Trump Admin Is Building a Searchable Database to Track Citizens

[justaprogressive]

Donald Trump’s obsession with making sure only citizens vote in elections, despite overwhelming evidence that voter fraud is extremely rare, is reaching its logical conclusion. According to a report from NPR, the Trump administration is in the process of building a searchable national citizenship data system, the first of its kind in the country, with few guardrails in place for how it is used.

According to the report, the database is a collaborative effort between the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Governmental Efficiency, and will be maintained by the DHS’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. The agencies have been working to tie together federal databases to create a system that state and county election officials can use to look up the citizenship status of anyone on their voter lists. The database, which will reportedly contain information about both U.S.-born and naturalized citizens, will use data pulled from the Social Security Administration and immigration databases. Remember that whole showdown DOGE had over its effort to suck up SSA data? That’s feeling mighty relevant right about now.

There are many shocking things about the development of this national database. Chief among them is the fact that its development has happened primarily behind the curtains. Most Americans probably have few doubts that their data is being collected by the government, but would also probably prefer to know what is being done with it. After all, about two-thirds of Americans believe the risk of the government collecting data outweighs the benefits. Now their data is being included in a database that they are unaware of and has no clear restrictions on how it can be used. That’s probably not going to ease anyone’s concerns.

The United States has historically rejected the idea of maintaining a centralized database of its citizens’ information. While there is plenty of data collection that occurs, from the IRS to the Census, that gives us an idea of how many people are in the country and who they are, that has never been used to create a national roster that tells officials every person in the country, biographical information about them, and where they live.

https://gizmodo.com/trump-admin-is-building-a-searchable-database-to-track-citizens-2000622110

[Hugin]

2. This is yet another cog in building...

The McConnellstein Monster’s smite button.

[IcyPeas]

3. Will it include who votes D or R?

[usonian]

4. Fascist playbook! Tech leaders have ZERO conscience and will do anything heinous for money. Example. IBM and Hitler.

From the book "IBM and the Holocaust"

Book site: https://ibmandtheholocaust.com/about-ibm-and-holocaust

IBM and the Holocaust is the stunning story of IBM’s strategic alliance with Nazi Germany—beginning in 1933, in the first weeks that Hitler came to power, and continuing throughout World War II. As the Third Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest and genocide, IBM and its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, step-by-step, from the identification and cataloging programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s.

Only after Jews were identified—a massive and complex task that Hitler wanted done immediately—could they be targeted for efficient asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, enslaved labor, and, ultimately, annihilation. It was a cross-tabulation and organizational challenge so monumental, it called for a computer. Of course, in the 1930s no computer existed.

But IBM’s Hollerith punch card technology did exist. Aided by the company’s custom-designed and constantly updated Hollerith systems, Hitler was able to automate his persecution of the Jews. Historians have always been amazed at the speed and accuracy with which the Nazis were able to identify and locate European Jewry. Until now, the pieces of this puzzle have never been fully assembled. The fact is, IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany and then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations, and ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads and organizing of concentration camp slave labor.

IBM and its German subsidiary custom-designed complex solutions, one by one, anticipating the Reich’s needs. They did not merely sell the machines and walk away. Instead, IBM leased these machines for high fees and became the sole source of the billions of punch cards Hitler needed.

Now, we have nazi-saluting Palantir.