Saturday, August 16, 2025

Every person counts

August 16, 2025

EXECUTIVE POWER GRAB

“Reaction forces” could usher in a new age of domestic deployment

The Trump administration has begun its federal takeover of DC, with the city’s police department under the administration’s control and National Guard troops beginning to arrive on the streets. This is an authoritarian show of power. Though the relationship between the federal government and Washington is unique, we cannot let the fraught legality of this situation lead us to believe that this will be a one-off incident. What President Trump can do in Washington, he wants to try everywhere, potentially with the assistance of a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” — the Pentagon’s pitch for a new, 600-person unit of the National Guard that will be on standby for rapid deployment to cities. This plan would bring about a dangerous era in which domestic deployment isn’t reserved for genuine emergencies, but wholly normalized. War-trained, military-grade weapon-wielding troops should not be policing civilians. Congress must act now to defend the American public from this abuse of power.

ACT NOW Urge your representatives to put an immediate end to President Trump’s authoritarian power grab. Join the thousands of other supporters who have taken action.

POGO STATEMENT Federal Takeover of the Nation’s Capital Is Unjustified and Unacceptable: “This stunt cannot be tolerated in a free country,” says POGO’s David Janovsky.

The DC attorney general is suing the administration over its takeover of the city police. The lawsuit makes it clear: the administration’s actions are unwarranted, and its attempt to install a federal official as an emergency police commissioner has no legal basis.

Los Angeles, Washington, New York, Baltimore, Chicago, Oakland. It cannot be ignored that President Trump’s words and actions are perceived as retaliating against political enemies.

More unconstitutional, unauthorized abuse of the armed forces: The Trump administration has directed the Pentagon to use military force against certain Latin American drug cartels. Congress needs to stop watching idly as the administration commandeers its war powers.

Domestic deployment accelerates surveillance creep

(Illustration: Ren Velez / POGO; Photos: Getty Images)

As National Guard troops arrive in Washington, potentially so does war-fighting technology — including the sophisticated surveillance technology typically reserved for conducting military reconnaissance. A report by Defense One goes into depth about the surveillance tools people in Washington could now be exposed to: spy aircraft, Stingrays, facial recognition, social media monitoring, and even more. The surveillance state has been steadily expanded over the decades and has been aggressively abused by the Trump administration under the auspices of immigration enforcement. “When we start removing limits on what the government can do to anyone, we’re also removing limits on what the government can do to everyone. This is the stark reality of the expansive and invasive scale of surveillance in America,” writes POGO’s Don Bell.

ANALYSIS Mass Deportations Will Rely on Authoritarian Surveillance: Surveillance will be supercharged under the auspices of immigration enforcement.

Related news: The Trump administration’s coordinated effort to break data firewalls and what it means for your privacy (The Hill); and inside Palantir, the data dealer selling your information to the federal government (Wired)

Stephen Miller divests — a report back

Earlier this summer, we published an investigation on White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s previously unreported financial stake in Palantir. The breaking news was covered by Rolling Stone, The Independent, MSNBC, The New Republic, and more. We have just learned through Miller’s ethics disclosures that he has sold many, and possibly all, of the individual stocks he and his family owned in Palantir.

Miller is selling his financial stake at a time that greatly benefits him — Palantir stock is at a record high, largely because of the company’s highly lucrative partnership with ICE that Miller himself played a key role in arranging. You deserve a government free of corruption, with officials who serve the people’s interests and not their own financial interests. We’re committed to exposing corruption and holding power to account.

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TAXPAYER TRANSPARENCY

“Noncensical”

For 235 years, the census has been conducted every 10 years. President Trump is trying to upend that, pushing for an “immediate”, mid-decade census that would only count people with legal citizenship status, and illegally exclude the millions of people without it. This is a drastic escalation of the first Trump administration’s attempt to include a citizenship question in the 2020 census, which we vehemently opposed and which was ultimately blocked by the Supreme Court. Census data dictates everything from congressional representation to how much federal funding a state receives. If people are intimidated away from participating — or excluded altogether — the resulting skewed data could impact a decade’s worth of federal decision-making and hurt your community for years to come. The Constitution is clear in its census guidelines: Every person counts.

More than just a headcount: The decennial census, explained.

“If we don’t count everybody, we wind up misspending our money on infrastructure and hospitals, schools, power grids and water, so everyone winds up being inconvenienced and encountering problems,” POGO’s Sean Moulton told Reuters.

DIG DEEPER Dollars and Demographics: How Census Data Shapes Federal Funding Distribution: 2020 census data dictated how more than $2.1 trillion in federal funds were distributed to states and communities.

The head of the Census Bureau told employees that President Trump cannot unanimously order a new census, and that the decision rests with Congress. The decennial census is mandated by the Constitution. Congress should do everything in its power to uphold these constitutional guidelines and block any attempt to politicize the census.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Another damning DOGE report paints a clear picture of its actual savings

(Illustration: Ren Velez / POGO)

You may remember the recent Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report on the money DOGE wasted in its efforts to reduce government waste: an alleged $21.7 billion was squandered by DOGE in just six months. Analyses by CBS and now Politico have found that DOGE may have wasted much, much more than it saved in its chaotic contract-cutting effort — with Politico putting the total estimate for tax dollars saved from cancelled contracts at just $1.4 billion, a fraction of DOGE’s claimed savings of $54.2 billion. These reports are seriously concerning, and Congress and inspectors general must investigate. You deserve real savings, not fudged numbers.

ANALYSES What’s wrong with DOGE? Its Structure; Its Glaring Conflicts of Interest; Its Disregard for the Law. Read the three-part series by POGO’s Faith Williams.

ANALYSIS VA’s DOGE Cuts Sting and Will Reduce Efficiency: DOGE’s VA contract terminations included contracts that promote efficiency and for critical medical services. Their loss will harm the agency and the veterans it serves, writes POGO’s Scott Amey.