Privacy Act Modernization Act of 2025
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Sen. Wyden, Ron [D-OR]
ID: W000779
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5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
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7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the esteemed members of Congress. The "Privacy Act Modernization Act of 2025" - a title that screams "we care about your privacy, but not really." Let's dissect this farce and expose its true intentions.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The bill claims to modernize the Privacy Act of 1974, allegedly to protect individuals' personally identifiable information (PII) from government agencies. In reality, it's a thinly veiled attempt to expand the definition of PII, making it easier for the government to collect and share your data.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill amends various sections of Title 5, United States Code, to:
1. Broaden the definition of "record" to include any personally identifiable information processed by an agency. 2. Expand the scope of matching programs, allowing for more extensive data sharing between agencies and contractors. 3. Strengthen protections for individuals (or so they claim) by requiring agencies to use records only for legally authorized purposes.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects:
1. Government agencies: They'll have more flexibility to collect and share your data, all under the guise of "efficient and effective conduct of the Government." 2. Contractors: They'll benefit from expanded matching programs, allowing them to access more sensitive information. 3. Individuals (you): Your PII will be more vulnerable to collection, sharing, and potential misuse.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It:
1. Erodes individual privacy by expanding the definition of PII and increasing data sharing between agencies and contractors. 2. Fosters a culture of surveillance, where your personal information can be used for purposes unrelated to its original collection. 3. Sets a precedent for future legislation, potentially leading to even more invasive data collection practices.
In conclusion, this bill is a masterclass in doublespeak, designed to placate the gullible while further eroding individual privacy. It's a legislative disease, spreading the infection of government overreach and corporate greed. The diagnosis? Terminal stupidity, with a healthy dose of cynicism and contempt for the intelligence of the American people.
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đź’° Campaign Finance Network
Sen. Wyden, Ron [D-OR]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
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Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 222 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise forward-leaning in sharing cyber threat intelligence with private-sector partners and the public, emphasizing that the protective nature of such information is of value only if put into the right hands at the right time. Since critical infrastructure and services are overwhelmingly owned, managed, and defended by the private sector in the United States, there has been an increasing emphasis on declassify- ing intelligence and sharing actionable information with private-sector partners, often through industry-specific Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs); regional meetings of government and private-sector experts called InfraGard, run by the FBI; direct public notification from the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and (increasingly) the NSA; and more discreet one-on-one engagements led by the collecting agencies. These programs properly recognize the private sector’s role in providing cyber- security for Americans; in practice, however, the intelligence shared by the U.S. government through these venues is too often already known or no longer relevant by the time it makes its way through the downgrade process for sharing. In addition, government-shared information often needs to take advantage of the opportunity to provide contexts, such as attribution, trends, and size of the observed cyber problem. As warranted, additional context should be provided to the private sector as a matter of routine. To continue improving the U.S. government’s ability to defend the country’s most vital networks, the IC must adopt an “obligation to share” policy process, including the capacity for “write to release” intelligence products whereby newly discovered technical indicators, targeting, and other intelligence relevant to cyber defense are automatically provided either to the public or to targeted entities within 48 hours of their collection—which is how counterterrorism intel- ligence has been managed for years when it comes to a “duty to warn.” Under this policy, agency heads should still have the flexibility to withhold intelligence for operational or counterintelligence reasons but would need to report regularly to Congress on the number of and justification for exceptions. This policy would make sharing intelligence and defending networks the default, as it already is in the rest of the cybersecurity community outside the IC, to improve the quantity, relevance, and timeliness of defensive information while ensuring accountability for top leaders when they must withhold this information. One of the most significant challenges within the IC is presented by