America's Authoritarian Turn: From Texas Cameras to Federal Databases
June 5, 2025
Privacy Plus+
Privacy, Technology and Perspective
This week, let’s examine two troubling examples of surveillance overreach: Texas law enforcement's use of a multistate camera system to track down a woman who had an abortion, and the federal government's partnership with Palantir Technologies to create a "master database" of personal information. Both cases demonstrate how surveillance technology designed for legitimate purposes becomes weaponized to monitor citizens and enforce ideological policies.
The Texas ALPR Case
404 Media (“404”) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (“EFF”) recently reported that a Texas law enforcement officer has searched through more than 83,000 automated license plate reader cameras (“ALPRs”), across 6,809 different camera networks, to track down a woman whom the officer suspected of having an abortion.
The system requires a law enforcement officer to give a reason for the search – but the reason need not be specific or, apparently, even supported by a warrant.
According to 404 and EFF’s reporting, this officer claimed the justification, “had an abortion,” adding a chilling “search for female” (emphasis added). (Many officers simply say the search is for “investigation,” with no explanation whatever.)
Nationwide car-tracking systems make sense in cases like Amber alerts, stolen car chases, and so on. But here? Texas forbids abortion in virtually all situations, while many other states do not. California, for instance, is a pro-choice state.
The problem of overzealous use of ALPR data has been around for a while. In fact, California has forbidden its law enforcement agencies from sharing ALPR data with anti-abortion states since late 2023. Not all pro-choice states have this specific statutory directive, however.
This raises the question of whether it is lawful for a pro-life law enforcement officer, accessing the internet from within a pro-choice state, to seize data from within pro-choice states in order to prosecute one of its citizens.
The Federal Database Project
Simultaneously, it has been reported that the federal government has partnered with Palantir Technologies—the data-mining firm co-founded by Peter Thiel—to create what critics describe as a "master database" combining sensitive personal information from across federal agencies. Through Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”), Palantir is building a massive repository pulling data from the IRS, Social Security Administration, and Health and Human Services, among others.
The $30 million ICE contract with Palantir enables almost real-time tracking of immigrants' movements as the agency seeks to arrest 3,000 people a day. But the infrastructure being created extends far beyond immigration enforcement. As one expert noted, the goal is to create "a massive repository of data pulled from various agencies" that could enable unprecedented surveillance capabilities.
The project involves establishing a unified API layer integrating all IRS databases, potentially moving taxpayer names, addresses, Social Security numbers, tax returns, and employment details into the cloud for cross-agency comparison. Democratic lawmakers have condemned the plan, with one claiming DOGE is "rapidly, haphazardly, and unlawfully" exploiting Americans' personal data.
For more on this situation, see the EFF article: "She Got an Abortion. So a Texas Cop Used 83,000 Cameras to Track Her Down," available at the following link:
For more on Palantir's federal database project, see CNN's report: "DOGE is building a master database for immigration enforcement, sources say," available at the following link:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/25/politics/doge-building-master-database-immigration
And NPR’s report, “How Palantir, the secretive tech company is rising in the Trump era,” available at the following link:
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/01/nx-s1-5372776/palantir-tech-contracts-trump
Our Thoughts
Our practice involves advising companies on technology contracts and data privacy matters. However, as lawyers, we have broader duties to our legal system and constitutional principles that compel us to speak out when we witness such fundamental threats to civil liberties.
Over the past few months, we've witnessed a disturbing trend of governments—both federal and state—zealously gathering personal data to identify, target, and punish people who disagree with their policies. This conduct occurs without regard for constitutional protections, federalism principles, or basic decency.
The Texas ALPR case and Palantir's federal database exemplify a broader erosion of privacy rights through surveillance technology. As the EFF warns, "mass surveillance and abortion access are incompatible." Systems built to track stolen cars and issue parking tickets have become tools to enforce "the most personal and politically charged laws in the country."
As one former Palantir employee warned, "I simply cannot live in a world where my grandchildren have to be processed through a database where their everyday activities, including social media posts, as citizens, are tracked, collected and used for an authoritarian government's policing database." The ACLU's senior policy counsel expressed concern about "a panopticon of a single federal database with everything that the government knows about every single person in this country."
The freedom to travel, to seek medical care, and to make personal decisions without government tracking represents the essence of liberty in a free society. When surveillance systems designed for legitimate law enforcement purposes become tools for ideological enforcement, we approach the surveillance state that the Constitution was designed to prevent.
In our view, this conduct is very probably illegal; certainly immoral; and above all, fundamentally un-American. This surveillance overreach mirrors authoritarian models. In China, a Social Credit System tracks legal and ethical behavior and imposes travel restrictions and social penalties on citizens with low scores. China’s surveillance of 12 million Uyghurs has led to 1.5 million in "re-education camps" where human rights abuses are routine.
So every American—every citizen, professional, and organization—that values constitutional rights must stand up and speak out against these surveillance overreaches. Contact your representatives. Support organizations fighting for digital privacy rights. Demand not just transparency, but the fundamental dismantling of these surveillance programs. Question whether governments should possess such sweeping surveillance powers at all, and why private companies should profit from contracts that enable constitutional violations.
The infrastructure of authoritarianism is being built today—we must act now before it becomes too entrenched to dismantle.
---
Hosch & Morris, PLLC is a boutique law firm dedicated to data privacy and protection, cybersecurity, the Internet and technology. Open the Future℠.