Tag: mass surveillance

Weaponized sugar pill? Homeland ends controversial and costly Quiet Skies domestic spying program

On Thursday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced via social media that the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) is ending the pricey and oft-politicized Quiet Skies program.

“Today, I’m announcing TSA is ending the Quiet Skies Program, which since its existence has failed to stop a SINGLE terrorist attack while costing US taxpayers roughly $200 million a year,” she wrote in a press release.  

The Quiet Skies program, an initiative that began in 2010 and was officially launched in 2012 by the TSA, has sparked debate over its secretive monitoring of domestic air travelers deemed to be potential security risks. 

Originally intended to identify and track individuals who may pose threats to aviation, the program relied on behavioral analysis and data collection, often without passengers’ knowledge. Critics have long argued it raised privacy concerns and lacked transparency, while supporters have claimed it was a vital tool for ensuring safety in an era of evolving security challenges.

Agency used program as political tool

Noem went on to say, “DHS and TSA have uncovered documents, correspondence, and timelines that clearly highlight the inconsistent application of Quiet Skies. The program, under the guise of “national security,” was used to target political opponents and benefit political allies of the Biden Administration.” 

Noem also said that she is calling for a full Congressional investigation to examine corruption within the program.

Perhaps the most well-known case is that of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard, a decorated Army Reserve veteran who served in Iraq and Kuwait, and was later elected to the House of Representatives from Hawaii, was placed on the program’s watchlist in July 2024, prompting widespread controversy over allegations of political retaliation. 

Gabbard said on X that “I was put on a secret terror watch list after I publicly criticized [Kamala Harris]. No one will be safe from political retaliation under a Harris administration. I put my life on the line for this country. Now the government calls me a terror threat.”

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Palantir’s Value Soars With Dystopian Spy Tool that Will Centralize Data on Americans

During an end-of-year investor call this February, Palantir CEO, co-founder and militant Zionist Alex Karp bragged that his company was making a financial killing by enabling mass murder.

“Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world and, when it’s necessary, to scare enemies,” he stated, adding: “And on occasion, kill them.”  

On this front, Karp claimed Palantir was “crushing it,” and he professed to be “super-proud of the role we play, especially in places we can’t talk about.” 

Karp went on to predict social “disruption” ahead that would be “very good for Palantir.”

“There’s a revolution. Some people are going to get their heads cut off,” he warned, suggesting that his firm was producing the most vital technology enabling elites to restore control during the coming unrest.

Denver-based Palantir [which specializes in software platforms for big-data analytics] is already playing a decisive role in the besieged Gaza Strip, where its products assist Israel’s application of a ferocious AI targeting system known as Lavender which directs its ongoing genocide.

In the face of public protest, Karp has acknowledged that he is directly involved in killing Palestinians in Gaza, but insisted the dead were “mostly terrorists.”

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Trump’s Palantir-Powered Surveillance Is Turning America Into A Digital Prison

“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission.” — Ayn Rand

Call it what it is: a panopticon presidency.

President Trump’s plan to fuse government power with private surveillance tech to build a centralized, national citizen database is the final step in transforming America from a constitutional republic into a digital dictatorship armed with algorithms and powered by unaccountable, all-seeing artificial intelligence.

This isn’t about national security. It’s about control.

According to news reports, the Trump administration is quietly collaborating with Palantir Technologies—the data-mining behemoth co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel—to construct a centralized, government-wide surveillance system that would consolidate biometric, behavioral, and geolocation data into a single, weaponized database of Americans’ private information.

This isn’t about protecting freedom. It’s about rendering freedom obsolete.

What we’re witnessing is the transformation of America into a digital prison—one where the inmates are told we’re free while every move, every word, every thought is monitored, recorded, and used to assign a “threat score” that determines our place in the new hierarchy of obedience.

This puts us one more step down the road to China’s dystopian system of social credit scores and Big Brother surveillance.

The tools enabling this all-seeing surveillance regime are not new, but under Trump’s direction, they are being fused together in unprecedented ways—with Palantir at the center of this digital dragnet.

Palantir, long criticized for its role in powering ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids and predictive policing, is now poised to become the brain of Trump’s surveillance regime.

Under the guise of “data integration” and “public safety,” this public-private partnership would deploy AI-enhanced systems to comb through everything from facial recognition feeds and license plate readers to social media posts and cellphone metadata—cross-referencing it all to assess a person’s risk to the state.

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UK Leads Global Push For Notification Data Requests

Back in 2023, we reported on how US agencies have used push notification metadata on smartphones for surveillance, pressuring tech companies like Apple and Google to hand over user information. Prompted by Senator Ron Wyden’s inquiry, Apple revealed it had been legally barred from disclosing this practice, which raises serious concerns about civil liberties and government overreach.

Cut to today and government demands for user information tied to Apple’s push notification system continued into the first half of 2024, with the United Kingdom submitting 141 requests, despite the nation’s relatively small size, and the United States following with 129.

