voter registration rolls, containing addresses, Social Security numbers, and other sensitive data (US v. Albence; US v. DeMarinis; US v. Oliver; US v. Amore; US v. Hanzas; US v. Hobbs). | $cases: US v. Albence; US v. DeMarinis; US v. Oliver; US v. Amore; US v. Hanzas; US v. Hobbs | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Nov 25, 2025 | Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) files suit (PDF) against Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte, claiming that Pulte illegally obtained and used Swalwell’s mortgage records to retaliate against him for opposing President Trump. Swalwell is one of multiple Trump critics referred to the DOJ for mortgage fraud (Swalwell v. Pulte). | $cases: Swalwell v. Pulte | $tags:lawsuits;improper access;targeting political opponents; | |
| Nov 24, 2025 | Democratic members of the Senate Banking Committee write to CFPB Acting Director (PDF) Russell Vought about the agency’s failed cybersecurity audit, demanding a list of cybersecurity-related contracts canceled by the administration and saying the CFPB is no longer equipped to “protect the sensitive personal information of American consumers and businesses.” | $tags:congressional opposition;security failures;destroying data regulators and protections; | ||
| Nov 21, 2025 | Federal judge Mark Kearney blocks most of the DOJ’s subpoena for sensitive information about patients who sought gender-affirming care at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, finding that the children’s privacy interests outweigh the DOJ’s need for the information (In Re: Subpoena No. 25-1431-014). | $cases: Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| Nov 21, 2025 | Judge Kollar-Kotelly orders the IRS to stop sharing taxpayer addresses with ICE, finding that this aspect of the agencies’ data-sharing arrangement is “likely unlawful” and agreeing with the plaintiffs’ claim that immigrants are at “imminent risk” of their addresses being “impermissibly used by ICE for civil immigration enforcement” (Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS). | $cases: Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS | $tags:lawsuits;data consolidation; | |
| Nov 21, 2025 | The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issues an official notice that it will share Medicaid enrollee data received from states with DHS and ICE “effective immediately.” The notice comes months after news reports that CMS shared Medicaid data with DHS in June 2025 over the legal and ethical objections of some CMS officials. | $tags:data consolidation;private medical data; | ||
| Nov 20, 2025 | The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) votes to reduce cybersecurity oversight of telecommunications companies by eliminating rules the Biden administration put in place after 2024’s catastrophic Salt Typhoon hacks of Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen Technologies. | $tags:destroying data regulators and protections;security failures; | ||
| Nov 20, 2025 | The AP reveals that the US Border Patrol is using license plate readers to collect data on driving patterns and sharing that data with local police across the US, resulting in people getting stopped, searched, or detained because their driving patterns are deemed “suspicious.” | $tags:local law enforcement collusion;exploiting AI; | ||
| Nov 18, 2025 | 404 Media reports that an ICE contractor is launching a pilot program to enlist members of the general public to physically locate immigrants for a payment of $300 per verified address. | $tags: | ||
| Nov 18, 2025 | The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sues the University of Pennsylvania to enforce a subpoena for the contact information of Jewish employees who participate in campus Jewish life or have filed complaints of discrimination (EEOC v. University of Pennsylvania). | $cases: EEOC v. University of Pennsylvania | $tags:lawsuits;biometrics and identity data; | |
| Nov 18, 2025 | As chief election officials, ten Democratic secretaries of state ask the administration (PDF) to clarify the “misleading and at times contradictory” information it has provided about how it is using and managing the state voter roll data it requested. | $tags:election data;state and local government opposition; | ||
| Nov 17, 2025 | Despite being “troubled” by changes to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system — a federal immigration database that some states have started using for voter verification — federal judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan declines to block the changes, finding that the plaintiffs have not shown evidence of irreparable harm (League of Women Voters v. DHS). | $cases: League of Women Voters v. DHS | $tags:lawsuits; election data;data consolidation; | |
| Nov 17, 2025 | Senate Banking Committee Democrats write to Gene Dodaro (PDF), US Comptroller General, asking him to have the GAO investigate FHFA director Bill Pulte’s referrals of Trump critics to DOJ for mortgage fraud, which he apparently made by accessing misused agency data. | $tags:congressional opposition;improper access;targeting political opponents; | ||
| Nov 12, 2025 | A group of 40 congressional Democrats urge 19 Democratic governors to block ICE’s access to a law enforcement database of driver’s license and registration information, which ICE and DHS have used for almost 900,000 searches in the year prior to October 1, 2025. | $tags:congressional opposition; | ||
| Nov 12, 2025 | The Social Security Administration (SSA) publishes an official notice (PDF) that it will share citizenship and immigration information with DHS, corroborating reports that it has been sharing this data. | $tags:data consolidation; | ||
| Nov 7, 2025 | The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirms its networks were breached by foreign hackers who accessed a server with security vulnerabilities that were left unpatched after the federal government shut down on October 1, 2025. | $tags:security failures; | ||
| Nov 6, 2025 | Democratic Senators Alex Padilla (CA) and Dick Durbin (IL) send a letter (PDF) to Attorney General Pam Bondi objecting to the DOJ’s attempts to collect voter roll data and seeking answers about how the department is responding to privacy and security concerns. | $tags:election data;congressional opposition; | ||
| Nov 3, 2025 | DHS proposes a rule (PDF) that vastly expands the agency’s collection of biometric data, including face and iris scans, voice prints, and DNA. Under the proposed rule, DHS will require biometrics from applicants, as well as any “sponsor, supporter, derivative, [or] dependent” associated with a request. | $tags:biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Nov 3, 2025 | The Trump administration removes the acting inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) following his participation in an investigation into whether FHFA director Bill Pulte improperly obtained Democratic officials’ mortgage records. This follows the October firings of the chief ethics officer and a dozen members of the ethics and investigations unit at mortgage company Fannie Mae, which is overseen and regulated by the FHFA. | $tags:staffing sabotage;targeting political opponents; | ||
| Oct 31, 2025 | DHS formalizes and expands the use of its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) tool to purge state voter rolls of suspected noncitizens. SAVE relies on notoriously patchy and unaccountable datasets and was not designed for voter verification; it could bar many US citizens from voting and expose their data to breaches and misuse. | $tags:election data;data consolidation; | ||
