The Dangerous Road to a “Master File”—Why Linking Government Databases Is a Terrible Idea

A concerning development from the Trump administration has privacy advocates sounding alarm bells nationwide: a plan to consolidate data from dozens of government agencies into what would amount to a comprehensive “master file” on all American citizens. While proponents claim this massive data integration effort will help eliminate waste and fraud, the potential consequences for privacy rights, civil liberties, and national security are profound and deeply troubling. When lawmakers enacted the Privacy Act of 1974, they intentionally designed it to compartmentalize citizens’ data across agencies. This wasn’t an oversight or a technological limitation—it was a deliberate measure shaped by hard-learned lessons about government overreach. The Act established a core principle: personal information collected for one purpose shouldn’t be repurposed without consent or proper legal authority. Now is the time for citizens to understand the importance of their personal information remaining protected, compartmentalized, and used only for its intended purposes. Without this, we risk living in a surveillance state of our own making.