Episode 15: The Weaponization of Data

Data can expose injustice, but it can also be turned into a tool of control. How do we know when data collection is helpful and when it becomes surveillance? In this episode, Sydney Saubestre of New America discusses the risks and benefits of data, lessons from history, and their implications for democracy today.

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Transcript

Shannon Lynch: Christopher Wiley, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, once said, “Data is powerful, and if it’s put in the wrong hands, it becomes a weapon.” Governments have used data to monitor and even control their citizens, but the same information can also drive progress and accountability. So how do we draw the line between useful data collection and dangerous surveillance? And what can history teach us about data being weaponized?

Welcome to Democracy Deciphered, where we unpack the history, headlines, and hopes of American democracy. I’m your host, Shannon Lynch. Today, I’ll be joined by New America’s Sydney Saubestre to discuss the duality of governmental use of data.

Sydney Saubestre is a senior policy analyst at New America’s Open Technology Institute, where she focuses on data usage and privacy. Her work sits at the intersection of emerging technologies and human rights, with a particular interest in how education, health, and digital communications impact vulnerable communities.

Before joining New America, Saubestre worked across government, nonprofit, and academic institutions on a wide range of policy issues. At UCLA, she was a Mellon Fellow in Critical Data Studies, helping launch a new minor while researching digital surveillance in U.S. high schools in partnership with the ACLU of Southern California. She also contributed to reform efforts for foster care at UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center and advanced a city-wide higher education initiative in the Oakland Mayor’s Office. Saubestre holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and anthropology from the New School and a master’s in public policy from UCLA.

Sydney, thanks so much for joining me today.

Sydney Saubestre: I’m happy to be here.

Shannon Lynch: So to start, how would you explain to someone who doesn’t work with numbers why data matters for democracy and everyday decision-making?

Sydney Saubestre: I think that’s a great question. I think frequently when people think about data, they have this view of maybe the 90s screen where, like, the ones and the zeros are running into the computer, and they think of these little pieces of information that aren’t really connected to them. But really, how I think about it is data is information about you. It’s information about individual people. It’s the information that has to do with when you were born, who you were related to, where you’re from, all of that is data.

So I think when we think about democracy, what I tend to think about is who counts and who gets to be counted within those systems and how that gets taken into account for decision-making. If you think about all of that as information, and if you think of data as information, then the two are very closely interlinked. So how we count things, how we think about information, who matters, who doesn’t, all of it is critical to democracy. And then the other really important thing about data, it also helps us hold people accountable in terms of the people who are in positions of power. If you don’t have access to information, it’s not clear what types of decision-making those people are engaging in, how that might impact different types of people.

Data is kind of like a mirror. It can reflect reality, and it can really show what is happening to individual people, to different groups, to society as a whole. I think that’s why recently Donald Trump was really upset with the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because they released some information that he didn’t like that essentially said that the economy might not be as strong as he had been claiming it was. There’s a reason why he got so upset. It’s because that’s a different take on the reality that he wants to present. So, there’s a bunch of studies that show that leaders tend to do more poorly when the macroeconomic reality is not as strong as it used to be.

And so, all of that is part of why who gets to control the information and who gets to control the reality is really important. So I think that’s why a lot of times when we talk about democracy and we talk about data transparency, that’s why it matters. It’s really about revealing reality as it is and not as those in power want it to seem.

Shannon Lynch: Yeah, that makes sense. So, in some of your writing, you’ve talked about the duality of data, that it can be both empowering and dangerous. Can you share a story where data clearly exposed injustice and then another story where it’s used to harm or mislead people?

Sydney Saubestre: Yeah, so recently I wrote about abortion data and why we actually need to be collecting information about maternal mortality at the state level. So obviously, after Dobbs, we saw that there were a lot of really restrictive practices that meant that women and people who wanted to access reproductive care weren’t able to access it. What that then ended up meaning in terms of maternal mortality statistics is that in states where the access was more restricted, we actually saw an uptick in the number of deaths that people had from not receiving proper health care.