| Oct 31, 2025 | Two nonprofit organizations, Campaign Legal Center and American Oversight, sue DHS, the Social Security Administration, and USCIS for information on the transformation of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) tool into a consolidated — but dangerously incomplete — voter verification system (Campaign Legal Center v. SSA; Campaign Legal Center v. USCIS; Campaign Legal Center v. DHS and USCIS). | $cases: Campaign Legal Center v. Social Security Administration; Campaign Legal Center v. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Campaign Legal Center v. DHS and Citizenship and Immigration Services | $tags:lawsuits; election data;data consolidation; | |
| Oct 31, 2025 | 404 Media publishes a Department of Homeland Security document stating that DHS agents will not permit anyone to refuse to have their faces scanned by ICE and CBP agents using Mobile Fortify, a facial recognition app that will store images for 15 years. | $tags:biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Oct 31, 2025 | The CFPB fails an annual cybersecurity audit (PDF) conducted by the Federal Reserve’s Office of Inspector General, receiving a score of 2 out of 5, down from 4 the previous year. The audit says staff departures and reduced contractor support contributed to the agency’s cybersecurity failures. | $tags:security failures;staffing sabotage; | ||
| Oct 29, 2025 | IRS documents reveal that ICE requested information about 1.27 million taxpayers, more than 47,000 of whom the IRS deemed matches for people ICE was seeking (Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS). | $cases: Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS | $tags:lawsuits;data consolidation; | |
| Oct 27, 2025 | Federal judge Jamal Whitehead cancels the DOJ subpoena for employee, billing, and patient data from telehealth provider QueerDoc, including data about which patients received puberty blockers or hormone therapy (QueerDoc v. DOJ). | $cases: QueerDoc v. DOJ | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| Oct 16, 2025 | Three major labor unions sue the Trump administration over its massive inter-agency effort to continuously surveil the social media activities of more than 55 million visa holders and silence those who express dissent (UAW v. Department of State). | $cases: UAW v. Department of State | $tags:lawsuits; | |
| Oct 15, 2025 | Judge Cheney grants a preliminary injunction to keep 22 states from sharing sensitive data about SNAP beneficiaries with the Department of Agriculture, even as 27 states already shared this information for over 15.7 million people, representing 38% of SNAP enrollees (California v. USDA). | $cases: California v. USDA | $tags:lawsuits;biometrics and identity data; | |
| Oct 14, 2025 | Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, sends a letter (PDF) to the acting director of CISA requesting information about the state of CISA’s workforce and demanding an end to efforts to cut its size. Swalwell cites concerns about insufficient personnel to ensure the nation’s cybersecurity. | $tags:congressional opposition;staffing sabotage;destroying data regulators and protections; | ||
| Oct 10, 2025 | The California Faculty Association (CFA) sues the California State University (CSU) system to block the board of trustees from giving faculty members’ personal information to federal agencies without first providing notice and an opportunity to challenge the release. The lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court was brought after CSU shared data about 2,600 staff from its Los Angeles campus with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as part of an investigation of alleged antisemitism (CFA v. Cal State). | $cases: California Faculty Association v. Board of Trustees of Cal State University | $tags:lawsuits;biometrics and identity data;targeting protesters and observers; | |
| Oct 10, 2025 | Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) employees within the Department of Homeland Security are among approximately 4,200 federal workers laid off during the ongoing government shutdown. This is in addition to employees being pushed out through mandatory relocation orders, often to roles and divisions outside their areas of expertise. | $tags:destroying data regulators and protections;staffing sabotage; | ||
| Oct 9, 2025 | The Department of Labor plans to pilot a platform to collect unemployment insurance claims as it considers creating a national database of such claims, moving the responsibility from individual states and expanding the federal government’s access to highly sensitive personal data. | $tags:data consolidation; | ||
| Oct 3, 2025 | WIRED reports that ICE is planning to expand social media surveillance, making preparations to staff two 24/7 centers with analysts who will review social media platforms and develop profiles that can be used to assist the agency with arrests. | $tags: | ||
| Oct 3, 2025 | The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest government union, sues the Department of Education over the administration’s unauthorized use of agency systems to replace employees’ out-of-office messages with political text blaming Democrats for the government shutdown (AFGE v. DOE). | $cases: American Federation of Government Employees v. Department of Education | $tags:lawsuits;improper access; | |
| Oct 1, 2025 | Despite having "grave concerns about federal overreach,” a South Carolina judge refuses to block the state election commission from providing voter information to the Department of Justice while the commission works to establish an agreement on what safeguards will be put in place for the use of that data (Crook v. SC Election Commission). | $cases: Crook v. SC Election Commission | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Sep 30, 2025 | The Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts and three other organizations that serve immigrants sue five federal agencies (PDF) — the IRS, the Treasury, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and ICE — alleging that they are sharing protected data for immigration enforcement purposes (Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts v. Bessent). | $cases: Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts v. Bessent | $tags:lawsuits;data consolidation; | |
| Sep 30, 2025 | The League of Women Voters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and five anonymous individuals represented by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) file a class action lawsuit (PDF) challenging the legality of USCIS’s expansion of its SAVE citizenship verification program into a new data lake consolidating sensitive information from multiple agencies (League of Women Voters v. DHS). | $cases: League of Women Voters v. DHS | $tags:lawsuits; election data;data consolidation; | |
| Sep 30, 2025 | The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency confirms it is withdrawing support from MS-ISAC, the security collaboration program for local and state election agencies that it had threatened to defund in August. | $tags:destroying data regulators and protections; | ||
| Sep 30, 2025 | A federal judge dismisses a lawsuit brought by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach to block Governor Laura Kelly from sharing the state’s SNAP beneficiary information with the USDA. | $tags:lawsuits;state and local government opposition; | ||
| Sep 29, 2025 | Nextgov reports that hackers who accessed remote desktop software on servers at the Federal Emergency Management Agency accessed employee data from that agency and from Customs and Border Protection between June 22 and July 16, when staffers began blocking the attack. | $tags:security failures;improper access; | ||
| Sep 25, 2025 | Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security & Government Affairs Committee release the results of an extensive investigation (PDF) finding DOGE’s activities at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the General Service Administration (GSA), and the Social Security Administration (SSA) violate multiple laws and create the possibility of a data breach affecting all Americans. The report recommends that the Inspectors General at these agencies remove DOGE’s access to all sensitive data until they verify legal compliance. | $tags:DOGE;congressional opposition;security failures; | ||
