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May 1, 2025 
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 | By Suein Hwang Business, Economics and Technology Editor, Opinion |
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Donald Trump has wasted no time in using his power to punish his perceived enemies, whether they’re in government, at law firms or in higher education. Soon he may have a powerful tool to assist him in his efforts: a sprawling surveillance system unlike anything we have ever seen in America.
Such a system would likely be illegal, but that hasn’t stopped Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from tackling the project, grabbing personal data about Americans from dozens of federal databases and reportedly merging it all into a master database at the Department of Homeland Security. In doing so, DOGE is allowing Trump to get perilously close to a feature of many authoritarian regimes: files on everyone in order to punish those who step out of line.
In a guest essay, the Opinion contributing writer Julia Angwin shows us what is happening, what it means and what can be done next.
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