Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/technology/trump-palantir-data-americans.html

cross-posted from: lemm.ee/post/65405816

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.

Some current and former Palantir employees have been unnerved by the work. The company risks becoming the face of Mr. Trump’s political agenda, four employees said, and could be vulnerable if data on Americans is breached or hacked. Several tried to distance the company from the efforts, saying any decisions about a merged database of personal information rest with Mr. Trump and not the firm.

This month, 13 former employees signed a letter urging Palantir to stop its endeavors with Mr. Trump. Linda Xia, a signee who was a Palantir engineer until last year, said the problem was not with the company’s technology but with how the Trump administration intended to use it.

"Data that is collected for one reason should not be repurposed for other uses,” Ms. Xia said. “Combining all that data, even with the noblest of intentions, significantly increases the risk of misuse.”

The goal of uniting data on Americans has been quietly discussed by Palantir engineers, employees said, adding that they were worried about collecting so much sensitive information in one place. The company’s security practices are only as good as the people using them, they said. They characterized some DOGE employees as sloppy on security, such as not following protocols in how personal devices were used.

Ms. Xia said Palantir employees were increasingly worried about reputational damage to the company because of its work with the Trump administration. There is growing debate within the company about its federal contracts, she said.

“Current employees are discussing the implications of their work and raising questions internally,” she said, adding that some employees have left after disagreements over the company’s work with the Trump administration.

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Comments

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ViperActual@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Having used their software in the past, I’m personally quite uncomfortable with this technology being used to monitor American citizens.

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chunes@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Did we learn nothing from Snowden? I promise you the government has had a dossier on every American for decades.

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- elric@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Never as precise as what Peter Thiel & co harvested thru social networks and LLMs.
  
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mazzilius_marsti@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
so much for “dems and deep state” arguments. Where are the opinions of Breibart Steve Bannon or other right wing commentators on this? Ben Shapiro?

Guess they’re all a bunch of pussy. Too scare to say anything to upset their boss, the mighty Donald

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- isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Projection in action. Mostly everything they accuse the other side of, that are guilty of.
  
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  - Eggyhead@lemmings.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Nobody says it, but Trump literally stole the election. He did it by having his goons involved with every step of the process, scrutinizing workers until they quit, challenging confidence in the mail-in voting system, removing mail-in ballot boxes, reducing the number of voting stations, and of course the gerrymandering already in place. There’s probably more. It was a landslide victory for people who didn’t vote, and I think that had as much, if not more, to do with access than disinterest. Trump won by a narrow margin among those leftover. He would not have won otherwise.
    
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KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
He’s going to imprison US Citizens next.

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- Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Next? That’s already begun
  
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- WanderingThoughts@europe.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Journalists that are critical and environmentalists first. Then harass anybody with left leanings, make a few examples out of them. The usual authoritarian stuff. It’ll get worse once there are false flag operations.
  
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PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’m deleting all social media I still have. Might even consider dumping my Lemmy too.

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- Septimaeus@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Honestly, a lot of our content, especially the posts calling for mass murder of Republican voters (most of which appear to still be up) might make traceable prior use of lemmy an easy way to get added to a watchlist.
  
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  - muusemuuse@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    While true it’s also not all that useful. If a handful of people express that, it’s actionable. If huge swaths of your population do, it means something else entirely.
    
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SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
So this is the guy who went on and on, and his supporters too, about the “deep state” and “draining the swamp”. Little did everyone know but he was talking about his plans to create it.

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thejml@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
On one hand, I absolutely abhor governmental blanket data collection and the storage of this data. Both from a personal privacy, independence and freedom point of view, and from a “you know they’ll just leak the data and then everyone will have it” standpoint.

On the flip side:

In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies

Any sane company or government would have already done this… not sharing data between agencies/silos is leads to inaccuracies, duplication of data and work (wasted time/money), additional complexity in data storage and gathering, plus it provides multiple attack surfaces for data breaches.

Also, I read that as “if one agency needs something they can ask the other one for it” which has likely been happening for centuries at this point and this is just another “Trump said we need to do what’s already happening so he can look smart and like he’s doing something besides golfing and accepting foreign bribes”.

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- a4ng3l@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  They say sharing so it’s solely duplicating data everywhere, effectively increasing the attack surface…
  
  And this would violate my favourite GDPR principle ; purpose based consent. I give my data to the healthcare body for handle reimbursement and I like it that way. No need for them to share that data with anyone else. Same for the tax guy: let him scrutinise the shit outa my incomes but that’s it, don’t share it with the fucking police or whoever else.
  
  But yeah… this is a difficult topic even in a sane country. We’re talking USA here…
  
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- AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I mean this is why you have different security clearances. Nobody working in the social security administration should have full access to my speeding tickets from 20 years ago, or find out if I was on Medicaid at some point in my life with a single click.
  
  This is very different than making a formal documented request. It enables people to discriminate on information that they shouldn’t know in the first place, and keeps anyone from holding them accountable for it.
  
  Not to mention, if it’s used the way other people have used it, it allows the government to discriminate against other people for just having a loose connection to somebody else.
  
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- tormeh@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  If it wasn’t Trump I’d agree. However, getting Palantir involved sounds less like unifying databases than creating a social credit score-kind of system, complete with political opinions and other kinds of sensitive data
  
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- floofloof@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Any sane company or government would have already done this
  
  Only if they had no concern for people’s privacy, and no notion of compartmentalizing access to the data to prevent abuse and limit the impact of leaks.
  
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- beejjorgensen@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I think you’re right that this leads to increased efficiency. But in the case of the United States, we’re relying on a bit of inefficiency here to maintain freedom. I would suggest that there’s no difference between a dictatorship and an all-seeing government. Restricting the government is important in a free country, and making data on citizens difficult access is one of those restrictions we’ve been using.
  
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Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
remember THiels boytoy last year followed the same fate as russians, fell off a multistory building in florida.

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SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Of course. I then expect the data to be released, misuesd, etc, etc. I’m just going to expect it now.

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wildcardology@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
LoL, I thought they’re talking about the crystal balls in LOTR.

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Mrkawfee@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
That CEO needs the Luigi treatment.

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MuskyMelon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Well if they’re collating data, not that difficult to add a new table for gun ownership.

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