| Sep 25, 2025 | The DOJ sues California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania over their refusal to disclose individual voters’ personal information, including addresses, driver’s license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers (US v. Weber; US v. Benson; US v. Simon; US v. New York US v. New Hampshire; US v. Pennsylvania). | $cases: US v. Weber; US v. Benson; US v. Simon; US v. New York; US v. New Hampshire; US v. Pennsylvania | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Sep 24, 2025 | The General Service Administration’s Office of Inspector General announces plans to audit whether DOGE’s actions at the agency — including shutting down the technology and data office 18F — were “in compliance with regulations, guidance, and agreements.” | $tags:DOGE;destroying data regulators and protections; | ||
| Sep 24, 2025 | 404 Media and Freedom of the Press Foundation sue DHS to enforce a FOIA request for an interagency agreement that reportedly discloses the personal data of 80 million Medicaid beneficiaries to ICE (FPF v. DHS). | $cases: Freedom of the Press Foundation v. DHS | $tags:lawsuits;private medical data;data consolidation; | |
| Sep 23, 2025 | Nebraska state officials agree to hold off on sharing voter data with the Department of Justice until a lawsuit brought by Common Cause to block the release of the state’s full registration list is settled (Common Cause v. Evnen). | $cases: Common Cause v. Evnen | $tags:lawsuits; election data; | |
| Sep 22, 2025 | 404 Media sues ICE to demand the publication of its $2 million contract with Paragon Solutions, a surveillance company that makes spyware capable of accessing mobile messaging apps (404 Media v. ICE). | $cases: 404 Media v. ICE | $tags:lawsuits; corporate collusion; | |
| Sep 18, 2025 | A federal district court judge issues a temporary restraining order blocking the USDA from collecting data about SNAP applicants. The order applies to a coalition of states suing the USDA, with the exception of Nevada, which fully complied with the USDA’s data request (California v. USDA). | $cases: California v. USDA | $tags:lawsuits;data consolidation; | |
| Sep 16, 2025 | A coalition led by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) files a lawsuit (PDF) against the Trump administration and federal government to block illegal federal funding cuts and harmful policies that infringe on their rights, such as UC Berkeley giving the Department of Education the names of 160 individuals associated with “alleged antisemitic incidents” (AAUP v. Trump). | $cases: American Association of University Professors v. Trump | $tags:lawsuits;targeting protesters and observers; | |
| Sep 16, 2025 | The DOJ files lawsuits against Maine and Oregon in an effort to force the states to provide detailed voter registration data (US v. Bellows; US v. Oregon). | $cases: US v. Bellows; US v. Oregon | $tags:lawsuits;election data; | |
| Sep 16, 2025 | The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union send a demand letter and records request (PDF) to the San Francisco Police Department, in response to reports that out-of-state law enforcement, including federal authorities, had access to the city’s automated license plate reader data, likely in violation of California law. | $tags:improper access;local law enforcement collusion; | ||
| Sep 15, 2025 | Arizona’s attorney general limits ICE’s access to a database of US–Mexico wire transfers that it had used to target immigrants. | $tags:state and local government opposition;improper access; | ||
| Sep 15, 2025 | The OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs approves a proposed rule expanding CBP’s pilot biometric exit program to all airports, seaports, and border crossing points. The program uses facial recognition technology to check that photos taken by federal agents as international travelers are leaving match the photos in their travel documents. | $tags:biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Sep 12, 2025 | The Department of Justice (DOJ) confirms that it is sharing state voter registration data with DHS in an effort to identify noncitizens on voter rolls, despite the fact that noncitizen voting is vanishingly rare. | $tags:election data;data consolidation; | ||
| Sep 11, 2025 | Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee launch an inquiry seeking information about a whistleblower report that DOGE staffers stored Social Security data on a vulnerable cloud server. | $tags:DOGE;congressional opposition;security failures;whistleblowers and leaks; | ||
| Sep 11, 2025 | Nine Democratic Senators send a letter to ICE Director Todd Lyons (PDF) asking the agency to provide detailed information on its use of the Mobile Fortify face-scanning app and to stop using the facial recognition software that enables “Super Queries” of multiple government databases. | $tags:data consolidation;biometrics and identity data;congressional opposition; | ||
| Sep 9, 2025 | The Wall Street Journal reports that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials are trying to waive medical data privacy protections as part of an effort to compile information about the “harmful effects” of COVID vaccines on pregnant women. | $tags:private medical data; improper access; | ||
| Sep 9, 2025 | Public Service Alliance (PSA), a company founded in 2024 to serve current and former government employees, launches an online marketplace. The platform provides free and discounted services including online data removal, legal counsel, and threat monitoring. | $tags: | ||
| Sep 5, 2025 | In a lawsuit challenging the release of taxpayer data to ICE, federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly orders the IRS to give the court 24 hours’ notice before complying with future ICE requests for taxpayer data (Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS). | $cases: Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS | $tags:lawsuits;data consolidation; | |
| Sep 4, 2025 | UC Berkeley notifies roughly 160 students, faculty, and staff, including the prominent philosopher Judith Butler, that it shared their names with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in compliance with an investigation of alleged antisemitism on campus. A Truthout analysis of the December 2024 compliance resolution agreement reveals that University of California campuses in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Davis, and Santa Cruz are also targets in the investigation. | $cases: American Association of University Professors v. Trump | $tags:lawsuits;targeting protesters and observers; | |
| Sep 4, 2025 | The Department of Justice sues Boston over the city’s TRUST Act, which limits local law enforcement’s ability to share individuals’ personal information and immigration status with ICE, in the midst of a wider debate around an agreement to fund the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) — which might facilitate such data-sharing. | $cases: United States v. City of Boston | $tags:lawsuits; | |
| Aug 27, 2025 | Former IRS Chief Privacy Officer Kathleen Walters says in an interview that the agency’s deal to share the tax data of 700,000 immigrants with DHS failed to comply with privacy laws. | $tags:data consolidation; | ||
| Aug 26, 2025 | In a whistleblower complaint, Social Security Administration Chief Data Officer Charles Borges reveals that DOGE staffers uploaded the entire Social Security database of more than 300 million current names, addresses, and Social Security numbers to a “vulnerable” cloud server — leaving the personal information of nearly all Americans at risk of leaks or hacking. Borges is forced to resign from his position shortly afterward. | $tags:DOGE;security failures;whistleblowers and leaks; | ||