And at the same time, a lot of those states, they had what were called maternal mortality review boards, where essentially every time that there was some fatality that was related to a pregnancy, they would review it and they would try and understand what had happened so that they could then prevent it. That’s all data, that’s all examining data to then essentially make sure that public health is improved. And in this case, actually, so what they had done is they disbanded a bunch of the boards in different states. So, Idaho is one of the ones where they disbanded it. They said that it was due to privacy reasons because people had released information that they weren’t allowed to. Really, what they had released was the fact that restricting abortion access meant that there were women who had essentially died. And so they didn’t want people to be able to clearly see that.

When I think about the duality of data, it’s essentially this idea that data can be really, really critical in holding people accountable and holding power accountable. It’s more than just numbers on a spreadsheet. It’s really about the reality that you’re living in and what you can do about it.

At the same time, and this is why I think the abortion example is really important, it can also be used as a way to essentially surveil or restrict people’s access. So if you have specifics, this also happened in the case of abortion data, people were then able to use how some of the information that people had uploaded to Facebook Messenger or when they were looking for specific providers, they would use that to criminalize those activities and then go after people and restrict it further. So I think that’s also data.

So it’s basically, I think this, to go back to the earlier point about democracy, who controls information really controls what type of society we live in. And I think, that’s why I like making sure that that data is open and accessible, that we use it for public health initiatives, that we use it to improve society as a whole, and not just so that the people in power can then use it against citizens, is really important.

Shannon Lynch: The census doesn’t just collect numbers, right? It defines who is visible in society and who isn’t. So why does it matter so much which groups are counted and which are left out of the census?

Sydney Saubestre: I think you said it. If you aren’t counted, you don’t count politically or otherwise. So, from the beginning, data was actually central to democracy. The census was meant to ensure fair representation, and it was encoded in the Constitution that it had to be done every 10 years so that that way, the funding, representation, and all the rights actually flowed from those numbers.

Early on, when they had the three-fifths compromise, this was actually a way to reduce how people were counted. So, if you were an enslaved person, you only counted as three-fifths of a person. That was the compromise, which obviously is deeply problematic and terrible. But we actually kind of still see this now. It’s not quite as stark, but in the 2020 census, it was Black people, Native American people, Hispanic people were all undercounted. There was a lot of conversation about whether or not a citizenship question would be added into it, but also if you go back to, thinking about the earlier thing, if you are from a group that has had mostly negative interactions with official statistics, or if you have had that information used against you in some way, why would you answer the census, you’re supposed to, but why would do that? And so what you saw was that you had a huge undercount of those populations. Almost everything in the US flows from those numbers. So if your community is undercounted, you get less representation in Congress, you get fewer dollars in schools, you’d get fewer for your community hospital, for your housing allocation. You just have a weaker political voice and you also have a weaker standing in society. And the same goes for overcounted groups. So who’s not overcounted and that Black people, Native American, Hispanic people, you know, white people are overcounted. And so then you have more of the funding that’s allocated to them. The funding is huge. I think it’s, I don’t know the exact number, but I think the last time I looked, it was close to like 1.5 trillion that flows from the census number, as does all right now all of the different people who are how many people get represented, who gets represented, all of that also from the census.

Even if the census itself being left out might not seem like it matters and it might seem like a small number in aggregate over time, it really matters. And it means that you, as a person, but also you, your community, the people that you represent in those numbers from those types of statistics that you represent, whether it’s your race, your gender, all of your education level, how many people you live with, all of that might then be underrepresented as well.

