BOSTON — U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan is leading a push in Congress to close loopholes in a half-century-old federal privacy law that critics say has allowed the Trump administration to “weaponize” the personal financial data of tens of millions of Americans.
Trahan, D-Westford, on Tuesday released an open “request for information” letter to civil society, groups, privacy experts, recently fired federal employees and the general public seeking input about potential misuse of the Privacy Act of 1974, which was approved by Congress in response to the Watergate scandal.
Trahan said Americans’ right to privacy, enshrined in our Constitution, is being “fundamentally challenged,” by the Trump administration and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency as part of efforts to reduce the size of the federal government.
“Unaccountable billionaires, inexperienced programmers, and unvetted political appointees are perpetrating the biggest government privacy scandal since Watergate, when President Nixon weaponized his access to people’s personal information to target political opponents ranging from companies to politicians to everyday Americans,” Trahan wrote.
“These rogue individuals are accessing agency computer systems at an unprecedented pace and scale, with little to no transparency to the American public or Congress,” she added.
In the letter, Trahan alleges that the gathering of personal financial data by Musk’s DOGE masks “a deeper, more sinister undertaking: to build powerful AI systems that, with no human in the loop, perform all sorts of governmental functions from administering health and food benefits, to conducting background checks, to detecting fraud.”
“The Privacy Act, passed at the dawn of the computer age, was supposed to help the government use technology while upholding a key civil liberty,” Trahan wrote. “But its gaps are increasingly glaring and demand Congress’s attention.”
Trahan, who co-chairs the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, said the information gathering will guide her plans to file legislation to overhaul federal privacy laws.
Trump has touted the work of Musk and DOGE, pointing to tens of billions of dollars in canceled federal contracts and unsubstantiated claims of fraud and abuse pushed by the Tesla CEO and his team. Federal judges have blocked several of DOGE’s actions.
Democrats have criticized Trump’s relationship as a case of blatant corruption because of Musk’s extensive contracts with the federal government and his financial support for the president’s campaign.
The push to overhaul the Privacy Act, which faces long odds in the Republican-controlled Congress, is backed by several civil liberty groups, former government workers and privacy experts.
Elizabeth Laird, director of Equity in Civic Technology at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Democracy and Technology, points out that the Privacy Act was approved before the advent of the personal computer.
“So it comes as no surprise that there are questions about whether this long standing guardrail should be updated to account for today’s uses of data and technology,” she said.
John Davisson, director of Litigation at the nonpartisan Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the Privacy Act has “stood as a bulwark against the mishandling and political weaponization of personal information held by federal agencies” for more than 50 years but hasn’t been updated to reflect vast technological advances since its passage.
“But decades of technological change and the current administration’s assault on privacy underscore the urgent need to strengthen those defenses,” Davisson said.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.