| Aug 25, 2025 | 404 Media reports that CBP has access to 80,000 Flock license plate reader cameras nationwide. Flock acknowledges that it has failed to “ensure local compliance” and announces it is pausing “all ongoing federal pilots” in response. | $tags:exploiting commercial data; | ||
| Aug 22, 2025 | Democratic Senator Ed Markey (MA) sends a letter to Small Business Association (SBA) Administrator Kelly Loeffler demanding information about the unauthorized “DOGE AI Deregulation Decision Tool.” Markey asks whether DOGE is using confidential data to train the system, following reports that DOGE fed SBA regulations into the AI tool and found that 85% of them should be removed or changed. | $tags:DOGE;congressional opposition;exploiting AI;improper access; | ||
| Aug 19, 2025 | The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announce a plan to disenroll individuals from Medicaid if their citizenship cannot be verified through existing databases, including the DHS Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program. | $tags:data consolidation; | ||
| Aug 15, 2025 | Attorney General Pam Bondi launches an investigation of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook for alleged mortgage fraud, using Cook’s personal data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHSA). The suit follows similar moves against administration opponents Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) and NY Attorney General Letitia James. | $tags:targeting political opponents; | ||
| Aug 15, 2025 | The DC Circuit Court of Appeals overturns the March preliminary injunction protecting CFPB workers from mass firings but suspends the ruling pending further appeal (NTEU v. Vought). | $cases: National Treasury Employees Union v. Vought | $tags:lawsuits;staffing sabotage;destroying data regulators and protections; | |
| Aug 12, 2025 | A federal judge orders the Department of Health and Human Services to pause its program sharing data on Medicaid beneficiaries from 20 states with immigration authorities (California v. HHS). | $cases: California v. HHS | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| Aug 11, 2025 | The 4th Circuit overturns a preliminary injunction, granting DOGE unfettered access to sensitive data at the Treasury Department, the Education Department, and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) (AFT v. Bessent). | $cases: American Federation of Teachers v. Bessent | $tags:lawsuits; DOGE;improper access; | |
| Aug 8, 2025 | Democratic Representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL) and Robert Garcia (CA) launch an investigation (PDF) into reports that license plate–reader data from Flock surveillance cameras has been shared with police by Home Depot and Lowe’s, large home improvement stores that have been common sites of ICE raids on day laborers. | $tags:congressional opposition;exploiting commercial data;corporate collusion; | ||
| Aug 8, 2025 | The IRS begins sharing data with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This comes just hours after Trump removes IRS commissioner Billy Long, who had reportedly refused to disclose much of the requested confidential taxpayer information. | $tags:data consolidation;staffing sabotage; | ||
| Aug 7, 2025 | Five associations representing US mayors, cities, counties, sheriffs, and state CIOs write to the leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees (PDF), asking them to continue supporting the security of local government data by restoring funding for MS-ISAC, the cyber security collaboration defunded on August 1. | $tags:state and local government opposition;destroying data regulators and protections; | ||
| Aug 1, 2025 | DHS publishes a notice on state election administration grants that eliminates federal funding for cybersecurity collaboration between states, following federal budget cuts for the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), which coordinates this collaboration. | $tags:destroying data regulators and protections; | ||
| Jul 31, 2025 | The NIH appears to be moving ahead (PDF) with yet another version of its autism tracking initiative, this time by reviving a Biden-era data-aggregation program to track Alzheimer’s disease that was shelved after poor audit results. | $tags:private medical data; | ||
| Jul 30, 2025 | The Trump administration announces a new health data monitoring system that collects private information from healthcare and tech companies. | $tags:private medical data;exploiting commercial data; | ||
| Jul 30, 2025 | Health Department officials in New Hampshire and Vermont comply with the USDA deadline to share confidential data about SNAP recipients — including names, addresses, and Social Security numbers — with the federal government, despite an ongoing legal challenge filed against the USDA order by 22 other states. | $tags:data consolidation;biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Jul 30, 2025 | Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Ron Wyden (OR), and Elizabeth Warren (MA) introduce the Pick Up After Your DOGE Act, calling for a Government Accountability Office audit that would require the DOGE administrator to account for all data and systems accessed. | $tags:DOGE;congressional opposition;improper access; | ||
| Jul 29, 2025 | The Maine Secretary of State holds a press conference telling the DOJ to “go jump in the Gulf of Maine” (video) in response to a request to submit the state’s voter registration list. | $tags:election data;state and local government opposition; | ||
| Jul 28, 2025 | A coalition of Attorneys General for 22 states sues the USDA, challenging its plans to require states to disclose personal information about SNAP recipients (California v. USDA). | $cases: California v. USDA | $tags:lawsuits;biometrics and identity data; | |
| Jul 23, 2025 | The President unveils an “A.I. Action Plan” and signs an executive order preventing the federal government from procuring AI tools that “favor…ideological dogmas such as DEI.” | $tags:exploiting AI; | ||
| Jul 17, 2025 | Senator Ron Wyden (OR) sends an inquiry to DHS and DOJ about reports that DNA samples from 130,000 migrants under 18 were added to an FBI database of people suspected or convicted of criminal activity. | $tags:congressional opposition;private medical data; | ||
| Jul 17, 2025 | 404 Media details information from the user manual of Mobile Fortify, ICE’s new facial recognition app, which allows officers to instantly search DHS, State Department, and state law enforcement databases by just pointing a phone at someone’s face. | $tags:biometrics and identity data;data consolidation; | ||
| Jul 17, 2025 | San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto refuses a request from Attorney General Pam Bondi to turn over a list of non-citizen inmates from San Francisco country jails, saying that, “If the federal government has a legal reason to arrest someone, they can do so by obtaining a criminal warrant or court order.” | $tags:state and local government opposition; | ||
| Jul 17, 2025 | A group of Senators led by Martin Heinrich push for a Protect DREAMer Confidentiality Act that would limit data from DACA applicants from being used for immigration enforcement purposes. | $tags:congressional opposition; | ||
| Jul 16, 2025 | The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) announces a no-bid contract with Palantir for “the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into the field of geospatial intelligence” including GPS data and satellite imagery. | $tags:exploiting AI;corporate collusion; | ||
| Jul 16, 2025 | American Oversight files multiple lawsuits against various federal agencies in an attempt to identify DOGE staffers in light of the “unprecedented authority” they have exercised with regard to “access to sensitive data systems.” | $tags:DOGE;improper access;lawsuits; | ||
