For decades in the United States, the fight against terrorism was the political justification the government invoked as it built ever more extensive surveillance systems. The laws and programs created after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including the Patriot Act, mass data collection systems, and technological cooperation between intelligence agencies and the private sector, were originally intended to help authorities identify security threats more quickly. But the American press is publishing more and more warnings that these tools are no longer being used solely for the fight against terrorism. The same systems are now being used to track down immigrants, organize deportations, and increasingly to monitor American citizens as well.
Critical questions driven by the mass deportation campaign and the dramatic expansion of surveillance technology remain unanswered, from data-collection networks to facial recognition systems. While the focus has been on the brutality of ICE raids, it is becoming increasingly clear that the consequences go much further than that, most recently in requests to tech companies to share the names of online critics, as well as demands for state voting records, welfare data, and tax information. The problem significantly affects free speech and has an impact on participation in political life and on democratic safeguards.
American Community Media organized a press briefing on the subject in San Francisco, the home of artificial intelligence technology, which until now has been spared the wave of terror seen from ICE in Minneapolis and other cities. At the event, journalists, researchers, and technology experts discussed the future of digital surveillance. One of the participants was journalist and author Jacob Ward, who writes in his book In the Loop that technological systems are increasingly creating a world in which people’s range of choices is narrowing. According to Ward, systems driven by artificial intelligence not only collect data, but also make decisions in place of people, while users often do not even know these processes are taking place.
Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, senior analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, also spoke on the panel, addressing the relationship between immigration policy and technological surveillance. In his view, in recent years immigration authorities have gained access to data-collection tools that would previously have been unimaginable. These systems are often not very transparent, and it is unclear what safeguards protect the rights of those affected.
Juan Sebastián Pinto, who works in the AI industry as a storyteller and communications professional, warned that the development of artificial intelligence is moving faster than legal regulation. Technology companies are collecting and processing enormous quantities of data while society has not yet created the rules that would limit the use of these tools.
The panel participants agreed that the biggest problem is not simply the technology itself, but the lack of an appropriate legal framework. At present, the United States has no comprehensive federal data privacy law that clearly defines what data the state may collect and how it may use that data. Existing rules are fragmented and often outdated, and in many cases are unable to keep pace with technological development.
According to civil rights organizations, the expansion of digital surveillance raises serious constitutional questions. In theory, the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects citizens from unjustified government surveillance, but modern technology has placed tools in the hands of authorities whose use often takes place in a legal gray zone.
Critics say technological development has created an infrastructure in which it is almost impossible to hide from digital tracking. The linking of various government databases, the analysis of social media data, the processing of telephone and financial records, and the use of facial recognition systems create an information network that provides a more detailed picture of people’s lives than ever before. According to reporting in the American press, authorities are now using technologies that previously belonged exclusively to the toolbox of intelligence services and the military.
In recent years, artificial intelligence in particular has become the central element of surveillance systems. Algorithms are capable of analyzing huge amounts of data and searching for patterns in financial transactions, travel records, or even online communications. According to authorities, these tools help prevent crime and terrorism. Civil rights organizations, however, warn that such systems are often opaque and make decisions that can have significant effects on people’s lives without adequate legal control over them.
One frequently cited example in the American press is the role of the technology company Palantir. The company’s software was originally developed for military and intelligence purposes, but today many American agencies use it for data processing and analysis. Palantir’s systems are capable of linking different data sources and uncovering networks that may assist investigations. Its critics, however, fear that in practice these technologies enable mass surveillance that goes far beyond the original security goals.
This is particularly visible in the field of immigration. In recent years, U.S. immigration authorities have used increasingly sophisticated data-mining systems to organize deportations. These programs are capable of linking address records, employment records, transportation data, and other information in order to identify people whom authorities want to remove from the country. According to American civil rights advocates, this system often targets people with no criminal record who have lived in the United States for years or even decades.
But the technological infrastructure does not stop at immigration. There are more and more signs that surveillance tools are appearing in the everyday lives of American citizens as well. Facial recognition systems, for example, are appearing more and more frequently in transportation hubs, airports, and public spaces. The analysis of data from social media has also become part of law enforcement practice. Critics say all of this creates a state information system in which citizens’ movements, relationships, and communications can be tracked almost continuously.
