Will We Let a Digital Coup Against Democracy Prevail?

DOGE, Democracy, and What the Privacy Act of 1974 has to do with it

By Nicole A. Ozer

Right now in Washington, D.C., technology is being weaponized. Neither those who established the balance of powers that form the foundation of our democracy—nor those who fought for many modern legal guardrails passed in the 1970s, could have fully contemplated the immense power of 2025 technology. They certainly could not have anticipated the swift means by which the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) has been able to digitally commandeer agencies and imperil the core functioning of government and levers of power.

If it wasn’t already abundantly clear that how technology is built and used can control our daily lives, manipulate our system of governance, and be a dire threat to liberty (code as law), this past month has made these truths fully evident.

In 2025, we live in a digital reality. We rely on technology to connect, communicate, and access essential services every day, while deployment of AI advances exponentially. Government agency information could be accessed, limited, or erased in digital databases with a keystroke by a twenty-something DOGE coder. Important public information about policies and services are being taken down, replaced only with a “Page Not Found – 404 Message.” Government employees have been locked out of their work lives with the flip of a switch.

The plot of a dystopian movie is playing right before our eyes. Individuals without proper vetting seem poised to obtain largely unfettered access to what have been the most tightly protected government systems, posing grave risks to our personal lives, our country, and the broader world.

There are few who understand the power of technology—and its potential to be used for the good of all or the benefit of the few—more acutely than the scions of Silicon Valley. In fact, many of them built the majority of their vast private wealth on the foundation of government-funded research initiatives that developed the Internet.

In the 1970s, at the cusp of the computer age, many people engaged in important political and social causes—from civil rights and antiwar, to LGBTQ and the women’s movement—were heavily surveilled, including by new technology like wiretapping. People across the country developed a very personal understanding of how the government and private actors could take advantage of technology to weaponize information about their lives to harm them. The 1971 public exposure of the FBI’s secret surveillance COINTELPRO program, the Watergate scandal, and the subsequent Congressional hearings to investigate illegal, improper, and unethical activities of the federal government, collectively supported the passage of new legal safeguards for oversight and transparency.

Laws like the federal Privacy Act of 1974 were enacted to help curb illegal surveillance, other improper government actions discovered during the Watergate scandal, and to address potential abuses related to information access, collection, retention, and disclosure. The Privacy Act remains salient today, forming the foundation of legal claims in current active litigation related to DOGE activity. The ACLU is also using the Freedom of Information Act to urgently seek government records about potential privacy violations.

Around the same time as those bills were being passed, states took important action of their own, passing corollaries to the Privacy Act, like the California Information Practices Act. In 1972, California also enacted a state constitutional right to privacy—a modern privacy right focused on protecting personal freedom and security from both government and business threats related to increased surveillance and data collection in contemporary society.

In subsequent decades, however, crucial privacy protections have been kneecapped. New federal laws to update protections for the modern digital age have also been few and far between. The surveillance lobby—technology companies who profit from information collection and government entities—has dedicated vast resources to try to undermine existing laws in the courts. Meanwhile, it’s fighting new state laws (and pushing for preemption in newer federal bills to erase the robust state laws that we do have).

We see the results of these dynamics all around us and how surveillance interests have externalized deep costs to both people and democracy. From invasive surveillance technology fueling discriminatory policing and draconian immigration policies, to the Cambridge Analytica scandal and online disinformation and its effect on elections, and how the digital ecosystem impacts children’s health and safety.

We are at a crossroads for democracy. Will our elected leaders and we the people stand by and allow what Shoshana Zuboff calls “the fusion scenario”—unabashed actions to undermine democracy. Or rather, will we follow the spirit Senator Sam Ervin highlighted in 1971: “If Americans can harness computers to get to the moon, surely we can harness them to protect our liberty.”

I have worked closely with community partners to spearhead the passage of many local and state laws that advance privacy, justice, and democracy in the digital age. I know from experience that we hold immense power to ensure that technology—and those who wield it—will work for the people and in service of democracy. There is no more important time to channel our power and make our voices heard in every possible way to ensure that digital systems are not commandeered to destroy all that is near and dear.

Nicole A. Ozer is a 2024-2025 Technology and Human Rights Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Carr Center and the Technology and Civil Liberties Director at the ACLU of Northern California (article written in personal capacity and affiliation for identification purposes). Nicole’s most recent publication is Golden State Sword: The History and Future of California’s Constitutional Right to Privacy to Defend and Promote Rights, Justice, and Democracy in the Digital Age.