| Jul 15, 2025 | Democratic Senators Alex Padilla (CA), Gary Peters (MI), and Jeff Merkley (OR) send a letter to Kristi Noem about the new citizenship data program, expressing concern that it did not go through any of the required disclosure processes, including comment periods and detailing of operations and safeguards. | $tags:congressional opposition;data consolidation; | ||
| Jul 15, 2025 | ProPublica obtains the blueprint for a new IRS program that shares unprecedented amounts of taxpayer data with ICE, and which allows “on-demand” access to information for people the department seeks to remove. | $tags:data consolidation; | ||
| Jul 14, 2025 | ICE and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sign an information-sharing agreement that gives ICE access to information about the 79 million Medicaid enrollees in the US, with the aim of gathering “information concerning the identity and location of aliens in the United States.” | $tags:data consolidation;private medical data; | ||
| Jul 11, 2025 | The State Department breaks apart the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy in a move security experts criticize as weakening US defenses. | $tags:destroying data regulators and protections; | ||
| Jul 10, 2025 | NPR reports that a DOGE staffer at the USDA has gained access to a key payments system that manages billions of dollars in payments and loans to farmers. | $tags:DOGE;improper access; | ||
| Jul 9, 2025 | Reports surface that ICE is using a database of car- and health-insurance claims containing “peoples’ names, addresses, telephone and tax identification numbers, license plates, and other sensitive personal information” to find and target immigrants. | $tags:private medical data;biometrics and identity data;improper access; | ||
| Jul 9, 2025 | The USDA notifies states about a new requirement to disclose information on state SNAP recipients. | $tags:data consolidation; | ||
| Jul 9, 2025 | Peter Hatch, an ICE director of Homeland Security Investigations, testifies that the agency used a private website targeting pro-Palestinian activists to identify student protestors for immigration enforcement efforts. | $tags:targeting protesters and observers; | ||
| Jul 8, 2025 | QueerDoc and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia separately ask courts to cancel subpoenas from the DOJ for extensive patient, employee, and billing data related to gender-affirming care (QueerDoc v. DOJ; In Re: Subpoena No. 25-1431-014). | $cases: QueerDoc v. DOJ; Challenge to DOJ Subpoena of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| Jul 1, 2025 | California leads 19 other states in suing the Trump administration for sharing Medicaid data with immigration officials. The suit alleges that such data sharing violates the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) (California v. HHS). | $cases: California v. HHS | $tags:lawsuits; private medical data; | |
| Jul 1, 2025 | Customs and Border Protection reveals that it is looking for tech companies to provide tools to access data from phones, laptops, and other devices seized at the border. | $tags:exploiting commercial data; | ||
| Jun 30, 2025 | The National Personnel Records Center releases a largely unredacted version of Democratic Representative Mikie Sherrill’s military record, including her Social Security number, to an ally of her GOP opponent in the New Jersey governor’s race, in violation of standard operating procedures. | $tags:targeting political opponents; | ||
| Jun 29, 2025 | DOGE begins work on a national citizenship database, integrating data from immigration agencies and the Social Security Administration. | $tags:DOGE;data consolidation; | ||
| Jun 26, 2025 | ICE rolls out a new “facial recognition” mobile app that can purportedly identify people using only a smartphone camera. The software is based on an existing app used by Customs and Border Protection agents to scan people entering the country. | $tags:biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Jun 25, 2025 | Flock — the automated license plate–reader database being used by ICE to target immigrants for deportation — reportedly restricts access to nationwide searches in some states in order to comply with state laws that prevent data sharing for immigration purposes. | $tags:exploiting commercial data; | ||
| Jun 24, 2025 | American Oversight sues the Trump administration seeking release of all records related to DOGE’s data access at the Treasury Department and Social Security Administration (American Oversight v. US Department of Treasury). | $cases: American Oversight v. US Department of Treasury | $tags:lawsuits; DOGE;improper access; | |
| Jun 20, 2025 | During an oversight visit (PDF), OPM Chief Information Officer Greg Hogan tells Senate Homeland Security & Government Affairs Committee (HSGAC) staff that OPM has made no changes in response to the June 9 injunction in AFGE v. OPM, which required OPM to stop sharing personal data with DOGE. | $tags:DOGE;defying court orders; | ||
| Jun 19, 2025 | A federal judge overturns a Biden-era expansion of privacy rules aimed at protecting medical records related to abortion and gender-affirming care. | $tags:private medical data; | ||
| Jun 14, 2025 | Governor Bob Ferguson of Washington protests data sharing between HHS and the Department of Homeland Security, which exposed Washington state Medicaid beneficiaries’ data to immigration authorities. | $tags:state and local government opposition;data consolidation; | ||
| Jun 13, 2025 | Governor Gavin Newsom of California takes issue with reports that HHS shared data about Medicaid beneficiaries in California with the Department of Homeland Security in a “legally dubious” maneuver that “will jeopardize the safety, health, and security of those who will undoubtedly be targeted by this abuse, and Americans more broadly.” | $tags:state and local government opposition; | ||
| Jun 11, 2025 | The USDA bypasses privacy safeguards and sets up a new SNAP information database in order to collect personally identifiable information about SNAP recipients, including birthdates, addresses, and Social Security numbers. | $tags:data consolidation;biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Jun 10, 2025 | Reports surface of data sharing between the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and immigration authorities, which could facilitate arrest and deportation of immigrants. | $tags:data consolidation; | ||
| Jun 9, 2025 | A federal judge orders OPM to cease sharing data from federal employee records with DOGE staffers, citing concerns that doing so violates the Privacy Act (AFGE v. OPM). | $cases: American Federation of Government Employees v. OPM | $tags:lawsuits; DOGE;improper access; | |
| Jun 6, 2025 | The CDC tells state public health officials that it is shifting disease reporting to the Foundry software system managed by Palantir, raising alarms that sensitive health data could be exposed or misused. | $tags:private medical data; | ||
| Jun 6, 2025 | The Supreme Court grants a temporary stay of lower court orders restricting DOGE’s access to Social Security Administration data and systems, effectively allowing DOGE continued access to sensitive SSA data (AFSCME v. SSA). | $cases: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees v. Social Security Administration | $tags:lawsuits; DOGE;improper access; | |
| Jun 5, 2025 | ICE agents in Puerto Rico are reported making use of driver’s license data to target immigrants, despite the transportation agency claiming that they have no collaboration agreements with other agencies. | $tags:biometrics and identity data;improper access; | ||
| Jun 4, 2025 | Senate Democrats introduce the Protecting Seniors’ Data Act of 2025, asking for a comprehensive audit of DOGE’s interactions with all Social Security Administration systems, in an effort to uncover if DOGE has violated the Privacy Act or the Federal Information Security Management Act. | $tags:DOGE;congressional opposition;improper access; | ||
