Judge blocks Trump administration's database of Americans' personal info

Washington — A federal judge on Monday ruled the Trump administration acted unlawfully when it created a centralized database that contains Americans' private information, which she said has since been used by some states to incorrectly remove U.S. citizens from their voter rolls. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, D.C., sided with a voting rights group and nonprofit that works to protect privacy in finding that the administration violated three different laws with its new system that includes Americans' citizenship data. "All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote," she wrote . "This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens." The judge set aside the administration's overhaul of a database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security to verify citizenship and immigration status, called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system. The plaintiffs in the case had argued that the Trump administration turned that tool into a "searchable national citizenship data system" that draws from records held by the Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security. Sooknanan said that the court fight raises two fundamental rights that aim to protect Americans from government overreach: the right to privacy and the right to vote. …