State Leaders Must Know Everything About You; You May Know Nothing About Them

What Is Donald Trump Hiding?

A report that the president had senior White House staff sign non-disclosure agreements is the latest reminder of how much he conceals from public view.

Donald Trump has little regard for the privacy of the masses. During the 2016 campaign, he bought access to psychological profiles of millions of voters created by scraping and studying their Facebook accounts without most of them having granted permission. He signed a bill repealing FCC rules that limited the ability of Internet service providers to sell data on our browsing habits. Like his predecessor, he presides over surveillance agencies that collect metadata on the private communications of hundreds of millions of Americans whether they like it or not. And his administration pays a private corporation for access to billions of photographs that reveal where and when particular cars drove on public roads and highways.

Yet even as President Trump exploits information so private that gathering it would have been unthinkable a generation ago, he engages in unprecedented efforts to prevent voters from getting a full, accurate picture of matters bearing on his public life.

Americans still haven’t seen his tax returns.

The opaque nature of his family’s multinational company makes it impossible to understand his conflicts of interest as he directs foreign policy for the United States. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has repeatedly filed incomplete or inaccurate forms with the federal government, both as part of his effort to secure a permanent security clearance, and to comply with federal disclosure rules intended to forestall conflicts of interest.

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From The Atlantic, here.