| May 30, 2025 | Reports surface that the government will pay $113 million for Palantir’s Foundry software, which facilitates consolidation of data from multiple agencies. Thirteen former Palantir employees protest the deal (PDF) and assert that “Data that is collected for one reason should not be repurposed for other uses. Combining all that data, even with the noblest of intentions, significantly increases the risk of misuse.” | $tags:corporate collusion;data consolidation; | ||
| May 29, 2025 | WIRED reports that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has collected DNA samples from over 130,000 children, some as young as four, and uploaded the data to an FBI-run database designed to track sex offenders and violent criminals. | $tags:private medical data;biometrics and identity data; | ||
| May 28, 2025 | During an oversight visit (PDF), General Services Administration (GSA) staff refuse to give the Senate Homeland Security & Government Affairs Committee (HSGAC) information about a Starlink system operating outside of ordinary network controls at GSA. | $tags:obstructing oversight;security failures; | ||
| May 25, 2025 | 404 Media reports that ICE has gained “side-door” access to Flock, an automated license plate–reader database, and is using it for immigration enforcement. | $tags:exploiting commercial data;improper access; | ||
| May 22, 2025 | US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announces that they have integrated Social Security data with an immigration database for the purpose of identifying election fraud. | $tags:data consolidation; | ||
| May 22, 2025 | Recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) sue the Department of Agriculture (USDA) over its demand for sensitive data about food assistance recipients, arguing it violates privacy laws (Pallek v. Rollins). | $cases: Pallek v. Rollins | $tags:biometrics and identity data;lawsuits; | |
| May 20, 2025 | Democratic Senators including Mark Warner introduce the Defending Our Government’s Electronic data: Bolstering Responsible Oversight & Safeguards (DOGE BROS) Act to increase penalties for breaking existing privacy laws. | $tags:congressional opposition;DOGE; | ||
| May 16, 2025 | The GAO successfully blocks an effort by DOGE to place DOGE staffers in the GAO, potentially undermining their auditing effort. House Democrats write to DOGE (PDF) in alarm at the attempt, noting that the GAO is “an independent agency within the Legislative Branch.” | $tags:congressional opposition;DOGE; | ||
| May 15, 2025 | House Oversight Democrats ask a Treasury Department watchdog to investigate DOGE’s data and IT modernization activities at the IRS following reports in April of an internal “hackathon” at the tax agency. | $tags:congressional opposition;DOGE; | ||
| May 13, 2025 | Acting Director of the CFPB Russell Vought cancels new rules that would have protected Americans’ private data from being sold to data brokers. The rules were intended to prevent marketers from targeting people based on knowledge of their debt, medical history, or their employment in the government or military. | $tags:destroying data regulators and protections;exploiting commercial data; | ||
| May 7, 2025 | The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announces a partnership between the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS) to “understand autism through secure access to Medicaid and Medicare data.” How this new partnership differs from the previously announced — and then retracted — creation of an “autism registry” remains unclear. | $tags:data consolidation;private medical data; | ||
| Apr 29, 2025 | The comptroller of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an agency known as the “Congressional watchdog,” testifies to the Senate that they are auditing DOGE’s “digital footprint” across various agencies. | $tags:congressional opposition;DOGE; | ||
| Apr 25, 2025 | The NIH walks back plans to make an autism registry, days after the proposal was first announced. | $tags:private medical data; | ||
| Apr 24, 2025 | More than 50 House Democrats sign a letter requesting answers from the National Labor Relations Board about the NLRB whistleblower report that surfaced on April 15. | $tags:congressional opposition;DOGE;whistleblowers and leaks; | ||
| Apr 23, 2025 | New York State Police give ICE access to the Gang Reporting and Intelligence Program (GRIP), a database of alleged gang members, which US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can use to target people for deportation. The database makes use of low quality, speculative criteria such as tattoos and clothing. | $tags:data consolidation;local law enforcement collusion; | ||
| Apr 23, 2025 | American Oversight, a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog organization, sues DOGE and Trump officials for violating the Federal Records Act. The suit calls out the use of unapproved software like Google Docs and the encrypted-messaging app Signal as an attempt to illegally bypass federal recordkeeping laws (American Oversight v. DOGE). | $cases: American Oversight v. DOGE | $tags:DOGE;lawsuits;security failures; | |
| Apr 21, 2025 | The National Institutes of Health announces a plan to create an autism registry connecting data from such disparate sources as pharmacy medication records, test results from patients treated at the VA and Indian Health Service, private insurance claims, and even from smartwatches and fitness trackers. | $tags:data consolidation;private medical data; | ||
| Apr 21, 2025 | The ACLU sues the Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs in an effort to enforce Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filings from February, as they seek to unearth information about DOGE’s access to Americans’ sensitive information (ACLU v. SSA). | $cases: ACLU v. SSA | $tags:DOGE;lawsuits;improper access; | |
| Apr 18, 2025 | WIRED reports that DOGE is working on a master database intended to track and surveil immigrants, linking information from previously separate databases across US Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS), the IRS, the Social Security Administration, and voting records from Pennsylvania and Florida. A source tells WIRED that “DOGE staffers are not abiding by our nation’s privacy and cybersecurity laws and their actions are more in line with tactics used by adversaries waging an attack on US government systems.” | $tags:data consolidation;DOGE;biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Apr 17, 2025 | Ranking member of the House Oversight Committee Gerald Connolly sends a letter (PDF) to the acting Inspector General of the Social Security Administration about a whistleblower’s report that DOGE is leading an effort to compile data from the SSA and multiple other federal agencies into a massive master database, in contravention of the Privacy Act. The whistleblower noted that staff had been seen with “backpacks full of laptops” containing sensitive data. | $tags:congressional opposition;data consolidation;DOGE;whistleblowers and leaks; | ||
| Apr 17, 2025 | A federal judge restricts DOGE access to Social Security data, noting that “rooting out possible fraud, waste, and mismanagement in the SSA is in the public interest. But, that does not mean that the government can flout the law to do so” (AFSCME v. SSA). | $cases: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees v. Social Security Administration | $tags:DOGE;lawsuits;improper access; | |
| Apr 16, 2025 | Forty-eight Democrats led by Representative Don Beyer send a letter (PDF) to Russell Vought demanding information about how DOGE has used AI technologies. | $tags:congressional opposition;DOGE;exploiting AI; | ||
| Apr 15, 2025 | A whistleblower from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) tells the press that DOGE has extracted large amounts of data from labor complaints. The whistleblower subsequently receives a threat — which itself contains sensitive information — taped to the front door of their home. | $tags:DOGE;improper access;whistleblowers and leaks; | ||
