The ongoing takeover of U. S. government computer network by a small cadre of radical technologists—with the blessing of the current president of the United States—demonstrates just how vulnerable democratic norms and organizations are to determined technologists who understand the central role of computers and the information stored on them in any modern organization.
With the federal IT infrastructure now increasingly under the control of this group—under what is now being revealed as the false banner of efficiency—the entire population of the United States has become exposed to various forms of manipulation, fraud, bullying, blackmail and public embarrassment. Despite privacy laws, medical records from the Veterans Administration, Medicare and Medicaid are now easy pickings. Tax and income information from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will now be available to unelected persons who can demonstrate no reason that would override federal privacy laws. I know that the IRS has said that the DOGE worker assigned to the agency will NOT be able to see records of individuals. First, is the claim really credible given that there is no independent third party to observe? And second, what prevents the incoming Trump-appointed IRS commissioner from changing the arrangement without telling anyone?
The information the government has on each of us could be easily copied and given to entities or individuals outside the government for whatever purpose might profit them. The centralization of control of this information and access to it by the president and his political appointees makes each one of us susceptible to attack and reprisal for our views and our affiliations and to any twisted interpretation of the facts that, even if untrue, might be plausible and damaging. Think: medical records regarding treatment for substance abuse or tax records regarding a tax dispute with the Internal Revenue Service that includes information about divorce and child custody.
Even if Donald Trump had not won the election, these vulnerabilities would still remain. Hackers—some thought to be sponsored by foreign countries—have previously demonstrated the vulnerabilities. Now the hacking is being done from the inside by the president and his appointees. So far, the courts have been unable to stop them from their serial ransacking of the federal IT system and have put very weak limits on what they can do with flimsy safeguards that rely on promises not to do prohibited things. It now seems that it was just a norm that prevented previous presidents from doing the same kind of ransacking.
These dangers were always present. But, we didn't always think that computers and the great computer connection system called the internet would be so dangerous to us.
The advent of the personal computer (which at the time was called the "microcomputer") was heralded as a watershed moment in the empowerment of the individual. Apple Computer's 1984 Superbowl commercial captured the ethos of the time using a backdrop inspired by George Orwell's novel 1984. At the end of the spot, Big Brother's image is shattered by a track-and-field hammer throw, suggesting that the advent of the Macintosh would shatter the shackles of authority and increase individual freedom everywhere.
Fast forward to the advent of the internet which promised easy and nearly free electronic person-to-person contact and sharing of information worldwide, a revolution in communications. Such easy, fast sharing would increase the spread of knowledge and introduce users to a wide variety of cultures and values, thereby truly creating the "global village" media theorist Marshall McLuhan foresaw.
But soon the internet became an electronic continent of balkanized tribes, often yelling about the perceived evil deeds of other tribes, a cesspool of political contention with the most base and violent thoughts put in writing and video, sometimes including death threats. The idea that the internet would become a world forum for civic discourse was completely destroyed.
Instead, the electronic wonders we call computers—which must now include smartphones and other portable devices—made us addicts to clickbait that activates our dopamine brain circuits in a carefully planned attack on our attention. These tools that held out so much hope for liberation have become our slave masters. Instead of decentralizing knowledge and power, it has centralized control among a few tech giants who dominate online search, advertising, social media, and cloud storage and computing while they track our movements and activities online and off. Will the tech overlords ultimately get access to sensitive government records on all of us? It could happen either by mistake or intentionally, and we might never know.
In Washington, D.C. we are seeing the threat of both computer and internet technology to our democracy and the immense political consequences of the concentration of wealth and power these and other high tech systems have put into the hands of a few people. Any benign assumption about these technologies has now been wiped away. Making our way back to a stable democratic system will be difficult work since we will need to use democratic means to do so, and those on the side of authoritarian rule are likely to continue to ignore any constraints that the law or notions of democracy require including rules that supposedly guard the privacy of information the government has on each one of us.
Kurt Cobb is a freelance writer and communications consultant who writes frequently about energy and environment. His work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Resilience, Common Dreams, Naked Capitalism, Le Monde Diplomatique, Oilprice.com, OilVoice, TalkMarkets, Investing.com, Business Insider and many other places. He is the author of an oil-themed novel entitled Prelude and has a widely followed blog called Resource Insights. He can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.
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