According to critics, the greatest danger lies in the fact that systems created for the fight against terrorism are slowly becoming general state infrastructure. Once technological tools are created, governments tend to use them for more and more new purposes. That is how it can happen that tools of national security surveillance ultimately turn first against immigrants and then against the country’s own citizens.
The American press is increasingly carrying warnings that in the digital age, a redefinition of the balance between freedom and security has become unavoidable. If technological development continues to move faster than legal and democratic control, then modern surveillance systems may place a kind of power in the hands of the state that would previously have been unimaginable. And in that world, there really will be fewer and fewer places left where people can hide from all-seeing databases.
Historical Background
The history of U.S. surveillance can be divided into five time periods, spanning from the mid-17th century and the American Revolution era to the Civil War, post-World War II, and 1980 to the present, when antiterrorism initiatives intensified surveillance.
An era of emboldened public outrage against government surveillance was specifically ushered in by the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act, passed 45 days after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The law created a drastic revision of surveillance law, as it expanded the government’s authority to monitor citizens and removed privacy protections to streamline information sharing. Many Americans began to question the ethical dimensions and facial legality of the law, and a federal court has even struck down a full provision found to be an “unconstitutional prior restraint” on free speech. The USA PATRIOT Act is an exemplary case of the slippery slope through which privacy rights erode under the guise of security justifications.
The history of government surveillance has been marked by other legally questionable initiatives, such as the Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), conducted from 1956 to 1971. COINTELPRO was an FBI operation utilizing expanded domestic surveillance programs directed at major social and political protest groups, often through unlawful methods, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Covert and violent surveillance targeted many civil rights groups through secretive measures that operated outside the checks and balances aimed to prevent abuses of power, resulting in the violation of many constitutional rights.
Today, new technological affordances, like wireless and online connectivity, make the capacity for intrusive surveillance even higher. U.S. privacy law and legal precedent in key court cases established certain protections against rising digitized surveillance methods, showing how privacy law is applied in this new technological era.
Overview of U.S. Privacy and Surveillance Law
Privacy Act of 1974
The Privacy Act of 1974 establishes a framework of fair information practices that governs the use of personal information stored in systems of records by federal agencies. Codified at 5 U.S.C. § 552a, the Act responds to the “magnified” privacy risks created by increasing information technology use, setting forth the principle that it is “necessary and proper” for Congress to regulate how federal agencies handle personal data.
By asserting that the right to privacy is a “fundamental right protected by the Constitution,” the Act aims to provide individual safeguards “against an invasion of personal privacy” through a series of agency-imposed requirements.
These include permitting an individual to determine what records of personal data are “collected, maintained, used, or disseminated,” to “prevent” records from being used for other purposes without consent, to “gain access” to and “correct or amend” one’s records, to ensure agencies maintain records only for a “necessary and lawful purpose” with “adequate safeguards” to prevent misuse, to limit exemptions to those justified by “important public policy,” and to make agencies “subject to civil suit” for intentional violations of rights.
Principle of Purpose Limitation
The Privacy Act of 1974 embodies the principle of purpose limitation, which carries significant implications for how the federal government may process personal data. Federal agencies are restricted in the handling of personal information, as they are prohibited from using information for any purpose other than the one for which it was originally collected. This principle is also reflected in the Federal Privacy Council’s Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPPs), stating that federal agencies should only manage personally identifiable information (PPI) in ways that are compatible with the reasons for which it was gathered.
Violations of purpose limitation are often done through interagency data sharing, which constitutes secondary data abuse. This unlawful action involves “unauthorized secondary use of agency-held data,” where information is reused for other purposes or transferred to other agencies for entirely different purposes without consent. These practices are wholly incompatible with the Privacy Act of 1974, creating concern about public accountability and transparency in government use of personal data.
Constitutional Protections Against Unwarranted Government Surveillance
The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures” without a warrant, which must be supported by probable cause and describe the “place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The Amendment establishes “the right of the people to be secure in their persons” and provides a core constitutional protection of privacy.