| Apr 14, 2025 | The National Consumers League warns about the dangers of DOGE’s infiltration of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC): “By interfering with the FTC’s ability to protect the public — especially children’s data — from harmful privacy violations, fraud, and anti-competitive practices, DOGE has crossed the line.” | $tags:destroying data regulators and protections;DOGE; | ||
| Apr 10, 2025 | ICE reveals it is paying $30 million to Palantir to build a tool that offers “near real-time visibility into instances of self-deporation” and also identifies candidates prioritized for removal. | $tags:corporate collusion;data consolidation; | ||
| Apr 10, 2025 | WIRED reports DOGE has access to information from the Department of Labor (DOL) regarding migrant farm workers, visa applicants, and formerly incarcerated people who have received workforce assistance. | $tags:DOGE;improper access; | ||
| Apr 8, 2025 | DOGE staffers reportedly stage a “hackathon” at the IRS, aiming to create a “mega API” that would connect IRS data to other federal systems. Such a system would necessarily interact with a significant amount of sensitive data, including taxpayer names, Social Security numbers, tax returns, and employment data. | $tags:data consolidation;DOGE;biometrics and identity data; | ||
| Apr 8, 2025 | A DOGE staffer at the Social Security Administration runs a script to intentionally add living immigrants to the SSA’s “death file,” effectively preventing them from working, banking, or using a credit card. | $tags:DOGE;improper access; | ||
| Apr 8, 2025 | Acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Kraus resigns following the approval of plans to share IRS data with the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to target immigrants for deportation. Kraus is the third IRS Commissioner to depart since January. | $tags:data consolidation;resignations in protest; | ||
| Apr 7, 2025 | The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals grants the government a stay in American Federation of Teachers v. Bessent, allowing DOGE to continue to access data at the IRS and Department of Education (AFT v. Bessent). | $cases: American Federation of Teachers v. Bessent | $tags:DOGE;lawsuits;improper access; | |
| Mar 31, 2025 | Democratic Senators Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, and Chris Van Hollen introduce the Privacy Act Modernization Act of 2025 to block “recent DOGE and Trump Administration actions by closing loopholes and strengthening the remedies available to Americans who have been harmed by DOGE actions” (PDF). | $tags:congressional opposition;DOGE; | ||
| Mar 31, 2025 | DOGE staffers reportedly gain access to the Federal Personnel and Payroll System, which contains 276,000 payroll records including sensitive employee information. Two senior IT officials who objected to giving DOGE access on the grounds that it would expose the government to cyberattacks are placed on leave. | $tags:DOGE;improper access;staffing sabotage; | ||
| Mar 28, 2025 | Judge Amy Berman Jackson issues a preliminary injunction voiding the stop-work order for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and ordering that employees be reinstated (NTEU v. Vought). | $cases: National Treasury Employees Union v. Vought | $tags:lawsuits;destroying data regulators and protections;staffing sabotage; | |
| Mar 25, 2025 | Trump signs an executive order mandating that all federal agencies cease direct payments and instead issue electronic payments through the US Treasury, effectively requiring extensive data sharing with the Treasury Department without any privacy safeguards. | $tags:data consolidation; | ||
| Mar 25, 2025 | Trump signs an executive order about election integrity, which includes a section on “enforcing the citizenship requirement for federal elections” and requires the Attorney General to prioritize enforcement using information from Department of Homeland Security databases and state-issued identification records. | $tags:data consolidation;election data; | ||
| Mar 24, 2025 | In the teacher’s union suit, a federal judge issues a preliminary injunction prohibiting DOGE from accessing sensitive data at the Department of Education, OPM, and the Treasury Department (AFT v. Bessent). | $cases: American Federation of Teachers v. Bessent | $tags:DOGE;lawsuits;improper access; | |
| Mar 20, 2025 | Trump signs an executive order requiring data sharing across government agencies. | $tags:data consolidation; | ||
| Mar 13, 2025 | The Trump administration fires William Paul, the Acting Chief Counsel of the IRS, and replaces him with an attorney thought to be supportive of DOGE. Paul reportedly raised objections to DOGE’s efforts to share tax information with other agencies. | $tags:staffing sabotage;data consolidation; | ||
| Mar 12, 2025 | Ranking Member Gerald Connolly of the House Oversight Committee sends investigatory letters to 24 federal agencies about DOGE’s use of unauthorized, third-party AI tools to process people’s sensitive data. | $tags:congressional opposition;DOGE;exploiting AI; | ||
| Mar 11, 2025 | Congressional Democrats create a standardized form (PDF) for citizens to request that DOGE disclose all personal information it has collected on them, in accordance with the Privacy Act. | $tags:congressional opposition;DOGE; | ||
| Mar 10, 2025 | In CREW v. DOGE, a federal judge grants one part of a preliminary injunction request, finding that DOGE is likely subject to FOIA and ordering it to fulfill CREW’s request for records “on an expedited timetable” (CREW v. DOGE). | $cases: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. DOGE | $tags:DOGE;lawsuits;obstructing oversight; | |
| Mar 1, 2025 | The Trump administration shuts down 18F, an internal technology team whose mission was to improve government digital services, including data security practices. In a letter terminating the employees, DOGE staffer Thomas Shedd claims that 18F had been deemed “non-critical.” | $tags:destroying data regulators and protections;DOGE;staffing sabotage; | ||
| Feb 27, 2025 | Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Melanie Stansbury send an official letter to Elon Musk “demanding answers after two incidents in security failures of the DOGE.gov website, and reports that DOGE employees shared sensitive government information over insecure communications channels.” | $tags:congressional opposition;DOGE;security failures; | ||
| Feb 26, 2025 | DOGE reportedly gains access to confidential records from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), including sensitive information about survivors of domestic violence and people who have filed discrimination reports. | $tags:DOGE;improper access; | ||
| Feb 25, 2025 | Twenty-one staffers of the US Digital Service (USDS) resign in protest, accusing DOGE of “mishandling sensitive data” and “breaking critical systems.” | $tags:DOGE;resignations in protest; | ||
| Feb 22, 2025 | Elon Musk sends another all-government-employee email, telling employees to report their activities directly to OPM. The demand raises concerns that information may be shared in ways that violate usual privacy and security standards. | $tags:DOGE;improper access; | ||
| Feb 21, 2025 | The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) sues DOGE and the Trump administration over the administration’s claim that DOGE is subject to the Presidential Records Act, not the Federal Records Act, and is therefore exempt from FOIA requests (POGO v. Trump). | $cases: Project on Government Oversight v. Trump | $tags:DOGE;lawsuits;obstructing oversight; | |
