Automatic delete feature

I read the other day about some kind of Mission-Impossible-style self-destruct mechanism, to be triggered by a possible invasion of Tea Partiers in 2017,  that had been built into the New York City ID program for otherly-documented individuals who, through no fault of their own, had suddenly found themselves in a country not their own without proof of having complied with any tiresome and unjust immigration procedures.  I didn't pay much attention, assuming it was the kind of thing we saw at the end of the Clinton administration, with spiteful outgoing administration staff trashing computers so that life would be as unpleasant as possible for the incoming administration.  Gateway Pundit posted about it today, and I now realize that the purpose of the destruct button was that some bright soul realized that the IDs-for-future-Democratic-voters program involved a formal registration, in which people with, shall we say, questionable legal status had supplied government workers with their names and contact information, and the government workers were so indiscreet as to have filed it with official and permanent government records.  It brings to mind the classic scene in "Red Dawn" when the invading Russian/Cuban forces round up all the trouble-makers by pulling out the county gun-registration files.  Or perhaps a sea captain burning his secret orders when his ship is boarded.