Germany also obtained data during this period. Singapore, despite making inquiries, received none. These figures come from Apple’s most recent transparency report, shedding light on global government interest in a lesser-known surveillance vector.

Even some privacy apps can be undermined by surveillance at the push notification level. Many apps have to rely on Apple or Google to deliver notifications; services that can expose critical metadata such as which app sent the notification, when it was sent, and how often.

This metadata can be used by governments to infer user activity, and social connections, and even de-anonymize users. It bypasses app-level encryption entirely, exploiting a layer outside the user’s or developer’s control.

Apple’s report outlines what’s at stake with these requests. When someone enables notifications for an app, the system generates a “push token” that links the device and app to a specific Apple account.

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Welcome to the Palantir World Order

How does a company with CIA ties and two steering committee members of the secretive Bilderberg Group as founders end up in the White House?

This question should be on the minds of every free-thinking person regardless of political affiliation or lack thereof. The answer to this question cuts to the heart of understanding the future direction of the American experiment, and the impact it will have on the rest of the world.

Starting in 2019 I began warning that we were witnessing the creation of a Technocratic State, with Big Tech CEOs amassing exorbitant wealth and unfathomable data about the world. This collection of financial wealth and data has allowed these Technocrats to gain power equivalent to many nations, and beyond that of smaller nations. Palantir is a perfect example of the merging of corporate and state power.

Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, long before they were made Steering Committee members of the secretive Bilderberg Group. Karp and Thiel launched Palantir with seed funding from the CIA’s venture capital firm In-Q-Tel. The CIA aimed to use Palantir to relaunch the controversial post-9/11 program known as Total Information Awareness. TIA would be shuttered after public outcry and concerns around surveillance. However, after Thiel and Karp began meeting with intelligence officials they helped Palantir to do privately what the government could not get permission from the American people to do publicly.

Over the last 120 days of the 2nd Trump administration it has become clear that Palantir is on the way to becoming the U.S. government’s new favorite Military Industrial Complex contractor of choice. A quick search reveals numerous headlines detailing the recent rapid rise of Palantir’s stock.

This should come as no surprise given the abundant contracts and projects Palantir is reportedly developing with the U.S. government. Here’s a brief look at the ways in which Palantir is becoming more deeply connected to the MIC.

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‘Trump Flipped On Us’: MAGA Reacts to Potential National Citizen Database

Supporters of President Donald Trump expressed anger and disbelief online following reports that his administration had advanced plans to create a national citizen database with technology firm Palantir.

Newsweek reached out to Palantir for comment.

Why It Matters

The White House has contracted Palantir, a Colorado-based analytics company co-founded by Trump supporter Peter Thiel, to assist in compiling a database of personal information on American citizens, according to unnamed government officials and Palantir employees who spoke with The New York Times. The purported deal follows project talks Palantir had with the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Department of Education.

The reaction from Trump’s supporters reflected growing unease within conservative circles, indicating a rare rupture between the president and key segments of his constituency. The controversy underscores nationwide anxieties around privacy, civil liberties, and the growing influence of technology firms over personal information management.

What To Know

The Palantir deal marks a significant development in government data collection, drawing sharp concern from privacy advocates and Trump’s own core base, otherwise known as “MAGA.” Detractors compared the centralized database effort to surveillance initiatives in authoritarian regimes.

Numerous pro-Trump voices expressed dismay and feelings of betrayal across social media platforms like X.

“People are so quick to suggest that I flipped on Trump…No, no, no…I didn’t flip on Trump. TRUMP FLIPPED ON US. I’m just not willing to continue living in a LIE, and I will tell you the unfortunate TRUTH about it,” The Patriot Voice wrote on X to his 158,000 followers.

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Trump’s Palantir-Powered Surveillance Is Turning America Into a Digital Prison

“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission.”Ayn Rand

Call it what it is: a panopticon presidency. President Trump’s plan to fuse government power with private surveillance tech to build a centralized, national citizen database is the final step in transforming America from a constitutional republic into a digital dictatorship armed with algorithms and powered by unaccountable, all-seeing artificial intelligence.

This isn’t about national security. It’s about control.

According to news reports, the Trump administration is quietly collaborating with Palantir Technologies—the data-mining behemoth co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel—to construct a centralized, government-wide surveillance system that would consolidate biometric, behavioral, and geolocation data into a single, weaponized database of Americans’ private information.

This isn’t about protecting freedom. It’s about rendering freedom obsolete.

What we’re witnessing is the transformation of America into a digital prison—one where the inmates are told we’re free while every move, every word, every thought is monitored, recorded, and used to assign a “threat score” that determines our place in the new hierarchy of obedience.

This puts us one more step down the road to China’s dystopian system of social credit scores and Big Brother surveillance.

The tools enabling this all-seeing surveillance regime are not new, but under Trump’s direction, they are being fused together in unprecedented ways—with Palantir at the center of this digital dragnet.

