The Trump administration is on its way to creating every authoritarian’s dream: a centralized database containing intimate details about every resident of this country, fully searchable by artificial intelligence. This powerful tool would empower the government to conduct previously unimagined levels of surveillance and harassment against its own people.
Freedom of the Press Foundation is suing the administration for documents behind the database. We know that this isn’t just something that the Trump administration would exploit; once built, it’s unlikely any administration could resist the urge to weaponize our personal information.
This nightmare privacy scenario began one year ago, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order that expanded data sharing across the federal government. The administration touted the order, “Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos,” as a way to target fraud within a supposedly bloated government.
The order was no such thing.
Seriously. This is not new. The whole Prism thing before Palantir had all the data but not the ontology. I’m glad Europe learnt from Snowden.
I’m afraid Germany hasn’t learned anything from him: In the state where I live, the state government unfortunately decided late last year to implement Palantir, even going so far as to amend the police law specifically to retroactively lend at least the appearance of legality to a contract for the purchase of the U.S. mass surveillance software “Gotham” that had already been concluded unlawfully.
There was significant public resistance, but it was simply ignored.
It may still be possible to prevent this through a lawsuit filed with the Constitutional Court, as the use of such applications for groundless mass surveillance is unconstitutional in Germany due to the right to informational self-determination - and I also find it hard to believe that such a thing is compatible with EU law.
I think our politicians must have been bribed. I can’t explain it any other way, because even just from security standpoint, it goes without saying that it’s insane to pass even the most sensitive data directly to the fascist regime in the US - thanks to Snowden, we all know that there’s almost certainly a backdoor.
There are people who perceive immigrants as threats, especially states in the former East Germany.
Yes, that’s definitely true, and it’s the same irrational fear of the unfamiliar that you find almost everywhere in the world. This is particularly absurd in rural areas of eastern Germany, because there are actually very few foreigners there.
Sorry, this is the first I’ve heard of Palantir Gotham.
Jesus Christ, I hate media-illiterate nerds. Batman, famously, DOESN’T TRUST COPS!
It’s painful to read Palantir still being used in EU as well…
The UK is handing data on every citizen to Palantir as they integrate it into (what remains of) the health service. Starmer’s government is stupid and corrupt.
The UK is not part of the EU (European Union), although it is part of the content “Europe”.
Yes, that is true.
Germany, Spain, and possibly the Netherlands have purchased contracts for Pegasus. Spain already used it on some activists.