The spectre of Artificial Intelligence has cast its shadow over humanity, haunting it with nightmares of a dystopian hellscape under the oppression of a technocratic elite which may be too formidable to ever defeat. The inherently exponential growth of AI means that nightmare is becoming a reality even more quickly than anticipated. Its advent brings with it fears over the erosion of social constructs fundamental to humanity. Among those fears is the deleterious impact the use of AI-powered technocratic systems in the hands of the government will have on civil liberties.
With the near certainty that AI integration will inevitably strengthen the iron-fisted grip government has over its people, the endgame of that technocratic revolution ultimately looks as if it will arrive at tyranny. The weight of that proverbial Sword Of Damocles hanging over the heads of Americans has become evermore apparent following a New York Times report that the Trump administration has tapped Palantir Technologies to use its AI platforms to facilitate the integration of databases across disparate federal agencies. In doing so, the federal government is poised to build a national database capable of wielding unparalleled surveillance powers over American citizens.
The NYT report states that Palantir’s influence within the Trump government will be enhanced by virtue of an Executive Order signed by the president in March which instructs government agencies to increase inter-agency data sharing to “eliminate information silos and streamline data collection across all agencies to increase government efficiency and save hard-earned taxpayer dollars.” Foundry, Palantir’s data integration and analytics platform already in use by the federal government will be further incorporated into even more agencies to achieve that goal.
The platform is already being used by at least 4 different federal agencies, including the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and Education. According to DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, use of that technology is not a new development as Palantir has had contracts with the federal government for over 14 years. Building on that history, Palantir has been on the receiving end of over $113 million in government spending since Trump has returned to the White House. The stake that the Trump administration has taken in the Peter Thiel-founded company is only set to increase following a $795 million contract Palantir was awarded by the Department of Defense 2 weeks ago. Palantir is also reportedly in negotiations for contracts with the Social Security Administration and Internal Revenue Service to equip each of them with the AI tools at Foundry’s disposal.
According to government officials, the impetus of Palantir’s growing incorporation into federal agencies has been accelerated by the efforts of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency. “Palantir’s selection as a chief vendor for the project was driven by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency,” the NYT reported. “At least 3 DOGE members formerly worked at Palantir, while 2 others had worked at companies funded by Peter Thiel, an investor and a founder of Palantir.” it continued.
In February, DOGE exchanged emails with the DHS about merging Social Security records kept by immigration officials, highlighting the data sharing gap between federal agencies that prospective integration of Palantir’s Foundry platform seeks to rectify. While DOGE’s mission frames the use of technology provided by Palantir as a tool in cutting down government waste, that premise has been rebuked by some officials within DHS itself. A senior DHS official told the renowned technology publication that the data harvesting “has nothing to do with finding fraud or wasteful spending…They are already cross-referencing immigration with SSA and IRS, as well as voter data.” That objection adds to the speculation about what the application of Palantir’s technologies will be used for.
Beyond DOGE, Musk and Thiel have a longstanding relationship. It began when the 2 merged their separate companies into what became PayPal in 2002, with Musk initially serving as its CEO. Thiel would go on to found Palantir in 2003, with $30 million in funding from his venture capital firm Founders Fund whose investment portfolio includes companies like Airbnb, Anduril, DeepMind, Rippling, Facebook, Ramp, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, Spotify, Stripe, Neuralink, and Nubank, among others. Other than funding from Thiel himself, the only other investment into Palantir in its nascent days was a $2 million investment from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA.
Although their relationship became strained following Musk’s ouster from PayPal, Thiel went on to invest $20 million in SpaceX in 2008 despite a third failed rocket launch. Thiel’s investment into SpaceX proved to be integral to the company eventually achieving its first successful rocket launch, helping to mend the strained ties between he and Musk. Further reconciliation of their relationship has been signaled by their respective influence within the Trump administration, as evidenced by the NYT reporting that Musk and the mission of DOGE have been integral to Palantir receiving more government contracts like those aimed at facilitating data sharing between different federal agencies.
The implications of Palantir assimilating disparate government databases raises even more concerns over a rapidly expanding digital surveillance state inherently at odds with the constitutional rights of American citizens. That underlying concern is amplified by the impact AI integration will have on the erosion of Americans’ civil liberties. “The Trump administration has already sought access to hundreds of data points on citizens and others through government databases, including their bank account numbers, the amount of their student debt, their medical claims and any disability status,” the NYT report added. The collection of that and other data under the central framework of the Foundry platform raises the fear that the Trump administration is creating a master database on every American with far reaching implications.
Although the White House has not officially confirmed the NYT report, the increasing union between Palantir and the Trump administration has already been met with vociferous opposition. Political opponents and objective privacy advocates alike have already sued in an effort to stop the Trump administration’s increased efforts at data collection. Linda Xia, a former engineer at Palantir is among those critics. According to Xia, current employees at Palantir have voiced opposition about the company’s work with the Trump administration internally.
