The Death Of Privacy And The Radical Reshaping Of A Political System

Forbes

5 hours ago

Elon Musk's brief tenure in government could very well redefine his legacy. While he purported to attempt to apply private sector innovation to reform and streamline federal bureaucracy, he also laid the groundwork for a political and government structure more amenable to an agenda that has been in the works for some time.
The DOGE developers, who effectively bulldozed their way through government systems, were given a boost by the executive branch. The policies that were in place by the Biden administration to create more accountability and safe development of AI were effectively rescinded, replaced by much more freedom-to-operate policies for big tech. Robert Reich rightly points out, that this 'method of accounting for and claiming savings was opaque,' and in the meantime, the damage he's done to entire agencies, to people's benefits, and the ensuing harms it has yet to unleash on individuals and society may take years to rectify.
Elon Musk has officially departed the Whitehouse. For many within the responsible AI ecosystem, his actions have been the catalyst to accelerate what is believed to be a surveillance economy — supported by the executive branch.
At this moment in history, data privacy is at the forefront of these technologies. In lockstep with an AI system, fueled by big tech's relentless hoovering of all internet data — highly sensitive personal and confidential information — iterated and improved through user prompts, will only embolden the likes of OpenAI, and Anthropic.
What is happening in the U.S. today has fundamentally lowered the protections for U.S. citizens. The administration has largely deregulated big tech. The U.S.' priority to win the global AI race means robust ethical and privacy protections has taken a back seat in favour of world domination. Trump's recent 'Big Beautiful Bill Act' has ensured this, prohibiting states from regulating artificial intelligence (AI) models, systems, or automated decision systems for the next 10 years.
Abigail Dubiniecki is a privacy lawyer, a data strategist, a thought leader, one of my co-founding members at MyData Canada, and a Forbes contributor. We discussed the implications of the DOGE debacle and the long-term fall-out of these policies.
Dubiniecki illustrated the introduction of the Biden AI Executive Order (EO) 14110 in October of 2023 was to ensure, in her words, the 'safe, secure, trustworthy development of AI — but it limited the sector's ability to innovate — at least that is what Trump said.' The ACLU declared Trump's nullification of this EO was to '...not only set to completely roll back the fledgling protections Joe Biden's administration instituted, but also to further accelerate the spread of unchecked AI across American life.'
Dubiniecki is also familiar with U.S. privacy laws. She points that legally, only the congress, not the president, can make laws, clarifying, 'what the president can do is issue executive orders, which are binding directives on the executive branch departments and agencies like Department of Justice, Immigration, and FTC.'
Biden's sweeping executive order on AI was in keeping with the lengths EU went through to create the EU AI Act, the first comprehensive legislation on AI, which included references to GDPR and the Digital Services Act that were drafted in line with the implications for artificial intelligence. Dubiniecki stated, 'Biden, confronted by the obstruction of congress, was forced to issue the EO to enact his mandate, which can be repealed by the next president — which is exactly what has happened.'
Biden's EO created procurement requirements to maintain an AI inventory and developed important guardrails like mandated disclosure of data sources — all meant to minimize risk to individual civil liberties, but also lay the foundation for compute power and resources to fulfill future AI requirements and maintain global AI competitiveness.
This recission unsettled practitioners within the responsible AI community who believed the EO struck a good balance between AI innovation and accountability. Dubiniecki pointed to the AI Incident Database, an indexed collective history of harms or near-harms when artificial intelligence is deployed, adding, 'this is what happens when we run fast and loose and leave [data] quality aside.' In addition, the AI Bill of Rights, issued in 2022, but unenforceable, was designed to eliminate discrimination against certain groups, emphasizing AI systems be safe, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent, and respect privacy. The website that detailed the blueprint for the AI Bill of Rights no longer exists. You can find the archived version here.
Dubiniecki asserted, 'So, the executive order was one of the most sweeping we've seen, and it was rescinded by Trump who claimed, 'No, we need unbridled innovation.' In Trump's follow-up Executive Order 14179, "Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence," it emphasized minimizing government interference in AI innovation, with the key goal to define policies to 'sustain and enhance America's AI dominance and minimize unnecessarily burdensome requirements' that will 'hamper private sector AI innovation.'
Dubiniecki challenges this idea of self-regulation, explaining that reduced oversight garnered through Trump's EO 14179, does not work, stating 'We end up with data swamps and AI tools that don't do what they're supposed to do — but still do harm. She expresses that the revocation of the original EO means the guardrails are off, and enforcement becomes arbitrary.
In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at eliminating information silos by significantly expanding data sharing across federal agencies and with state programs that receive federal funding. Within 30 days, the heads of agencies were required to modify any agency guidance or regulations that would bar the sharing of unclassified information.
This order and DOGE's unrestricted access to U.S. citizen's personal data through IRS, DHS, NHS, have opened the floodgates to a centralized system that not only manages, but has the potential to aggregate and profile every U.S. citizen.
Dubiniecki explains that under privacy law, citizen data should only be used for the purpose for which it's collected. 'That's called purpose limitation,' she explains, 'And because government holds so much of our information — local, federal, institutions —it's a major concern when they start sharing it across systems. That increases the risk to the security of how that data is transmitted.' She added this has the effect of trapping people into a digital panopticon, comparable to China's, though potentially worse, given the magnitude of data at play and the far reach of U.S. tech and government power.
