Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social
The first and most important thing to know about last night's Exec order is that it's intended to break current law and allow people throughout the federal gov look at yr tax returns. Beyond that it's intended to compel states to turn over all their data to the fed govt.
2/ Taken together it's intended to create big data sets about targeted citizens for various kinds of harassment, intimidation, prosecutorial abuse etc. Very standard big brother stuff. Much of it is against current law. But more generally, when you pay taxes you give the govt info for ...
3/ for the specific purpose of collecting taxes, not to use for other reasons. This isn't some vague concept. It's the law. Similarly, when you indirectly give medical information, it's for the purposes of either anonymized public health data or for reimbursement through Medicare/Medicaid, etc.
4/ The point is the information is provided for specific lawful reasons and "silo'd" inside the government precisely because it's provided only for that reason. The aim of this new EO is to create thick packets of data on targeted individuals, for a different kind of federal govt that aims ....
5/ to punish or go to war with people who don't do as the incumbent president says or refuse to support the president. It goes back to the foundations of the civil compact itself. We choose elected officials to serve the public and do so impartially. The Trump model is you get executive ...
6/ power and use it to go to war with the people who don't support you.
7/ Final point. In general, I don't like to "AI" every issue. But here it has some relevance. These are potentially very big data sets across many aspects of life, economic transactions, medical records, political activity, educational records. It's very much the kind of stuff you'd want to pour ...
8/ machine learning/AI models and generate lists of people who might be inclined to oppose the incumbent President and then financial resources, social networks, etc that wld make them powerful opponents. We shld be assuming this kind of administration will already be doing stuff like that ...
9/ with data that can be purchased commercially - the kind of profiles generated by sales data, social media graphs and so forth. But there's a reason why IRS data is so prized and guarded. Sure you can buy a lot of data abt anyone just for a price. But when you layer on IRS data, medical records...
10/ you go to a whole new level. This stuff is deeply inculcated in the career staff at the IRS. Very, very strict need to know barriers to access to tax and financial data. There's been a steady flow of firings and resignations at IRS over the last six weeks as DOGE keeps demanding more access ...
11/ to data and more specifically as they demand that law enforcement and ICE get access to tax records. Now it's important to be clear here. When there's a criminal investigation the appropriate authorities already can get access. But that's the same way that the cops can get a warrant from a ...
12/ judge to search your home. The whole framework of probable cause etc. The analogy here would just be the cops can go into any home they want at any time. The point being DOGE has already been at work on what this EO demands.
