Your bank account, your clinical history, the aid you have received or the debts pending payment. To manage a country, every government needs to know certain data sensitive from its citizens. In USAthis intimate information has been historically stored in disconnected systems of the White House to guarantee your privacy and security However, Donald Trump It has other plans: centralize its control to knead unprecedented power.
On March 20, the US President signed an executive order that forced federal agencies to share their data. With this, I wanted to guarantee that the evil called Government Efficiency Department (DOGEfor its acronym in English), led by his then ally Elon Muskhad “access without restrictions” to all the personal information of citizens to “eliminate bureaucratic inefficiency.” However, compiling a digital identification master list opens the door to potential Orwellian abuses.
Although Trump has not said anything else in the last three months, his administration has commissioned that task to Palantira controversial company specialized in data mining that markets analytical systems, prediction and mass surveillance. Among its clients are large banks, health companies, insurance, automobile manufacturers, armies such as Ukraine and governments around the world, also that of Spain, which in 2023 awarded a contract for 16.5 million euros to develop a system of military intelligence.
Military apparatus
In the beginning, Palantir prospered thanks to the financing of In-Q-Telthe opaque risk capital fund with which the CIA Invest in technology That can be useful. And it was: to his software The location of Osama bin Laden in a country house in Pakistan, where he was executed by American soldiers in 2011. These capabilities have made the company a crucial ally for the military apparatus and intelligence services of USA.
Palantir was founded in 2003 by the technological tycoon Peter ThielMusk partner in PayPalTrump’s unofficial advisor in his first term and patron of the vice president Jd vance. “I don’t think freedom and democracy Be compatible, “said the influential Milmillonario in 2009.
However, Palantir is also directed by the co -founder Alex Karpthat openly advocates its technology to maintain the military supremacy of Washington. “The most effective way for social change is to humiliate and impoverish your enemies,” he said in May in an economic forum in Chicago.
The firm owes its name to the Palantíri, the sessions of The Lord of the Rings that allow to see what happens in distant places and times, but that the dark lord Sauron Use to distort reality and go crazy to your enemies.
Public money
The alliance between Palantir and the White House is not new. Already in 2016, with Barack Obama From president, the firm was awarded a contract of 222 million dollars from the Department of Defense to develop a software able to centralize all the intelligence compiled by the Army Special Operations Command. In 2020, with Joe Bidenhelped track the manufacture and distribution of vaccines against COVID.
However, your business is shooting with Trump. Since his return to power on January 20, Palantir has closed extensions or new contracts with the government worth more than 113 million dollars, according to public records, thus advancing the president’s plans.
That avalanche of money It has also translated into a bag. The value of the company has grown more than 85% so far this year and more than 151% since Trump won the presidential elections in November 2024. Currently, it exceeds 329,000 million dollars, which makes it the 30th most valuable company in the world, ahead of giants such as Coca-Cola or Samsung.
“Authoritarianism”
Detractors and even faithful of the Trumpist movement MAGA (Make America Great Again) have denounced that data centralization under a single technological umbrella can accelerate a state surveillance omnipotent and allow the president to use Palantir as a panoptic with which to suppress his critics. ‘The New York Times’ points out that the creation of a unique list could expose at least 314 Sensitive data of citizens. The firm has already helped the government in the detention and deportation of Immigrants undocumented during the first Trumpista mandate and now work on a new tool of artificial intelligence that would allow to track their movements to expedite his ‘hunting’, according to 404 Media and expanded Wired.
This fear has led to privacy experts, student unions and labor organizations to present demands to block access to this data. Democratic congressmen have asked explanations to Palantir for their growing prominence under the Trump administration, while a group of 13 former employees have accused the company of being “complicit in the authoritarianism“By facilitating the” dangerous expansion of the Executive Power. “
Palantir ensures that the use of its technology is the responsibility of who hires it. Even so, the increasingly belligerent tone of Karp, its executive director, also worries the defenders of the civil rights. After years maintaining a low profile, in recent months he has referred to the civil victims of Israel in Gaza as “useful idiots” at the service of Hamáshe has suggested retaliation against pro-palestine protesters, has branded the UN of “discriminatory institution” and has advocated “fear” to instill “enemies of America“.
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