An official portrait of U.S. President Donald Trump hangs in the Hall of Nations at the Kennedy Center, which the Trump administration argued in a court filing could eventually face demolition if major repairs are not undertaken, in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 26, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Jennica Pounds, the data scientist known online as DataRepublican, is drawing fire once again after unveiling an interactive database that critics warn could be used to track Americans by their political ties.
Pounds, a former DOGE volunteer who was publicly identified in 2025 after years operating anonymously, announced on Thursday what she calls the DSA Explorer, a clickable map of the Democratic Socialists of America and what she described as the "wider anti-imperialist solidarity network." She said it draws on more than a year of research.
"Click any org, person, or project and walk the network one tie at a time," Pounds wrote on X. "Start at DSA and see where it leads."
The tool lets users trace links between organizations, individuals and projects connected to the socialist group. Pounds billed it as a preview of a wider relaunch, DataRepublican v2.0, timed ahead of her book UNELECTED, written with Joshua Lisec and due Oct. 13. She added that she could build similar maps for "the Soros network, democracy organizations, and much more."
The launch set off immediate alarm bells.
Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone, called it a "McCarthyite database tracking Americans based on party affiliation," and noted Pounds "idiotically outed herself as a secret Pentagon employee last week."
Writer Pedro L. Gonzalez went further, describing Pounds as "a special government employee creating tools that will be used to intimidate the public and go after dissenters under the pretext of fighting a domestic terror threat." His warning came as the administration faces accusations of inventing a terror threat to target charities.
Will Sommer of The Bulwark added: "A secret Dept of Defense employee has built a database to track American citizens by their political affiliations. The Pentagon still refuses to say what her job description is."
Another user mocked the project as "just helping my government do the thing that right wingers have been saying is their biggest fear for decades."
The alarms also come amid reports that a data firm was building "detailed portraits of Americans" on Trump's order, and that DOGE turned AI loose on federal workers to flag hostility to the president.