Don't know how many of you are into stocks. A buddy of mine gave me a stock tip while we were grinding at the gym. I looked into it and at first I saw the returns and thought wow! It has jumped like the Hulk in the past few days. Then I dug into what it is they do cause I never heard of them.
Now I'm a bit alarmed. Check this out via New York Times
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.
Then this from the Daily Beast.
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.
I know you're gonna ask why I'm alarmed. This simply seems as a move to link govt databases in an effort to limit corruption.
Yes I agree that could be the case. The problem is that we've been bombarded since 9/11 with efforts that are suppose to increase safety, efficiency and now corruption by BOTH political parties.
The unintended consequences always bite the little guy in the ass. The fact that this isn't widespread news should alarm everyone.
Maybe I'm paranoid but it really seems like the business of govt is control, not serving the public but controlling it.
Want the best example? Remember covid restrictions? That wasn't about the safety of the public. It was about control. Remember the Patriot Act? It wasn't about fighting terrorism. Tools were already in place for that. It was about control.
Remember this too. Some of us bitched and whined but that's all. Those measures are still in effect. The damage done has never been corrected. Only investigated.
In the modern era the differences between political systems seem thin ... at best. At worst they mirror each other.
