“The Great Leap Forward”

But Schwartz told Al Jazeera that the trend toward government data consolidation has continued in the decades since, under both Democratic leaders and Republicans.

“Unfortunately, surveillance is bipartisan,” he said.

However, with Trump’s second term, this process has reached an alarming rate. Schwartz argued that the Trump administration’s actions violated laws such as the Privacy Act and marked a “dangerous” shift in protections from the Nixon era.

“The No. 1 surveillance issue the federal government had last year was the dismantling of Watergate-era safeguards designed to keep databases separate,” he said.

Schwartz noted that Trump’s consolidation efforts have been accompanied by a lack of transparency into how the new integrated data systems will be used.

“Just as the current administration has made giant leaps forward in surveillance and privacy violations, it has also been a less transparent administration in terms of public understanding of what it is doing,” Schwartz said.

On March 20, Trump signed an executive order calling on government agencies to take “all necessary steps” to eliminate what he called “data silos.”

Soon after, in April, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) signed an agreement with the IRS to exchange personal information, including taxpayer names and addresses.

The memo is seen as an effort to turn private taxpayer data into a tool for Trump’s goal of deporting immigrants.

A federal court suspended the agencies’ data-sharing agreements in November. But other efforts continue.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of DOGE’s access to sensitive Social Security data. Just this month, the Trump administration pressured states to share information about food aid recipients or face losing funds.

While immigrants appear to be one of the primary targets of data integration projects, Wenzik said Americans of all stripes shouldn’t be surprised if their personal information ends up being weaponized.

“There’s no reason to limit it to undocumented people. They’re taking a system that’s traditionally been limited to noncitizens and dramatically expanding it to include all kinds of information about U.S. citizens,” Wenczyk said.

“This would have been unthinkable five years ago, but we’re seeing it happening now, so the potential for abuse is very widespread.”