Donald Trump helps construct a much bigger surveillance state, and naturally, he’s utilizing taxpayer {dollars} to do it. Since starting his second time period, Donald Trump has joined forces with the CIA entrance firm Palantir to construct a large new database on a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of Individuals. The database can be utilized sooner or later to trace and search Individuals’ tax returns, financial institution accounts, spending patterns, journey, and far more.
For months, eager observers of the American surveillance state like Whitney Webb have warned that the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity has supplied Trump-linked technocrats with entry to non-public data, with the potential of inputting all that information right into a central database. Now, the Trump administration has pushed a brand new contract with the surveillance agency Palantir to just do that.
The Trump administration has lengthy pretended to oppose the so-called “deep state,” however this newest transfer is solely the most recent proof that the administration has cast an in depth alliance with its “enemies.”
The New Republic stories:
The Trump administration is gathering information on all Individuals, and they’re enlisting the information evaluation firm Palantir to do it.
President Trump has enlisted [Palantir], based by far-right billionaire Peter Thiel, to hold out his March govt order instructing authorities businesses to share information with one another. The order has elevated fears that the federal government is placing collectively a database to wield surveillance powers over the American public.
Since then, the administration has been very quiet about these efforts, growing suspicion. …
Palantir is talking with numerous different businesses throughout the federal authorities, together with the Social Safety Administration and the IRS, about shopping for its expertise, in line with the Instances. Palantir’s Foundry software, which analyzes and organizes information, is already getting used on the DHS, the Division of Well being and Human Companies, and at the least two different businesses, permitting the White Home to compile information from completely different locations.
The administration’s efforts to compile information started underneath Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity initiative, which sought Individuals’ private information from a number of businesses together with the IRS, the SSA, Selective Service, Medicare, and plenty of others.
This newest step towards securing new strategies of monitoring and compiling Individuals’ information represents one other augmentation of the American surveillance state that was drastically expanded to unprecedented ranges underneath the George W. Bush administration and expanded through the Obama and Biden years. The Trump-DOGE-Palantir growth of the American spy state is solely one other software that the federal authorities can use alongside facet its already huge information assortment efforts underneath the NSA and comparable businesses.
It’s too early to know precisely how the federal authorities will use this information, however the potential is big for the longer term development of a social credit score system, for monitoring gun homeowners, and for associated functions of making an AI-fueled “pre-crime” database to establish future “criminals.” Who precisely is a legal, after all, is to be decided on the discretion of future policymakers who will possess the information.
What Is Palantir?
The truth that the Trump administration has chosen to ally itself with Palantir on this matter is telling. Palantir is the poster youngster for the Pentagon-Massive Tech alliance that has been cast by the so-called deep state. Palantir is a component and parcel of the ecosystem of quasi-private-sector actors—corresponding to Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, and others—who revenue extensively from taxpayer-funded authorities contracts. The homeowners of those enterprises, maybe most notably Palantir founder Peter Thiel, typically fake to be “entrepreneurs” whereas repeatedly increasing their alliances with the federal authorities and its tax-funded gravy practice. These ersatz captains of business are successfully parasites who revenue from tax revenues whereas utilizing their entry to federal policymakers to additional crush competitors and the market economic system.
Palantir and Peter Thiel—who has lengthy cultivated the picture of being some type of libertarian—has an particularly shady function. Webb, who has executed intensive analysis on Thiel’s background describes Palantir this manner:
Palantir isn’t just a navy contractor, it was an organization created to denationalise and home the Bush-era, neocon-run surveillance program Complete Data Consciousness (TIA) program, housed beforehand at DARPA, and put it underneath elevated CIA management (although the CIA was additionally intimately concerned with TIA). TIA was shut down by Congress as a result of it will have eradicted the constitutional proper to privateness, however Palantir has completed that and gotten away with it as a result of it’s a non-public sector entity. Palantir’s earliest funder apart from Peter Thiel – The CIA Palantir’s first shopper for its first a number of years as an organization – The CIA The place did Palantir engineers each 2 weeks for years for steering in creating their merchandise? – CIA HQ Palantir’s initially supposed purchasers per CEO Alex Karp – The CIA If there [ever] was a CIA entrance firm it’s Palantir. (Although Peter Thiel has since quipped that the CIA is a entrance for Palantir)
Like Palantir’s “predictive policing” efforts, TIA was designed as a pre-crime program to cease each terror assaults and bioterror and even pandemics earlier than they’ll occur. Palantir has developed the applications to perform all of this, the latter by way of their HHS and CDC partnerships, which can possible be used to pre-emptively declare the subsequent pandemic earlier than any outbreak emerges. Palantir performed an outsized function in Op Warp Velocity, distributing batches of experimental vaccines to minority communities first.