the need to share information promptly among the 18 elements of the intelligence enterprise. The only long-term solution to the understandable tension between the need to share information and the need to protect intelligence sources and methods is a robust real-time auditing capability that electronically flags unauthorized access. Under an identity management system with real-time audit, even the most sensi- tive information acquired by America’s intelligence agencies can be shared, and the access to and use of that information are appropriately monitored. Establishing — 223 — Intelligence Community a real-time auditing capability is essential to decreasing the risk for the heads of intelligence agencies in meeting their statutory requirements to ensure that they protect sources and methods associated with the classified information their agen- cies collect. Overclassification. There is broad consensus across the U.S. government and among stakeholders that the system for classifying, declassifying, and otherwise marking and handling sensitive information is at a crossroads. Exorbitant amounts of classified data are created daily, and agency personnel often mistakenly choose classification as the default selection to ensure national security. At the same time, the effectiveness of downgraded and carefully declassified information to support foreign policy efforts has been borne out in, for example, alerting the broader world of Russia’s buildup and likely plans for its invasion of Ukraine. Two executive orders principally govern how the U.S. government handles clas- sified and sensitive information. l Executive Order 13526, “Classified National Security Information,” issued in 2009,38 prescribes the classification levels and procedures for declassification. l Executive Order 13556, “Controlled Unclassified Information,” issued in 2010,39 aimed to establish a uniform program for managing all unclassified information that requires safeguarding or dissemination controls. The current system for declassifying classified national security information (CNSI) is extraordinarily analog, requiring experts’ review of individual records. Declassification policies are based on human review of paper and need to con- template and handle the proliferation and volume of digital records created by agencies. The U.S. government will soon reach the point at which manual review is impossible. The declassification of CNSI should support key U.S. national security objectives, reflect mission priorities, and not serve solely as a necessary procedural function. Reforms should include: l Tighter definitions and greater specificity for categories of information requiring protection. l More stringent policies to effect significant reductions in the number of Original Classification Authorities (OCAs). l Stricter accountability measures at the OCA level and more detailed security classification guides.
Introduction
— 598 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise unemployment programs were defrauded of hundreds of billions of dollars, includ- ing by state-sponsored hacking groups. Not all state agencies are yet through their backlogs of appeals and fraud cases; the recovery of lost funds has been minimal; and fraud has now spilled into the traditional UI programs. The CARES Act era drastically altered the entire UI ecosystem: The federal–state partnership shifted toward federal programs and funding, and the social insurance purpose of the program was disconnected as benefits were extended, expanded to more typically uncovered populations, and made exponentially larger. l Congress should enact bipartisan commonsense UI program reforms, including statutory authority for the Labor Office of Inspector General (OIG) to access all state UI records for the purposes of investigation and requiring state agencies to crossmatch applicants with the National Directory of New Hires. l Congress should also develop a framework (through commission of a congressional report to serve as a blueprint) of technical standards on broader tech topics like usability, state agency cybersecurity postures, data taxonomy standardization, and/or identity verification standards. l Congress should provide DOL with more reasonable enforcement tools for the UI system. Currently, DOL can either send a strongly worded letter or revoke the entire Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA)16 tax credit, which would place an immediate 6 percent to 7 percent tax on all covered employers. l DOL should review all actual or planned procurements against the $2 billion (under the American Rescue Plan Act)17 for UI fraud detection, accessibility, and equity investments. These funds do not have appropriations timelines and have very minimal statutory descriptions of the intended purpose. DOL should also review and propose changes to improve state monitoring programs including developing evidence-based frameworks for evaluating the technical readiness and security postures of the state agencies; strengthen its relationship with the OIG and Government Accountability Office (GAO), and support continued development of fraud prosecution with DOJ, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the financial services community; ensure administrative and IT funding is outcome-based; and gather and publish best practices from state officials, industry partners, and other vendors who deliver UI services. — 599 — Department of Labor and Related Agencies WORKER VOICE AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING