- United States
- Texas
- Letter
Investigate and Shut Down the National Design Studio's Illegal Surveillance Operation
To: Sen. Cornyn, Rep. Casar, Sen. Cruz
From: A constituent in Manor, TX
June 29
Shut down the National Design Studio and launch a full investigation into its illegal data collection on American citizens. A Guardian investigation found that NDS — a White House office staffed by Doge veterans — ran commercial session-recording software on four federal websites that could capture every click, scroll, and keystroke visitors made. That tracking was deliberately routed through federal web addresses to evade adblockers. There is no innocent explanation for that design choice. It is surveillance, engineered to be hidden.
The legal violations are not ambiguous. Legal experts have called the NDS's failure to publish required privacy notices a clear violation of Section 208 of the E-Government Act of 2002 and the Privacy Act of 1974. The NDS's spending doesn't appear in USAspending, the federal contracting database. And the studio has built White House-controlled copies of Login.gov and vote.gov — systems used by over 150 million Americans — outside the oversight of the agencies legally responsible for them. State election directors have already raised serious concerns about the vote.gov copy. This is exactly the kind of shadow government infrastructure that erodes public trust and democratic accountability. Demand answers now.