Notably, Palantir’s Federal Advisory Board consists of “distinguished member” Deborah Birx, a chief architect and advocate of the CDC’s covid lockdowns.
Thiel’s shut alliance with the American spy state has reaped large rewards. As Forbes stories as we speak, Palantir’s inventory holders—of which Thiel is the most important particular person proprietor—have profited solidly from the company’s entry to taxpayer {dollars}. Particularly:
The corporate has witnessed greater than $113 million in federal authorities expenditures for the reason that new Trump administration took workplace, stemming from each current contracts and new agreements with the Division of Homeland Safety and the Pentagon. Palantir is reportedly additionally in discussions with the Social Safety Administration and the Inner Income Service relating to the usage of its expertise. Moreover, the corporate secured a $795 million contract from the Division of Protection in late Might.
Though Thiel not is personally on the helm of Palantir, he continues to be a serious participant in making certain political assist for his many Pentagon and CIA-connected endeavors. Thiel has been an enthusiastic advocate of American interventions within the Center East, providing Palantir tech to assist the State of Israel extra “effectively” bomb the residents of Gaza. Naturally, his assist for the American foreign-policy “blob” won’t go unrewarded.
Politically, Thiel has been cautious to fund political candidates who is likely to be helpful to the growth of Thiel’s deep-state empire. On this space, his most profitable gambit has been his sponsorship of J.D. Vance. Vance basically owes his total political profession to Thiel and we might be certain we’ll hear few protests from Vance on any side of Palantir’s alliance with the American state. Luckily, different protégés of Thiel’s have been much less profitable. Regardless of repeated runs for Congress, for instance, Thiel-funded politician Blake Masters has not managed to win a seat in both home of Congress.
Will MAGA Oppose the Trump Deep State?
In quite a few methods, the Trump administration is trying increasingly like an extension of the George W. Bush years. That is true in its rubber stamping of huge progress in federal spending, however the White Home’s assist for expansions of state energy harking back to the Patriot Act pressure comparable comparisons. But, it stays unclear if Trump’s core supporters will object. The political motion generally known as “MAGA,” in any case, has lengthy been notable for defending, kind of, each Trump coverage by way of calls to “belief the plan” and provides Trump the advantage of the doubt. There are indicators that this perspective could also be reaching its limits. Newsweek stories this week:
The response from Trump’s supporters mirrored rising unease inside conservative circles, indicating a uncommon rupture between the president and key segments of his constituency. …
Quite a few pro-Trump voices expressed dismay and emotions of betrayal throughout social media platforms like X.
“Persons are so fast to recommend that I flipped on Trump…No, no, no…I didn’t flip on Trump. TRUMP FLIPPED ON US. I’m simply not prepared to proceed dwelling in a LIE, and I’ll let you know the unlucky TRUTH about it,” The Patriot Voice wrote on X to his 158,000 followers. …
X consumer Jack Maxey questioned: “Was MAGA a large psyop?”
X consumer @D10Cat wrote: “Is Trump the identical man that he was in 2016? Or did I simply not see it again then?”
These are hopeful indicators, however even when MAGA had been to fully abandon Trump on this problem, we’re unlikely to see any shift in coverage from the White Home. In any case, constructing the surveillance state has been a central undertaking of the US authorities since 1945, and Trump has proven no enthusiasm for opposing the pattern. Furthermore, Vance is clearly Palantir’s man and each name for “Vance 2028” is probably going music to the ears of the deep state and its Massive Tech allies.
