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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / DOGESHIT / Politics Open Thread: It’s Not Paranoia…

Politics Open Thread: It’s Not Paranoia…

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Exactly as predicted, now that DOGE has scraped all your personal data from government agencies, it's all being given to Peter Thiel's Palantir. It was always going to be Peter, who has dreamed of dictatorship for decades, patiently built his "political project". 1/
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/t…

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— capitolhunters (@capitolhunters.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 9:14 AM

Per the (very neutral,of course) NYTimes [gift link]:

In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.

Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.

The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)

Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions.

The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said…

Creating detailed portraits of Americans based on government data is not just a pipe dream. 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.

Mr. Trump could potentially use such information to advance his political agenda by policing immigrants and punishing critics, Democratic lawmakers and critics have said. Privacy advocates, student unions and labor rights organizations have filed lawsuits to block data access, questioning whether the government could weaponize people’s personal information…

Probably it’s just me, but it seems like Thiel & Musk have been in competition since at least last year’s primaries. It could be kayfabe, but it;s not as though superpredator oligarchs haven’t been known to turn on each other. (And it might be a factor in all the recent major-media Musk bashing.)

The NYT doesn't say HOW it was decided to give Palantir all your personal data, only that it was a no-bid contract directed by "Elon Musk's DOGE". (DOGE was always a project of Peter's too.) Thiel had installed a protege as US Federal Chief Information Officer, likely for just this reason. 2/

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— capitolhunters (@capitolhunters.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 9:14 AM


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One of Trump's first actions as president was to install Greg Barbaccia as US Federal Chief Information Officer, a bizarre choice – an ex-Army guy who did "physical security" for Palantir. This account called it: he was there to give Palantir your data. 3/
bsky.app/profile/capi…

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— capitolhunters (@capitolhunters.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 9:14 AM


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Remember: this account has focused on Peter Thiel because of his deep ties to January 6. He launched the alt-right influencers who promoted it – in 2016. He built the Senators who delayed the vote, Cruz and Hawley – from 2008. Peter is very, very patient, and it works. Journalists look away. 4/

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— capitolhunters (@capitolhunters.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 9:38 AM


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All this was so forseeable. Here's a 3-month-old prediction that's spot on: Elon would be disposed of once his task was done, and Peter would get a contract to take your data. Now suddenly we see major leaks about Elon's drug use – and Palantir gets that contract. We need to wake up, fight back. 5/

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— capitolhunters (@capitolhunters.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 12:31 PM

Reader Interactions

81Comments

  3. 3.

    frosty

    OK, that’s enough news for me today. I’m going to go out and plant more of my vegetable square foot garden. Is it possible to have a subsistence farm on <1/8 acre?

  4. 4.

    pat

    So musk has Destroyed Our Government Everywhere and the remains are being turned over to Thiel.

    We are so screwed….

  10. 10.

    Jay

    Musk promised budget cuts. He delivered a panopticon.

    Caleb Ecarma
    May 12, 2025

    The Department of Government Efficiency, the secretive White House initiative founded by Elon Musk, was sold to the American public under the guise of cost-cutting. In this regard it has failed. After more than 110 days of austerity theater, DOGE has shaved just a few billion dollars from annual federal spending. Musk, who is poised to “significantly” reduce his involvement in the project, had promised $2 trillion.

    DOGE has had much more success expanding the executive branch’s domestic surveillance capacity.

    Citing whistleblower complaints, Rep. Gerald Connolly divulged last month that DOGE is building a “master database,” a single exhaustive repository containing personal data held by numerous federal agencies, including the IRS, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

    “The DOGE team is reportedly engaged in an unprecedented effort to build a massive database using data from SSA and across the federal government,” the Democratic lawmaker wrote in a letter to the SSA Office of the Inspector General.

    Efforts to build the database are part of a Trump executive order dictating the elimination of the federal government’s “information silos.” In signing the executive order in March, Trump tied it to DOGE’s nominal mission of “stopping waste, fraud, and abuse.”

    But in action, amalgamating federal data is part of the White House’s push to deport and intimidate undocumented immigrants, including by falsifying SSA death records to prevent undocumented immigrants from accessing housing and banking services. DOGE employees are also using data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to remove undocumented immigrants from housing, even if they are living with family members who are legal residents.