There’s this great paper that I really love, which talks about, it’s called The Surveillance Gap, and it’s by Michele Gilman and Rebecca Green. And they talk about how there are a subset of people within society who actually, we don’t like surveillance in my line of work, so it sounds kind of positive, but it’s not. It’s actually the people who are not a part of society because they’re not on any type of official registration. So it’s like unhoused people. That’s why the homeless count matters so much, right? Because you actually need to be able to enumerate how many people are experiencing this to help make the reality real. So if you fall in that gap, if you essentially are not seen as being a part of this society, this data-fied society, that then means that you become invisible. We can get into all of the why that matters, but I think that that’s the big thing to hone in on there.

Shannon Lynch: Yeah, the mention of surveillance is a great segue to the next question. So, we’ve seen instances in the past where data can become a weapon of surveillance, right? Like, I think of the Stasi secret police in East Germany. What are some of the warning signs that people should look out for to know when data collection is crossing into this toxic level of control, perhaps?

Sydney Saubestre: The Stasi is one of my favorite examples. It’s fascinating. The amount of information that they had access to was everything from, like, school files to who your neighbors were, to what type of material you might’ve bought at the bookstore. It’s actually what you can then do and what they did with that information. So in terms of coming up with like the psychological profile, because they had access to your school records and they had the access to the diaries that you wrote as part of your, you know, fifth grade composition homework, and they were able to then exert a level of control. This is a bit of a tangent, but there’s a thing that I think about. I can’t remember. I think it’s in the art of war where they’re like, don’t tell your enemies your weakness. And it’s like, yeah, if you tell people what your biggest nightmares are, what your fears are, all of that, then they’re able to use it against you.

So, but anyways, back to your question around is it crossing over into control. I think when information is being gathered faster than the rules to govern it, that’s a problem. When data shifts from protecting people to policing them, that’s a problem. I think right now we’re in a moment where I don’t think it’s actually been that subtle, but I think it has actually been very in people’s faces, but they don’t always realize, but there’s been a huge push to collect as much information as possible at the federal level and to combine it all into these files that are now being used by DOGE when they were talking about how there’s too much inefficiency in government and there was a push to then make it so that the government could access all data everywhere. That’s a problem.

There are reasons why sometimes you want that data and that information to be separate. There are reasons why the director of the NSA, or the NSA, doesn’t necessarily need information about who’s getting FEMA assistance. Those just don’t actually need to be connected. And I think with the Stasi, what they did and with some other regimes who have really used data very effectively, what they do is they just, they pull everything together.

So I think when you start seeing massive data is pulling. Data is important. Like you, and this is again, like to go back to the duality thing, you do need data and governments need data in order to deliver on their services. They need data in good faith, being used in good faith to be able to say, why is it that kids from a certain neighborhood are not graduating at the same rates as kids from the neighborhoods two zip codes over? That’s important. You’d want to be able to answer that. But if they then start to use it, the intent matters and if they start to use it essentially for their own aims. And they tend to use it without any type of safeguards.

I work with a lot of people who both care deeply about the integrity of data, but also care deeply about privacy and ensuring that agency and consent are at the heart of all of these things. But when they just start collecting it all and they start saying, like, don’t worry about how we’re using, and they’re not transparent about it, and they don’t allow you to have control over your information, that feels like a problem. And I think we’re seeing a lot of that right now.

Shannon Lynch: That’s all really important to keep in mind. It feels like it’s kind of hard to keep track of all the ways that data is being compiled right now. It seems like it is moving so fast. I think a lot of people are just going the route of, well, if they’re collecting this data, it’s probably going to be used for harm. So yeah, it’s hard to suss out what might be harmful and what might not be. So yeah, we do find ourselves at this crossroads in how data will be used in the U.S. in the future. What choices or safeguards do you think are most urgent to protect both truth and democracy for the future?

Sydney Saubestre: To go back to the earlier point about not being able to know exactly what information is being collected. So we actually, we worked on this as one of our projects. We created a quiz that people can use where we were looking early on at what type of information DOGE was accessing from individual people. So if you fill out a series of questions about you, we’re not collecting this information, we don’t keep it. But if you fill out a series of questions, it might tell you which of your information they’ve been accessing and using.

