Show Notes
Americans were being steered in the direction of China’s “social credit” system during the Obama and Biden years, but that’s not even the worst part.
The worst part is that the harvesting and reselling of Americans’ personal information was done while they also paid for it. Private companies, social media platforms, hospitals, the local DMV – all are sellers in the market for your personal data. And the buyers are typically companies called “data brokers” that then sell it to others, including law enforcement, the Internal Revenue Service, banks, insurance companies, and more.
That’s one conclusion from a new book by former House Oversight Committee chairman and Fox News host Jason Chaffetz. His latest book, They’re Coming For You: How Deep State Spies, NGOs, and Woke Corporations Plan To Push You Out Of The Economy, is out this week.
Chaffetz, a former Republican congressman from Utah, is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Government Accountability Institute. He joins Peter Schweizer and co-host Eric Eggers on The Drill Down to talk about threats posed to Americans’ freedom and privacy.
Some Americans have been debanked because of the information found about them from data brokers, including people who legally sell guns. An early meeting during the Biden presidency resulted in an executive action ordering local offices of federal agencies to begin registering voters among the people who come to their offices, an effort that was tied to targeted areas likely to vote Democratic.
A non-profit group called “VOT-ER” partners with hospitals and other healthcare providers to register voters right in the hospital. The group claims to be bipartisan, but a cited investigation by the Washington Examiner found the group was funded largely from dark money contributions from left-wing oriented foundations such as the Tides Foundation, which gets a lot of its own funding from George Soros, the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation, and others.
“Forget HPAA laws! You might not even know this was happening to you” in the hospital, Chaffetz tells the hosts.
Chaffetz tells Schweizer and Eggers the story of a letter written by liberal Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) to the IRS suggesting they immediately conduct audits on anyone connected with a conservative group called Turning Point USA.
He notes there is an insatiable appetite for Americans’ personal data. Even in a “red” state such as Florida, the state DMV was selling the personal information on residents’ drivers licenses, including such details as height and weight, to data brokers. Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, they have ended that practice.
The book also notes many other examples of private citizens and non-profit groups that were dropped by their banks based on such information. The National Committee for Religious Freedom was debanked by JPMorgan Chase. PayPal froze the account of Moms for Liberty and canceled accounts of right-leaning political figures such as COVID-19 policy critic Dr. Joseph Mercola.
There are really two connected problems here. First, government agencies using purchased user information to deny or target Americans; and second, is there a “right to be forgotten” that will allow Americans to request the deletion of information they provided to businesses for a particular, necessary purpose?
Billions of dollars depend on the answer, particularly to companies such as Clearview AI, whose facial recognition software has been banned in the European Union and Australia, but which makes millions selling access to various US law enforcement agencies.
Schweizer asks Chaffetz whether these practices can be stopped.
“The genie’s already left the bottle,” Chaffetz says. It will take legislation, he believes, to establish a consumer’s “right to be forgotten,” something that is already law in the European Union.
Chaffetz and the hosts agree that the internet’s privacy concerns will only become larger as artificial intelligence gets better and even more invasive. The old saying “When the service is free, YOU are the product” takes on even more significance in the future unless this use of personal information by the government and corporate interests is reined in.
As William F. Buckley once said, “The government can’t do anything for you, except in proportion as it can do something to you.”
