IN MATTHEW 10, Jesus tells his disciples not to fear their persecutors, for “nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered.” He then assures them that “even the hairs of your head are all counted” by God (verses. 26-30).
Some human entities seem to aspire to this level of knowledge. Congress approved a multibillion-dollar increase to the Department of Homeland Security’s budget last year, and DHS has been rapidly expanding their surveillance technology. This includes location trackers, license plate readers, facial recognition technology, and iris scanners.
In May, DHS awarded a $25 million no-bid contract, five times the size of the previous one, to BI2 Technologies, which specializes in iris scanning. The proposal included more than 1,500 iris scanners and access to the company’s database of stored scans.
Privacy and civil rights experts point to reports of illegal arrests seemingly used to forcefully obtain biometric data and warn that there are no apparent oversight systems on how the information is used or potentially linked to other government databases.
In June, Jeremiah Schofield, a former Social Security Administration executive, came forward with a whistleblower complaint disclosing that in 2025 DHS requested a list of 2.7 million living people be added to the Death Master File, a database of everyone who has died since the creation of Social Security. It’s a powerful file. If a person who is not dead is added to this database, they risk losing access to anything connected to their social security number, including credit cards, bank accounts, and government payments. To fix this—to be “resurrected”—they must go in person to a Social Security office to prove they are alive.
People are courageous and decent every day.
DHS officials did not pretend these 2.7 million people were actually dead (the only legal reason to add someone to the file). Rather they implied that all were in the U.S. illegally and were violent criminals or suspected terrorists.
Thinking this to be statistically suspect, Schofield analyzed 25 of the 2.7 million names. He found that 23 of the 25 were either U.S. citizens or had other legal status; the group included children and a 50-year resident receiving widow’s benefits.
In an episode of This American Life, Schofield recalls how a DHS representative linked to DOGE bluntly outlined their objectives: Either to block people’s credit, thus making their lives “so miserable” that they’ll “self-deport” or to force people into a Social Security office “and we’ll have ICE pick them up there.”
Thankfully, the 2.7 million people were not rendered “dead.” Every day, regular people like Schofield are courageous and decent: Public servants who administer databases larger than most of us can fathom, never forgetting that each strand of data represents a person and so must be treated with care. Lawyers who do the slow work of filing cases to impede privacy violations or defend those snared by malevolent federal immigration enforcement.
Organizations like the Electric Frontier Foundation (eff.org), offer resources to resist the surveillance state at home and in the streets. Our faith offers wonder and love rooted in something far bigger than any human power attempting to hack its way to “God mode.” God knows every human down to the fleck of gold or ocean blue in every iris; each person matters. Let that holy and wild word shape your courage and your conscience.
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