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DOGE Betrays Basic Commitments Of The Privacy Act Of 1974


Musk’s attempts to gain access to agency databases is an egregious violation of the Act, which protects personal information from abuse. 

Sen. Javits warned his fellow lawmakers about the “new menaces of computer data banks and indiscriminate government and private sector dossiers.” Sen. Ervin agreed: “Privacy, like many of the other attributes of freedom, can be easiest appreciated when it no longer exists. As Sen. Birch Bayh (D-Ind) highlighted, everyone, “rich or poor, male or female, right or left in political ideology, whatever one’s cultural style or religious views,” was subject to the “dictatorship of dossiers.” Rep. Don Edwards (D-Calif.), a former navy intelligence officer and FBI special agent, was blunt: “the day of big brother and constant surveillance is already upon us” as “agencies of authority are given unfettered access to these records.” Representative William Alexander, Jr. of Arkansas warned that massive databases of personal data would have a “chilling effect on the exercise of First Amendment rights.” Sen. Goldwater warned that computerized records could be used to “manipulate . social conduct.” Professor Arthur Miller, a recurring witness and author of “ The Assault on Privacy: Computers, Databanks, and Dossiers,” testified that “Nineteen eighty-four is not a year, but a state of mind.” In turn, federal law needed to strictly regulate databases of personal information to avoid fulfilling Orwell’s vision.

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