Palantir, long criticized for its role in powering ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids and predictive policing, is now poised to become the brain of Trump’s surveillance regime.

Under the guise of “data integration” and “public safety,” this public-private partnership would deploy AI-enhanced systems to comb through everything from facial recognition feeds and license plate readers to social media posts and cellphone metadata—cross-referencing it all to assess a person’s risk to the state.

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Palantir Co-Founder Joe Lonsdale & Former Exec Refute NYT Report Warning Over Surveillance ‘Master List’

Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and former executive Wendy Anderson have hit back against a NY Times report warning that the company is laying the groundwork for government surveillance on steroids through a massive database that would coordinate the private information of US citizens across federal agencies. 

“Palantir’s not a “database”; it’s a platform created by 1000s of the most talented and patriotic Americans to partner with our DoD to stop attacks and defeat bad guys, while protecting liberty & privacy,” Lonsdale posted on X in response to the account “Retard Finder,” that said “The Palantir database idea is retarded.” 

“There are hundreds of similar types of software and efforts in the USA throughout the west; what’s unique about Palantir is that it’s BY FAR the best at stopping bad guys,” Lonsdale continued. 

When asked by a self-described Palantir shareholder whether he’d “personally be comfortable with your personal data being stored in this database if AOC or Ilhan Omar were President,” Lonsdale replied: 

“given the government does operate on sensitive data: I 100% prefer PLTR to be there if sketchy people are in charge, as it has full access rules and audit trails; others don’t.”

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Opinion: The Most Terrifying Company in America Is Probably One You’ve Never Heard Of

Most Americans have never heard of Palantir. That’s by design. It doesn’t make phones or social platforms. It doesn’t beg for your data with bright buttons or discount codes. Rather, it just takes it. Quietly. Legally. Systematically. Palantir is a back-end beast, the silent spine of modern surveillance infrastructure.

Palantir’s influence isn’t hypothetical. It’s operational. From the battlefields of Ukraine to the precincts of Los Angeles, its software guides drone strikes, predicts crime, allocates police resources, and even helps governments decide which children might someday become “threats.” These aren’t sci-fi hypotheticals. They are pilot programs, already integrated, already scaling.

This software—Gotham, Foundry, and now its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP)—is designed to swallow everything: hospital records, welfare files, license plate scans, school roll calls, immigration logs and even your tweets. It stitches these fragments into something eerily complete—a unified view of you. With each data point, the image sharpens.

If Facebook turned people into products, Palantir turns them into probabilities. You’re not a user. You’re a variable—run through predictive models, flagged for anomalies, and judged in silence.

This is not just surveillance. It’s prediction. And that distinction matters: Surveillance watches. Prediction acts. It assigns probabilities. It flags anomalies. It escalates risk. And it trains bureaucrats and law enforcement to treat those algorithmic suspicions as fact. In short: the software decides, and people follo

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Cities nationwide are quietly deploying facial recognition technology to track your every move

Police in cities across America want to deploy AI-driven facial-recognition technology that’s capable of tracking and identifying every human being who enters public spaces in real time.

Even politicians in some cities are calling for a pause or outright banishment of this technology from ever getting into the hands of cops. But the battle is shaping up to be a big one in cities nationwide, and if I was a betting man I would put my money on the technocrats and the cops. They will likely win out over the few politicians and taxpaying citizens who are concerned about privacy and civil liberties. They almost always do. They have the money and the media propaganda machine on their side.

According to an article in Biometric Update, two-thirds of Milwaukee’s city council says no, they don’t want this technology given to cops. An article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel says 11 of 15 city alderpersons signed a letter opposing use of the facial recognition technology by the Milwaukee Police Department, citing concerns about bias, ethics and potential overreach.

Below is an excerpt from the article in Biometric Update, and notice the rationale — it’s always the same whenever technocrats are involved: Safety, speed and efficiency.

Milwaukee police currently don’t have a facial recognition system — but they want one, and have tested the technology. They say it makes solving crimes faster, and “can be done with the appropriate parameters in place to ensure that the use will not violate individual civil rights.” They say it would not be, and had never been, used as exclusively as probable cause to arrest someone. They have pledged to engage in public consultation as part of any formal acquisition process.

Nonetheless, the Council’s letter, written “in strong opposition to the deployment of facial recognition technology by the Milwaukee Police Department,” says that “while we understand the desire to enhance public safety and the promises people have made for this emerging technology, we believe these benefits are significantly outweighed by the risks.”

The article goes on to note that the council’s letter “names potential overreach by the administration of President Donald Trump as a risk factor, as well as studies showing that the majority of facial-recognition algorithms are more likely to misidentify people with darker skin, women and the elderly.

How absurdly shortsighted that their major concern is Trump using this technology. This suggests they’d be perfectly fine with facial-recognition being deployed if we just had a different person in the White House, someone with a “D” in front of their name like Gavin Newsom or Kamala Harris.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin has asked the Milwaukee Council to adopt a two-year pause on any new surveillance technology across city services, including police.

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