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from the if-you're-not-doing-anything-wrong-you-have-nothing-to-fear dept.
The Real ID Act was passed in 2005 on the grounds that it was necessary for access control of sensitive facilities like nuclear power plants and the security of airline flights. The law imposed standards for state- and territory-issued ID cards in the United States, but was widely criticized as an attempt to create a national ID card and would be harmful to privacy. These concerns are explained well in a 2007 article from the New York Civil Liberties Union:
Real ID threatens privacy in two ways. First, it consolidates Americans' personal information into a network of interlinking databases accessible to the federal government and bureaucrats throughout the 50 states and U.S. territories. This national mega-database would invite government snooping and be a goldmine for identity thieves. Second, it mandates that all driver's licenses and ID cards have an unencrypted "machine-readable zone" that would contain personal information on Americans that could be easily "skimmed" by anybody with a barcode reader.
These concerns are based on what happens when criminals access the data, but also how consolidating data from many government agencies into a central database makes it easier for bad actors within the government to target Americans and violate their civil liberties. These concerns led to a 20 year delay in enforcing Real ID standards nationally, and as a USA Today article from 2025 warns, once Americans' data is stored on a central repository for one purpose, mission creep is likely. If the centralized database is used to make student loan applications and income tax processing more efficient, what's to stop law enforcement from accessing it to identify potential criminals? Over the past two decades, criticism of the Real ID Act has come from across the political spectrum, with many people and organizations on both the left and right decrying it as a serious threat to privacy and civil liberties.
Much of these concerns have never been realized about the Real ID Act, but they are renewed with Executive Order #14143, signed by Donald Trump on March 20, 2025. This directs for the sharing of government data between agencies except when it is classified for national security purposes. The executive order does not include any provisions to protect the privacy of individuals.
Although Trump has not commented on how this data sharing will be achieved, the Trump Administration has hired a company called Palantir to create a central registry of data, which would include a national citizen database. Recent reporting describes a database with wide-ranging information about every American that is generally private:
Foundry's capabilities in data organization and analysis could potentially enable the merging of information from various agencies, thereby creating detailed profiles of American citizens. The Trump administration has attempted to access extensive citizen data from government databases, including bank details, student debt, medical claims, and disability status.
Palantir does not gather data on their own, but they do provide tools to analyze large repositories of data, make inferences about the data, and provide easy-to-use reports. There are serious concerns about the lack of transparency about what data is being integrated into this repository, how it will be used, the potential for tracking people in various segments of the population such as immigrants, and the ability to use this data to target and harass political opponents. Concerns about how Trump's national citizen database will be used echo fears raised from across the political spectrum about the Real ID Act, except that they are apparently now quite close to becoming reality.
Additional reading:
- Trump appears to be building an unprecedented spy machine that could track Americans (MSNBC)
- What is Palantir? The secretive tech company behind Trump's data collection efforts (Mashable)
- Former Palantir workers condemn company's work with Trump administration (NPR)
- Palantir filed to go public. The firm's unethical technology should horrify us (The Guardian)
- The Gleeful Profiteers of Trump's Police State (Mother Jones)
- Donald Trump's Reported Database Move Sparks Alarm: 'Dystopian' (Newsweek)
(Score: 5, Informative) by day of the dalek on Friday June 06 2025, @02:56AM (1 child)
I can't help but notice that you're trying to discredit concerns about an authoritarian government under the Trump Administration as "disinformation". The question is whether there's actually disinformation in the summary.
Regarding the Real ID Act, the summary I wrote clearly mentions that the IDs are issued by the states. The NYCLU article mentions a network of interlinking databases, which refers to the data being held by the states but shared. Section 202 of the Real ID Act [dhs.gov] mandates:
Federal access to the state databases is a bit more implicit in the law, but it does frequently refer to federal use of the Real ID-compliant ID cards. Regardless, this was cited as an example of what people feared would happen with the Real ID act functioning as a de facto national ID card. The NYCLU article was accurately cited as an example of these fears, though the summary explicitly says: "much of these concerns have never been realized about the Real ID Act".
Regarding the data that would be shared as part of the executive order, this was specifically quoted as being "extensive citizen data from government databases, including bank details, student debt, medical claims, and disability status". This does not mention state data, only that a large amount of data would be consolidated, going far beyond what is collected as part of the Real Act:
The relevant state databases do not contain things like bank account information, student loan debt, and medical information. Some of that would be consolidated into a single database based on the Trump Administration's plans. Although I compared it to the privacy concerns with the Real ID Act, the amount and type of data that would be consolidated in Trump's database is actually far more of a threat to privacy.
As for labeling privacy concerns as "disinformation", history has shown that the federal government has often been collecting far more data about citizens than they were willing to acknowledge. Or have you forgotten about Edward Snowden's disclosures about the NSA's activities? Measures initially implemented for the purpose of stopping terrorism, such as those in the Patriot Act, were subsequently used for other purposes like fraud and drug crimes [aclu-wa.org]. Or shall we ignore that mission creep has been a major problem in the past?
Roughly six months ago, you wrote this [soylentnews.org], suggesting that surveillance and data collection under the Biden Administration would be used to target political opponents and other people whom the administration disliked. I see you routinely criticizing Democrats for authoritarian behavior, and rightly so. When they do authoritarian stuff like conducting mass surveillance, they should be opposed. But then you make excuses when the Trump administration also behaves an authoritarian manner. If you don't want an authoritarian government, then you need to condemn authoritarian behavior regardless of who is doing it. Why do you condemn one side while giving the other an absolute free pass? If you don't want an authoritarian government, then you must oppose authoritarian behavior wherever you encounter it, whether it's from Biden, Trump, or anyone else in government.
Looking over my summary, I might have clarified or reorganized things if I edited it again today, but I resent you labeling it as disinformation. That's not even remotely accurate. But it's the double standard about authoritarian behavior that earns you a troll mod. If you're genuinely opposed to authoritarian government, and I hope you are, then you'll need to start criticizing Trump as well. That's because he's running the executive branch, and he's the person who wields a lot of control over whether we actually get an authoritarian government.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday June 06 2025, @10:44AM
Thank you for your careful and insightful summary.