    The DOGE master database is being built and housed at the Department of Homeland Security and includes the use of biometric data to track immigrants, according to Wired. “They are already cross-referencing immigration [data] with SSA and IRS as well as voter data,” one DHS official told the outlet. FedScoop reported last week that members of DOGE have been spotted at a DHS border security office that houses fingerprint, facial, and iris records.

    https://www.muskwatch.com/p/musk-promised-budget-cuts-he-delivered

  11. 11.

    Marc

    I tried to warn you folks :)
    I’ll mention again that the primary outside funding for Palantir came from In-Q-Tel, the CIA venture capital office.  The CIA was also their first customer.​

  13. 13.

    Raoul Paste

    Boy, you’d like to relax on a Sunday, and then you read this.  It sounds like the antithesis of what a freedom-loving, get-the-government-out-of-my-business  republican would support.

  17. 17.

    Harrison Wesley

    Look, I like Black Mirror as much as anybody, but can we change the channel now?

  18. 18.

    zhena gogolia

    @raven:

    @Ruckus: He’s thinking of the “swordsman from Calais.” That’s the merciful way to go. (finishing last book of Wolf Hall trilogy right now)

  20. 20.

    Ruckus

    @Steve LaBonne:

    Yep.

    @Raoul Paste:

    They aren’t anti government – as long as every last positive thing helps them massively and hurts worse – everyone else. And they have zero negative things to bother them.

  29. 29.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Elizabelle:

    Bring back the guillotines. Sharpish swords fine too. 

    How about all Harris voters get to punch these fuckers in the face?  Or would that violate the amendment from the Constitution that they don’t believe in?

    Fascist shitstains.

  30. 30.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Raoul Paste:

    It sounds like the antithesis of what a freedom-loving, get-the-government-out-of-my-business republican would support. 

    Oh, they’re perfectly fine with government control as long as they get to tell how you can live your life.

  34. 34.

    bbleh

    It IS prudent now to assume that your tax data will find its way to credit and loan agencies, your medical data to insurance companies, and general compendia of your personal information to marketing firms.  But this isn’t a new problem, only a major escalation of an existing one.

    The thing that worries me more is, neither Elmo’s Kids nor the minions of Evil Vampire Peter Thiel are likely to be very sophisticated when it comes to data security, nor to care in any case, and as a result, your data also are likely to find their way into the hands of scammers.  And I am particularly concerned about elderly people, who may not have the sophistication to recognize likely scams.

    Fkin moron Republican voters …

  35. 35.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Baud: I’ll still comment but all my comments will be paens to our Dear Leader Donald Jackass Trump. Oops, I screwed that up didn’t I. Back to the drawing board.

  39. 39.

    Marc

    Within minutes we’re going to see the DHS ride into action driven by Palantir’s software.  Expect hundreds of renditions over the next weeks based on guilt by AI-judged association.

  40. 40.

    Suzanne

    Loathing is not a strong enough word to describe my feelings toward Peter Thiel. Abhorrence might be better.

    He owns JD Vance, owns all our personal data. Probably is watching this blog and everything else. I have been terrified of Vance for a long time, because of who is behind him, and this right-wing Catholic neo-monarchy that they all want to build. I’m deeply disturbed that what I feared is materializing.

  41. 41.

    hrprogressive

    Anyone ready to talk about fighting back in a way that might materially matter?

    No? Not yet?

    Okay then.

  45. 45.

    schrodingers_cat

    The government has a binder on every immigrant. I saw mine when I went for my citizenship interview. It was the size of a doorstop. Welcome to the club!

  51. 51.

    Ohio Mom

    @bbleh: Yup, an awful lot of our information is already out there, though it can only help the bad guys for it to be better organized and more easily retrievable.

    I’ve long thought that as repressive as the government has proven itself capable of, they really didn’t care that much about us little people. We could hold protest marches and go home with sore feet and it was all the same to them — we had free speech, usually without penalty in recent years (as opposed to say, the Civil Rights protestors of the last century, or the union organizers before that), and they were content with freely ignoring us.

    Maybe they thought of our protests and other rabble rousing as a pressure safety release valve?

    But I am no longer convinced this balance will be maintained. I think we will all pretend to continue to have free speech but there might be just enough occasional repercussions to scare us into passivity.

  52. 52.

    Ohio Mom

    @schrodingers_cat: That is so quaint, a binder instead of a memory stick or computer file.

    Back in the Sixities and Seventies, people in the anti-war and other protest movements would file a FOIA request for their files. I am assuming they knew they weren’t getting everything, just a curated selection.

  54. 54.

    Jay

    @Ohio Mom:

    In the early 90’s, I filed a FOIA request for my “files”. I got the RCMP one, the CSIS one and the DND one.