In Katz v. United States, the Court ruled that an individual has a “constitutionally protected reasonable expectation of privacy” and that electronic intrusion into a private place may also constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Katz ruling abandoned the trespass doctrine, a theory that the Constitution only protects against the physical intrusion of private places. Instead, Justice John Marshall Harlan’s concurrence set out the Katz test, which establishes constitutional protection against broader government intrusion when there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, this ruling made Katz the “foundation of modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” extending its protections to law enforcement surveillance without a physical intrusion requirement. The Electronic Privacy Information Center states that the test governs how law enforcement may surveil electronic data, illustrating how the Fourth Amendment protects privacy in the digital age. More specifically, Riley v. California and Carpenter v. United States were two cases in which the Court further recognized a reasonable expectation of privacy in cell phone content and historical location information.
The Legality of the Trump Administration’s Expansion of Digital Surveillance
Statutes governing U.S. privacy law cast doubt on the legality of many of the Trump Administration’s recent efforts to expand digital surveillance. With the onset of the Administration, the federal government has taken increasingly intrusive measures to monitor online activity and trace personal data through digital means and agency archives.
For example, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency is strengthening its surveillance powers and network, including tools such as iris scanners, facial recognition applications, phone-hacking software, and cell phone location tracking. According to the Center for American Progress, an independent nonpartisan policy institute, these developments reflect an abusive effort to use sensitive data to build a “digital watchtower,” one that violates long-standing legal protections of consent and purpose limitation. While many of these efforts were originally framed to combat illegal immigration, there is increasing concern that the new surveillance tactics employed by the agency can easily reach U.S. citizens as well.
For instance, ICE plans to build a social media surveillance team with contractors monitoring posts, photos, and messages to scan platforms and target people for deportation. However, ICE is also partnering with private companies to monitor general threats against the agency from everyday users who simply criticize it online, an effort aimed at tracking “negative sentiment” on social media.
ICE has also partnered with Palantir Technologies, a software company co-founded by billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel, to use artificial intelligence and data mining to identify suspected noncitizens. The company’s ImmigrationOS system will pull together large amounts of personal information to detect patterns and flag individuals who meet specific criteria, transforming personal data into surveillance tools. According to the American Immigration Council, this practice risks civil liberties and concentrates power in AI-driven platforms with “minimal public oversight,” which can easily circumvent monitoring and lead to overreach.
ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are also using a new mobile application called “Mobile Fortify,” which allows agents to point a phone at any individual in public and compare their face against millions of images stored in government databases. The app thus provides instant access to personal information, such as name, date of birth, and other data, as well as a contactless collection of fingerprints. According to the ACLU, this practice has serious constitutional concerns as Congress has not authorized this expansion in federal police power, it lacks clear statutory restrictions or accountability mechanisms, and violates due process rights.
The Trump Administration is also engaging in secondary data abuse through unauthorized recycling of agency-held data, which directly violates the principles of purpose limitation and consent and separation. This unlawful cross-agency data usage is seen in a finalized data-sharing agreement between the IRS and ICE, which allows sensitive taxpayer information to support deportation missions. Medicaid enrollment records have also been used to identify undocumented individuals, which is a direct breach of data privacy protections. The Social Security Act and related regulations require that the use and disclosure of applicant and beneficiary information must be limited to “purposes directly connected” with the administration of state health coverage programs. Regulations also require states to safeguard that information to protect it against “unauthorized disclosure for other purposes.” Hence, the law is clear that exploiting personal information for ulterior motives is inconsistent with statutory privacy protections.
Why This Matters
The Trump Administration’s expansion of surveillance networks violates existing statutes of privacy law, raising serious questions about the erosion of fundamental constitutional rights, government accountability, and institutional trust. Many of the growing surveillance methods violate the Fourth Amendment’s reasonable expectation of privacy as warrantless searches and seizures of immigrants grow across the country, many without probable cause. The right against unreasonable searches and seizures is a constitutional right also extended to undocumented individuals residing in the U.S., demonstrating the Administration’s disregard for many foundational protections. Long-term implications of unlawful government data practices threaten a continued violation of rights, creating a system that abuses its power against citizens through executive overreach.
The U.S. needs a modernized privacy structure that provides a comprehensive view of federal data practices and reaffirms the right of individuals to be notified of when and how their personal information is used, especially in cases with adverse consequences. Individuals must have access to legal recognition when the federal government misuses their data, and Congress has a responsibility to not only set clear limits on data practices but also ensure transparency and recourse when individuals’ privacy rights are threatened.