And I also think that there’s so many things that are coming to light. The Social Security Administration recently, whistleblower came out and said yes, that this information had been used even though before DOGE had claimed they hadn’t accessed it. Don’t necessarily want people to stop sharing information. There’s again, information that’s really important. So, say your child meets a certain type of accommodation in school, you want to be able to get them those accommodations and part of that is filling out the forms that you need to. I

think what’s really important is that the people who have long been custodians of this data, I feel like one of the things that people will often say is like, well, this data is the U.S. government’s. And it’s like, it actually doesn’t belong to the U.S. government. They are the current custodian of that data, but it belongs to all the people who have shared that information with them. The data about me, it should belong to me. And so I think when people don’t have the ability to weigh in on the information about them and how it’s being used, that’s a problem.

So, in terms of the safeguards that are most urgent. It’s the same ones that we often talk about and that have long been the case. We need to codify them and not have them rely on the goodwill and the norms that people have obeyed until very recently, people believed in The Privacy Act, that was an important thing. And now we’re seeing that those are not enough. So, we know we need transparency, people should know what’s collected and why, we need limits, not every single person needs to access every single piece of data. There are reasons why privacy is important. There are reasons why you don’t want certain people to see certain information. It should be used only as needed and it should be followed within the scope of what you need to be able to answer. We need accountability. There are a lot of people who are accessing information that they shouldn’t have had access to, and there’s been very little accountability. Those people haven’t necessarily been removed from their positions. We’re seeing opposite actually, that people who have tried to stand up to the current data overreach have lost their jobs. I think you’re seeing this in a lot of different dimensions. I think what you saw with the Bureau of Labor Statistics or even with the CDC recently, it’s like all the people who are trying to do their job, as their job has long been understood, are losing their positions and they’re finding it really impossible. That accountability and that holding people to account, that’s something that Congress should be weighing in on. We have some people, some elected representatives who are doing that, but a lot who are not and who could be.

We need equity, that’s really important too. I think making sure that marginalized groups are not erased from counts or disproportionately targeted by the weaponization of data. I think the piece that is important too is that a thing that we don’t always do a good job of is the data storytelling. So really communicating to people why data matters and why the safeguard of independent statistical agencies. It sounds so wonky, I love it. I know not everyone does. I know that some people I talk to, you know, their eyes, they kind of, I don’t know, they’re like, please stop talking. I try to make it really engaging. But I think if we can just kind of do a better job, we as policymakers do a better job of really conveying to people why this matters and how this information is about them and for them, we would also be able to push back a little bit more.

Shannon Lynch: Just a follow-up question, just because I’m curious. When you say that these all need to be codified, do we see that happening in reality any time soon? Are there any actions underway in Congress? People who are working on bills in that direction? What do you think about that in the near term?

Sydney Saubestre: I think that it’s something that’s needed and I think that some people are working on. So, Representative Trahan recently worked on it, did a request for information on the Privacy Act reform. So getting people to weigh in on that. I think there have been other efforts to pass comprehensive data privacy, which is also important in terms of whether or not these things will happen. I would love for them to, I don’t know. I don’t know that I can give a vision of hope at this point in time.

Shannon Lynch: Well, Sydney, thank you for coming on and explaining all of this. I know that for a lot of folks, it’s kind of a scary topic. So, really appreciate you coming on and explaining the goods and the bads of government use of data.

Sydney Saubestre: Thanks so much for having me, Shannon. It was my pleasure. Thanks for chatting with me.

Trent Cokley: This was a New America production. Our executive producer and host is Shannon Lynch. Our producers are Joe Wilkes, David Lanham, Jodi Narde, Joel Rienstra, and Trenton Cokley. Social media by Maika Moulite. Visuals by Alex Briñas. Media outreach by Heidi Lewis. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Democracy Deciphered wherever you like to listen.