As Department of Justice officials are working to acquire sensitive voter registration data from states and have recently disclosed a plan to share it with the Department of Homeland Security, a key privacy officer in DOJ's division tasked with enforcing civil and voting rights laws has resigned.Kilian Kagle was the chief FOIA officer and senior component official for privacy for DOJ's Civil Rights Division before leaving his post in recent days. His resignation has not been previously reported.
For nearly a year, the DOJ has been making unprecedented demands for sensitive voter data from most states — including voters' driver's license numbers, partial Social Security numbers, dates of birth and addresses — that some say violate privacy law.
In some cases, like in California, the demands went further, to include party affiliation and voting history. The agency has said it needs this data to ensure states are performing voter list maintenance and removing ineligible registrants. DOJ has sued more than two dozen states that have not turned over their voter lists.