| Feb 21, 2025 | Three unions led by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) sue the Social Security Administration (SSA), arguing that DOGE’s access to sensitive SSA data violates the Constitution. The unions request that DOGE delete information it has collected and cease additional data sharing (AFSCME v. SSA). | $cases: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees v. Social Security Administration | $tags:DOGE;lawsuits;improper access; | |
| Feb 20, 2025 | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sues DOGE (PDF) in an effort to force the agency to comply with unanswered FOIA requests as it seeks to understand DOGE activities at OPM, CFPB, the Treasury Department, and USAID (CREW v. DOGE). | $cases: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. DOGE | $tags:DOGE;lawsuits;obstructing oversight; | |
| Feb 19, 2025 | Trump signs an executive order directing DOGE and OMB to use state and agency data sources in their efforts to restrict immigrants from receiving public benefits and to make it easier to deport them. | $tags:data consolidation;DOGE; | ||
| Feb 18, 2025 | A federal judge denies the restraining order (PDF) requested by the states, allowing DOGE access at most agencies to continue (New Mexico v. Musk). | $cases: New Mexico v. Musk | $tags:DOGE;lawsuits; | |
| Feb 18, 2025 | The lead engineer of Notify.gov, a product from the Technology Transformation Service at the US General Services Administration, resigns in protest over DOGE’s attempts to access data without the legally required safeguards. | $tags:DOGE;improper access;resignations in protest; | ||
| Feb 17, 2025 | The Center for Taxpayer Rights files an emergency federal lawsuit in an attempt to prevent DOGE from illegally accessing taxpayer data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) (Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS). | $cases: Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS | $tags:DOGE;improper access;lawsuits; | |
| Feb 13, 2025 | Fourteen states sue the federal government (PDF), alleging that Elon Musk’s power as leader of DOGE is unconstitutional and requesting an emergency restraining order to prevent DOGE from accessing systems and data (New Mexico v. Musk). | $cases: New Mexico v. Musk | $tags:DOGE;lawsuits; | |
| Feb 12, 2025 | Larry Ellison — the billionaire founder of Oracle, a global leader in database systems — calls for the government to unify its databases for a massive AI-training effort. | $tags:corporate collusion;data consolidation;exploiting AI; | ||
| Feb 11, 2025 | The American Federation of Government Employees and the Association of Administrative Law Judges, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, sue OPM and DOGE for violation of the Privacy Act of 1974, aiming to force DOGE to delete any sensitive data disclosed to them by OPM (AFGE v. OPM). | $cases: American Federation of Government Employees v. OPM | $tags:DOGE;lawsuits;improper access; | |
| Feb 11, 2025 | Representative Haley Stevens introduces the Taxpayer Data Protection Act to safeguard sensitive information in the nation’s payment system and ensure that anyone accessing the system is vetted and free from conflicts of interest. | $tags:congressional opposition;DOGE;improper access; | ||
| Feb 10, 2025 | Labor unions led by the American Federation of Teachers sue the administration to block DOGE from accessing data at the Treasury, Department of Education, and OPM, accusing the administration of breaching the Privacy Act of 1974 (AFT v. Bessent). | $cases: American Federation of Teachers v. Bessent | $tags:DOGE;lawsuits;improper access; | |
| Feb 10, 2025 | The nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) sues DOGE over “its illegal seizure of personnel records and payment system data — actions which constitute the largest data breach in American history” (EPIC v. OPM). | $cases: Electronic Privacy Information Center v. OPM | $tags:lawsuits;improper access;DOGE; | |
| Feb 9, 2025 | The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) sues Russell Vought (PDF), Acting Director of the CFPB, over efforts to dismantle the agency (NTEU v. Vought). | $cases: National Treasury Employees Union v. Vought | $tags:lawsuits;destroying data regulators and protections;staffing sabotage; | |
| Feb 7, 2025 | The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) files Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with more than 40 federal agencies to try to understand 1) the scope of DOGE’s data gathering and 2) “whether DOGE or its representatives have sought or obtained access to databases containing personally identifiable information, financial records, healthcare data, or other sensitive government-held records of Americans.” | $tags:DOGE;data consolidation;improper access; | ||
| Feb 7, 2025 | DOGE staff move to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Established after the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, the CFPB regulates the data held by banks and other financial institutions and protects Americans from fraud. | $tags:DOGE;destroying data regulators and protections; | ||
| Feb 6, 2025 | The Washington Post reports that representatives of DOGE are feeding sensitive Education Department data into AI software, in a purported effort to understand the agency’s spending. | $tags:DOGE;exploiting AI;security failures; | ||
| Feb 5, 2025 | Reports surface that the CIA sent an unclassified email to OPM with a list of all employees hired in the previous two-year period. | $tags:security failures; | ||
| Jan 31, 2025 | DOGE locks the staff of OPM out of their computer systems. This effectively ends all accountability and oversight for DOGE’s actions with sensitive employee data, including Social Security numbers, addresses, and more. | $tags:DOGE;obstructing oversight;improper access; | ||
| Jan 31, 2025 | After serving three decades at the Treasury, career civil servant David Lebryk abruptly retires when DOGE staffers request unrestricted access to government payment systems. | $tags:DOGE;resignations in protest;improper access; | ||
| Jan 31, 2025 | Senator Ron Wyden sends a letter (PDF) to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent requesting information about “disturbing reports that officials associated with Elon Musk and [DOGE] attempted to gain access to systems that control payments to millions of American citizens, including Social Security, Medicare, and tax refunds.” | $tags:congressional opposition;DOGE;improper access; | ||
| Jan 28, 2025 | Elon Musk uses GWES to send the “Fork in the Road” email to every federal employee: an offer to resign and receive six months’ pay, regardless of job duties or status. | $tags:staffing sabotage; | ||
| Jan 27, 2025 | Staffers at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) file a lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order preventing the use of the GWES (Jane Does v. OPM). | $cases: Jane Does v. OPM | $tags:lawsuits;security failures; | |
| Jan 27, 2025 | DOGE staffers develop a new Government Wide Email System (GWES) without following required privacy protocols for federal employee data. | $tags:DOGE;security failures; | ||
| Jan 23, 2025 | Trump signs EO 14179: “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” which removes policy guardrails for use of artificial intelligence in the federal government. | $tags:exploiting AI; | ||
| Jan 20, 2025 | A day-one executive order establishes the new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, placing it within the US Digital Service (USDS). The unusual move to establish the department within the existing executive office structure gives the team immediate, insider access to government systems. | $tags:DOGE;improper access; | ||
| Jan 20, 2025 | Vivek Ramaswamy abruptly departs DOGE. | $tags:DOGE; | ||
| Nov 12, 2024 | One week after the election Trump announces a new “Department of Government Efficiency” to be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. | $tags:DOGE; |
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