Julia Angwin

"The F.T.C. move is an attempt to tilt the media landscape in favor of the government in ways that are simply un-American. If we want a media that is willing to stand up to government, we need to fight for the right to boycott, not just for ourselves but also for advertisers."

Opinion | Trump Moves to Silence a New Target

Boycotts can be an powerful tool for political change. They helped end apartheid and even helped pushed Elon Musk out of govt.

So the Trump Admin is trying back-door efforts to curtail the ability to boycott. My latest for @nytopinion.nytimes.com (gift link)

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/o...

Congratulations! What a dream team 🎊

Thank you for this - it’s so important!

People forget how shocking it was when the Cold War ended and we saw how innovation had entirely stopped. The countries behind the Iron Curtain were decades behind the West!

How Trump Upended 60 Years of Civil Rights in Two Months

Probably not the most important thing about her crucial article, but the way that @nhannahjones.bsky.social responds to commenters is a master class on how journalists can (and imho should) engage with audiences.

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/m...

💯💯💯💯👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

New Jersey folks — come on by this weekend for a chat about how to save democracy! 👇🏻

Phew, the impersonator is gone. Thanks to those who reported! And thanks to Bluesky team for fast work 🙏🏻

It seems I have an impersonator on here. Please do not follow, and report if you feel inclined. The writing has an AI flavor to it.

Opinion | Big Tech Is Finally Losing

I bring you a tiny bit of good news — courts are finally reining in Big Tech in significant ways.

We could actually be on the cusp of a totally transformed tech landscape - after 30 years of total lack of constraints.

My latest for @nytopinion.nytimes.com (gift link)

So true. I’ve noticed this in the difference between the NY-DC Acela crowd and the regular train on the same route. People are so much nicer on the regular train — and because we have shitty trains in US, it’s not a huge difference in time or comfort.

So You Want to Be a Dissident? A practical guide to courage in Trump’s age of fear.

Not at all! I'm a big believer in hope. Recently did a 'lil treatise on it, in fact.
www.newyorker.com/news/the-wee...

Yes, but it can take some time.

Gentle reminder: Authoritarians regularly kill off oligarchs who seem to be getting too much power.

I’ll be talking about DOGE, our data, surveillance and authoritarianism in an hour.

Check out the link below for YouTube live stream 👇🏻

Thank you. I have been waiting for this skeet.

what a time to be alive.

A Threat Model for Opposing Authoritarianism Hi friends – The morning after the presidential election in November, I jolted awake in a panic. A thought was blaring in my brain: “My threat model is...

Omg thank you for doing this!! I’ve been trying to think through threat modeling for authoritarianism. This will be immensely helpful as I build this out.
Current state of my thinking:
buttondown.com/JuliaAngwin/...

Really looking forward to my fireside chat about surveillance with @ellenwapo.bsky.social whose work I have admired for decades.

👇🏻link for online viewing below.

Surveillance Ascendant, Democracy in Free Fall

📍NEXT WEEK: We're thrilled to have @juliaangwin.com, investigative journalist and author, in conversation with @ellenwapo.bsky.social of @washingtonpost.com as our event keynote. RSVP to join "Surveillance Ascendant, Democracy in Free Fall" on 5/16 here: knightcolumbia.org/events/surve...

Real mission of DOGE seen in new insights on federal data and privacy Elon Musk's DOGE has done such a poor job at its state mission that many people are looking for what their real purpose has been. Investigative journalist Julia Angwin talks with Rachel Maddow about t...

I hate watching myself on TV so I haven’t watched this yet.

But thanks to @maddow.msnbc.com for having me on to talk about how DOGE is building the kind of surveillance system authoritarians dream of.

www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

As @bankston.bsky.social so eloquently says:

“This is what we were always scared of. The infrastructure for turnkey totalitarianism is there for an administration willing to break the law.”

If ever there was a moment where we saw how Congress' explicit intentions were being failed -- this is it.

Its urgent that we update the Federal Privacy Act to add greater fines and enforcement, and establish a data protection agency -- just like nearly every other nation has already done.

A whistleblower's disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data A whistleblower tells Congress and NPR that DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data and hid its tracks. "None of that ... information should ever leave the agency," said a former NLRB official.

There are currently dozens of lawsuits against DOGE, many of them alleging Privacy Act violations. But while these wend through court, DOGE keeps grabbing data.

Most recently a brave whistleblower came forward to reveal how DOGE is taking sensitive labor data:
www.npr.org/2025/04/15/n...

But the Privacy Act lacks enforcement heft.
✔️ It doesn't establish a data protection agency to enforce the law.
✔️ Enforcement is left to the courts, but they don't have the investigatory power of an agency.
✔️ It has very small $$ fines.
✔️ Remedies are mostly about correcting inaccurate data.

Amazingly, the publics' dread of building a centralized database killed the plan (oh for the days when popular opinion swayed Congress).

Congress scuttled the plan and passed the Federal Privacy Act of 1974, which was specifically designed to prevent cross-agency data sharing.

A centralized database will be "ill-equipped to correct errors, allow for extenuating circumstances, or bring facts up to date," warned Vance Packard. "The notion of the possibility of redemption is likely to be incomprehensible to a computer."

A centralized database will be "ill-equipped to correct errors, allow for extenuating circumstances, or bring facts up to date," warned Vance Packard. "The notion of the possibility of redemption is likely to be incomprehensible to a computer."

Picture of the front page of the New York Times on January 7, 1968. At the bottom of the page, below news of the escalating Vietnam war and Senator Eugene McCarthy’s presidential ambitions, is an article titled "Data Bank: Peril or Aid?"

On the front page of the New York Times on January 7, 1968 -- you will see a story about the Johnson Administration's attempt to create exactly this type of master database.

The article warns of the privacy perils of putting all this data in one place:
timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine...

DOGE is assembling a master database of personal data from across the government -- including tax records, social security files, immigration dossiers etc.

This cross-agency master database is exactly what Congress tried to prevent when it passed the Federal Privacy Act of 1974.

Opinion | Elon Musk’s Legacy: DOGE’s Construction of a Surveillance State (Gift Article) DOGE is rapidly assembling a sprawling monitoring system, the foundation of many authoritarian regimes.

Elon Musk may or may not fulfill his promise to step back from DOGE.

But his legacy is already clear: He is assembling a sprawling domestic surveillance system — the likes of which we have never seen in the United States.

My latest for NYT Opinion (gift link): www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/o...