Non-Union Worker Voice and Representation. American workers lack a meaningful voice in today’s workplace. Between 50 percent and 60 percent of workers have less influence than they want on critical workplaces issues beyond pay and benefits. Even managers are twice as likely to say their employees have too little influence rather than too much. But America’s one-size-fits-all approach undermines worker representation. Federal labor law offers no alternatives to labor unions whose politicking and adversarial approach appeals to few, whereas most workers report that they prefer a more cooperative model run jointly with management that focuses solely on workplace issues. The next Administration should make new options available to workers and push Congress to pass labor reforms that create non-union “employee involvement organizations” as well as a mechanism for worker representation on corporate boards. l Congress should reintroduce and pass the Teamwork for Employees and Managers (TEAM) Act of 2022.18 The TEAM Act: 1. Reforms the National Labor Relations Act’s (NLRA) Section 8(a)(2) prohibition on formal worker–management cooperative organizations like works councils. 2. Creates an “Employee Involvement Organization” (EIO) to facilitate voluntary cooperation on critical issues like working conditions, benefits, and productivity. 3. Amends labor law to allow EIOs at large, publicly traded corporations to elect a non-voting, supervisory member of their company’s board of directors. Alternative View. While some conservatives lament that workers lack sufficient voice in today’s workplace, others interpret the rise in independent and flexible work opportunities, significant expansion in family-friendly policies like paid family leave, and the decline in private sector unionization as indicators of workers’ increasing competency and control. Another way to help expand workers’ freedom and voices in traditional workplaces is by allowing them to choose who represents them in negotiations with their employer. The Worker’s Choice Act19 would accom- plish this by ending exclusive representation so that unions in right-to-work states are no longer forced to represent workers who do not want to join them. Union Transparency. Private-sector unions must file detailed financial infor- mation with DOL—on matters including union spending, income, loans, assets, membership information, and employee salary—but unions composed entirely
Introduction
— 165 — Department of Homeland Security and staff. Although the CRCL Officer and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Officer/Privacy Officer are statutory, their offices are not mandatory. CRCL and PRIV Officers and employees should report to a Deputy General Counsel, who would be a political appointee. The CRCL Officer should focus on equal employment opportunity (EEO) compliance and the civil liberties function and investigate matters only within Headquarters or support components. Operational components’ civil liberties offi- cers should investigate incidents regarding their own agencies. The CRCL Officer should ensure that all civil liberties or civil rights complaints are sent to the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for review. If the OIG chooses not to investigate, the CRCL Officer should only provide supportive information on possible courses of action for complainants. The PRIV Officer and FOIA Officer should focus on FOIA, Privacy Compliance Policy, and Privacy Incident Response. The Deputy General Counsel should provide guidance to DHS leadership regarding Privacy Compliance and Privacy Incident Response. To ensure that only U.S. persons and Lawful Permanent Residents are provided protections as required by the Privacy Act, all DHS issuances should be updated to reflect that DHS protects the privacy of individuals as required by the Privacy Act (U.S. persons and lawful permanent residents);16 the Judicial Redress Act of 2015;17 and any U.S.–European Union Data Protection and Privacy Agreement. Because of the lack of public trust in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, CRCL and PRIV staff should no longer review intelligence products or provide guidance on any intelligence products or reports. A consistent, clear, and singular message is necessary for DHS’s mission. Therefore, all communications and/or meetings with any federal, state, local, or nongovernment groups should be limited to the Deputy General Counsel. In addi- tion, given the narrower scope of work, OGC should disband the outside advisory boards and the more than 50 working groups in which CRCL and PRIV currently participate. Finally, CRCL and PRIV should no longer issue bulletins or periodicals. OFFICE OF THE IMMIGRATION DETENTION OMBUDSMAN (OIDO) AND OFFICE OF THE CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES OMBUDSMAN (CISOMB) OIDO. The Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman should be eliminated. This requires a statutory change in Section 106 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020.18 OIDO was designed to create another impediment to detention through an additional layer of so-called oversight. Several agencies already perform detention oversight. ICE conducts internal audits of facilities and investigates complaints against ICE agents through the Office of Professional Responsibility. Similarly, CBP accepts individual complaints regarding facilities through the Joint Intake Center
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.