Trump’s presidency provides a model for a new high-tech authoritarianism

Trump’s presidency provides a model for a new high-tech authoritarianism

"the first six months of the Trump presidency provide a model for a new authoritarianism, one that seeks to make information about the public more transparent while extending secrecy for leaders. Consider, for example, the president’s efforts to go after journalists and leakers. It is his privacy and the privacy of information about him that he is seeking to protect. Or consider the president’s instinct to make the private matters of others public. Trump did this often during the campaign and continues the tactic in tweets about political opponents, journalists, and others he does not like. His communications are intended to embarrass or shame based on the release of private facts. It is a technique favored by the notorious human rights opponent Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Long before the Presidential Commission thought it had the authority to collect the voter records of registered voters across the country, Trump had picked for attorney general one of the few members of the U.S. Senate who had opposed the USA Freedom Act, which reined in the mass surveillance of domestic communications revealed by Edward Snowden. He chose for director of the CIA a former House member who also suggested that the powers for mass surveillance should be restored. And his executive order on immigration included provisions to expand the use of biometrics at the border. Meanwhile, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, a key agency established to check the powers of the presidency after September 11, remains without enough members to exercise legal authority. And the Federal Trade Commission, also crucial to the protection of the privacy interests of the American public, is barely functioning. If it is correct that the modern democratic state is sustained by privacy protections for citizens and transparency obligations for officials, then future actions by this administration on these issues require close attention."