She explains that there is an abundance of information about every U.S. Citizen from industry sectors that didn't have the proper guardrails. These end up with data brokers in 'massive data swamps.' Multiplied by the 1.7 billion victims who fall prey to cyber attacks in a given year, our data is now on the dark web being sold for pennies. Dubiniecki adds, 'In fact, the Minnesota shooter found his victims and addresses online and had the contact details of multiple data brokers in his car.'
Data privacy, she explains is more than just access or security — It's purpose limitation and data minimization. She continues, 'you can use the data for one purpose — nothing more. We separate it. We apply a 'need to know' principle, just like cybersecurity. The need to know is meant to prevent people from having access to information they shouldn't have.'
Dubiniecki uses the IRS example. 'They might have everything I've submitted to file my taxes: my mortgage, investments, my donations, my unique tax ID and social security number. All this data is meant for one purpose — filing taxes. That tax officer is not supposed to profile me or match my donations with other sources to infer my politics, my religion or health issues. They're also not allowed to give 'god access' –– where one person sees everything.
Dubiniecki argues that since 9/11, the phrase, 'We're not sharing enough data' has been the "refrain of governments seeking to break down silos meant to protect us from Stasi-style surveillance.' The Patriot Act was enacted following 9/11, that expanded search and surveillance powers of federal law enforcement and intelligence and effectively justified the tearing down of those privacy silos. She explains, 'But those silos exist for a reason — so we don't live in a surveillance state. Now they're [DOGE]
The Privacy Act of 1974 and its amendments govern how data is collected and managed. It prohibits agencies from disclosing personal information without written consent from the individual. If the current administration is not allowed, by law, to repurpose personal information, but unabated, enables this new sharing of information across agencies, then who stops them? As per Dubiniecki, "they're not obeying the law... Look, the U.S. is in a constitutional crisis. This has been happening slowly. When congress gave up its powers, when the judiciary expanded Trump's presidential powers, the U.S. was already headed toward a crisis. So, if the administration isn't following the rules, you're no longer in a rules-based system. Selective enforcement becomes the norm.'
Recently, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reversed its ruling that previously blocked data brokers from selling consumers' personal data to third parties. Politico writes, 'Experts warn that the move is the latest in a long line of decisions from the Trump administration to erode data privacy protections for Americans.'
Carole Cadwalladr, a famed journalist, formerly of the Guardian, who exposed the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, wrote 'How to Survive the Broligarchy,' on November 2017, during the first Trump administration. She wrote at the time,
'Trump has announced multibillion-dollar lawsuits against 'the enemy camp': newspapers and publishers. His proposed FBI director is on record as wanting to prosecute certain journalists. Journalists, publishers, writers, academics are always in the first wave. Doctors, teachers, and accountants will be next. Authoritarianism is as predictable as a Swiss train.'
The so-called Department of Government Efficiency of 2025 proved to be a remarkably accurate prediction of what Cadwalladr observed eight years prior, 'This is McMuskism: it's McCarthyism on steroids, political persecution + Trump + Musk + Silicon Valley surveillance tools.' She believed that we were only at the beginning of a destabilization and division or as she framed, 'the dawn political witch-hunts, where burning at the stake meets data harvesting and online mobs.'
Dubiniecki confirms Cadwalladr's prediction citing impacts of Elon Musk's actions, 'People are being fired, replaced, pushed out. The FTC, the U.S.'s big watchdog enforcement arm under Biden, went after Big Tech. But now, they've unlawfully fired the Democratic members.' She adds the new head of the FTC has said his focus would be to further Trump's anti-DEI agenda. This turn of events is now revealing tech companies, previously facing enforcement, pushing for these actions to be forgotten or settled.
Dubiniecki points to Project 2025, which openly described weaponizing age-verification laws against 'pornography sites' (read non-heteronormative sites) to effectively drive them out of business on the pretext of protecting children. The New Republic, defines it this way, 'Pornography, according to this Mandate, is responsible for the 'normalization' of non-normative gender expression and identity among young people — what the right often calls 'gender ideology.' The bigger point for this mandate is the preservation of the 'straight, married family as the natural bedrock of society.' What follows is contorted justification of how it is outlawed. Any advocation and distribution should be considered illegal, 'educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classified as sex offenders... telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.'
The attack on 'porn' is only one pillar that Project 2025 seeks to reshape — parts of a system that they deem fundamentally broken or adversarial to the broader objective of imposing an ultra-conservative social vision and broadening the presidential authority.
The turmoil caused in the first 6 months by this administration is stunning: from the cuts to foreign AID, to the mass deportation, and dismantling of the asylum system to revoking transgender protections, the end of the DEI programs, rollback of civil rights protections, the restricting of abortion and contraception, the defunded programs, universities and research not aligned with their agenda, and the defunding of public media. What's disconcerting is weakened federal data protection, recission of federal AI safety and accountability guidelines, and a centralized data system that will ultimately have broader negative implications on US citizens — from their civil liberties, economic security, health, education and the structure of government itself.
For Dubiniecki, protecting privacy is a key pillar of resistance to reclaim our data and digital lives: 'Autocracies look stable, but they're fragile. Strongmen are weak at heart. When people push back — like Harvard did — the administration apologized. Everything I've said is political, because tech is now indistinguishable from politics. When vaccine guidelines, HIV information, or weather forecasts are erased from public access, it's about controlling the narrative. If it's not on the record, it didn't happen... This is what Orwell warned about. Words get redefined to fit ideology... That's why we need to resist — not only for privacy, but for truth, for history, for democracy.'