Xia was one of 13 former employees of Palantir to sign an open letter advising against the company’s increased scope of work within the Trump administration of the basis of concerns over privacy, free speech, and other ethical considerations that pose a threat to American’s civil liberties. “Combining all that data, even with the noblest of intentions, significantly increases the risk of misuse.” Xia stated. The letter issued the forewarning that “Big Tech, including Palantir, is increasingly complicit, normalizing authoritarianism under the guise of a ‘revolution’ led by oligarchs.”
Alex Karp, the CEO and co-founder of Palantir Technologies, has served as the public face of the company even more-so than Thiel has in recent years. In describing his vision for the future of AI that Palantir is chartering the course of, Karp has highlighted the achievements of the company in a manner that embodies the oligarchal rule alluded to by Xia. During an interview with CNBC at Davos 2024, Karp remarked about how Palantir’s platform Gotham, which designed and used for defense and intelligence agencies, was able to “single handedly stopped the rise of the far-right in Europe.” During the interview at the WEF conference, Karp also stated that the use of Foundry was used to distribute COVD-19 vaccines.
Karp has also expressed his unequivocal opposition to anti-Israel students protests, suggesting that protesters involved in the demonstrations should be shipped off to North Korea. Those and the remarks Karp made on CNBC at Davos 2024 highlight the political motives behind the leadership of Palantir that its former employees have raised red flags over in their open letter taking aim at the company.
Other former Palantir employees who were not signatory to the letter signed by Xia, et al. have left the company for the very reasons expressed within it. Included among them is Brianna Katherine Martin, a former strategist at Palantir. Martin signaled that the expansion of the company’s work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement was what led to her resignation. The work between Palantir and ICE that those like Martin object to includes a $30 million contact designed to build a platform that tracks migrant movements in real time.
While it is a powerful resource in addressing America’s immigration crisis, the technology utilized by ICE parallels the software Palantir has designed for the Israel Defense Forces to be used in its Lavender Program, which harnesses AI to collect data and impose an authoritarian surveillance network on Palestinians. Biometric and other data gathered by the Lavender Program is used to build profiles for Palestinians under its surveillance, assigning them a risk score that the IDF weighs to designate targets for military operations including assassinations. The work between Palantir and the IDF on the Lavender Program highlights the Pandora’s Box that further integration of the AI firm’s technologies into US government systems represents and the gravity of the impact its misuse may have.
Palantir is not the first controversial technology company to receive contracts with federal agencies under the guise of integrating data across disparate databases serving the interest of national security. In the wake of the onset of the War on Terror, the blanket excuse of operating in the interest of national security became commonplace for justifying transgressive policies that deteriorated Americans’ civil liberties. The mission to facilitate inter-agency data sharing saw government contracts doled out to technology companies tasked with that mission under leadership equally as problematic as Palantir Technologies’.
One such analogous case that highlights the technocratic class whose motives are being advanced by those sorts of government contacts is the example of Chiliad. Inc. Chiliad was contracted by the federal government to fulfill a similar mission to that which Palantir has reported to have been by the Trump administration. Chiliad was tasked with implementing programs designed to achieve inter-agency data sharing per the directive of the 9/11 Commission. Chiliad was subsequently contracted to provide the data search technology used by the FBI’s counterterrorism data warehouse. At the time it received this contract, Chiliad was led by its co-founder Christine Maxwell, the daughter of Mossad operative Robert Maxwell and the sister of disgraced sex trafficker (and another presumed Mossad operative) Ghislaine Maxwell.
Christine Maxwell’s founding of Chiliad, Inc. and its subsequent foray into providing software to national governments was a path she followed in the footsteps of her father. Before he met his demise, Robert Maxwell was involved in the distribution of a bugged version of PROMIS, a case management software originally developed by Washington, DC-based information technology company Inslaw, Inc., which he sold to governments across the globe. The version of PROMIS that Maxwell sold was bugged to provide Israeli intelligence with backdoor access into the government systems it was integrated within. The spyware was sold by Maxwell to governments including the Soviet Union and United States of America. In the latter example, Maxwell enlisted John Tower, Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services, to facilitate the sale of the bugged Israeli version of the PROMIS software to both Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories.
The ties between PROMIS software and international espionage operations highlights the immense risk that comes with awarding any federal contact. Like PROMIS, Palantir’s Foundry platform being integrated into federal technology systems poses the risk for it to be used by nefarious actors. Palantir, like the PROMIS software sold by Robert Maxwell, shares a similarly close relationship with the government and security apparatus of Israel as well. These variables echo the concern raised by critics of Palantir who warn of the significant risks that potential misuse of its programs poses.
Despite the potential of a watershed moment in American history where the accelerated use of AI is set to take the country even further into an age of increasing technocratic rule, neither Palantir nor the Trump administration have yet confirmed the NYT report. In response to the report, Palantir divorced itself from any responsibility over the stark realities raised by critics of the expanded use of its AI technology by the Trump administration. The company remarked, “Our software and services are used under direction from the organizations that license our products. These organizations define what can and cannot be done with their data; they control the Palantir accounts in which analysis is conducted.” Despite that attempt at absolution, the increased use of Palantir Technologies across the US government proves the company and its tools will be inextricably tied to whatever legacy the second Trump administration leaves behind.