Bush DHS chief: Trump voters data request poses danger to national security

The secretary of Homeland Security under former President George W. Bush on Thursday argued that President Trump’s request for voter data could pose a threat to national security, noting the recent attempts by hackers to steal the data. 

In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Michael Chertoff argued that Trump’s election integrity commission should “live up” to Trump’s executive order signed earlier this year to toughen cybersecurity in the federal government.

“But whatever the political, legal and constitutional issues raised by this data request, one issue has barely been part of the public discussion: national security,” Chertoff wrote.

“If this sensitive data is to be collected and aggregated by the federal government, then the administration should honor its own recent cybersecurity executive order and ensure that the data is not stolen by hackers or insiders.”

{mosads}Chertoff’s op-ed comes one week after the Trump administration’s commission on election integrity requested voter roll data from all 50 states.

“We know that a database of personal information from all voting Americans would be attractive not only to adversaries seeking to affect voting but to criminals who could use the identifying information as a wedge into identity theft,” Chertoff noted.

“We also know that foreign intelligence agencies seek large databases on Americans for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes.”

As of Wednesday, 44 states had said they would not supply the election commission with all of the data requested, which includes birthdays, full addresses and the last four digits of Social Security numbers.