    90% of the CSIS and RCMP files were garbage, putting me in places I hadn’t been doing things I hadn’t done.

    The DND file was accurate, pretty much just my service record.

    A key reason for the inaccuracy of the RCMP files and the CSIS files, is they relied on paid informers and “undercover” agents. Paid informers will make shit up to get paid. “Agents” will make shit up for promotions.

    The LLM’s as we know, bullshit, can’t read snark, etc., so having a Palantir LLM root though all your data is going to generate so many false positives, it won’t be funny.

  57. 57.

    BellaPea

    Okay, can I ask the question now: why, why, why are all of the South African assholes given so much power and money? Musk, Thiel, Bannon, the list goes on… all of them attempting to destroy our democracy. Do we not have rules any more about who lives in this country? Is the fact that they have accumulated so much wealth give them a pass? They are like a bunch of James Bond villains without the charisma. Sheesh.

  58. 58.

    different-church-lady

    @BellaPea: ​I mean, you’d think with all the focus on immigrant criminals Trump would want to get rid of them in a high-focus TV-centric way, no?

  59. 59.

    Jay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    ICE is currently using a Catch 22.

    ICE lawyers drop the Immigration Case.

    By doing that, an immigrant with an asylum status, or citizenship path no longer has any legal protections.

    Ice Agents, masked and dressed like Proud Boys or Oath Keepers or any other dirtbag “militia” wait in the halls outside the Immigration Courts with files and photos to make the arrests.

  62. 62.

    Sally

    I refer to them as the Dogey Boys (pronounced dodgy). It hasn’t caught on, but that is who they are to me.

  71. 71.

    Gloria DryGarden

    Everyone’s over on medium cool, talking about shows, and actors. I’m reeling over this attack on the pearl street mall in boulder. Where Denver peeps go for coolness,  or massage school, or open space hiking, dinner out, and to see our friends who live there.

    It’s a beautiful city, a beautiful walking mall.
    in spite of all our jokes about reality, and trust funds, and groovy hippy therapy, it really is a beautiful place. This attack is too close to home.

  72. 72.

    Jay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    They are going after the people following the legal routes to immigration, status and asylum first. Because they are easy targets, and are using loopholes in the law, to do so.

    They are making a mockery of the whole legal process and tearing it apart.

  74. 74.

    Jay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    In the 1st TACO Admin, they mostly grabbed people at the Border, applying for asylum.

    One guy they grabbed a few days ago was grabbed at his 2nd to last hearing, 1 step from a Green Card.

    One woman a week ago was grabbed at her Citizenship Hearing. The judge was about to award her citizenship when the ICE Lawyers withdrew the case.

    Instead of being awarded Citizenship, after 10 years in the process, she was “arrested” in the hall and disappeared into an ICE Concentration Camp.

    There is now, no longer a path to Citizenship in the US, unless you are a racist South African.

  75. 75.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Jay: you know they pay a huge application fee to become citizens. And work really hard, to be able to pass.

    This whole things appals me.

    A friend is currently interviewing different churches and pastors in the rural south, to find a group that cares about this national travesty, and the violations of habeus corpus (and who won’t burst into flames from talking to a devout atheist Unitarian type).

    Now he says he’s a heretic, but heretics are all these people  claiming to be Christian, but who actively practice the opposite of what their religion teaches, oppressing the poor, persecuting strangers..

  76. 76.

    Gvg

    when democrats win back control, I think we will have to nationalize both Theil and Musks companies because of needing to recover all American citizen data illegally stolen and by then used for illegal profit. It will be provable I am sure. There won’t be any other way to trace where the data went after they got it, who they gave it to, that may also need prosecution or confiscation, plus discouraging future crimes.

    Thats if we are serious.

    keep in mind that there are some serious remedies available that haven’t been used because we haven’t been in this type of situation in a long time. We used to take over businesses for a lot less serious reasons than this. I think the anti communist Cold War kind of got us out of that mind set, but the framework is still there.

    And nobody here has been comfortable with Musk controlling Starlink or SpaceX for national security reasons.

  77. 77.

    Brendan In NC

    Be a damn shame if some white hat hackers were able to hack Palantir and f up all the data….

  79. 79.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Raoul Paste: They’re not anti-government. They’re against a government that does anything other than exert police and military power against people they don’t like. Even libertarians want a “night watchman state” that takes property rights as its sacred North Star: protect the richer against the poorer who might take their stuff.

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