Glad the Times is focusing on this. This is the throughline with most of DOGE. Beyond firing tons of people, playing culture warrior, the throughline everywhere is getting access to data and building cross-govt systems to link it together. data is power. - ThreadSky

joshtpm.bsky.social • 9 days ago

Glad the Times is focusing on this. This is the throughline with most of DOGE. Beyond firing tons of people, playing culture warrior, the throughline everywhere is getting access to data and building cross-govt systems to link it together. data is power.

Reposted from Sheera Frenkel

The US government holds a tremendous amount of data about US citizens. Now,
The Trump administration is trying to access that data and link it together.

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/u...

Comments

plarby.bsky.social•9 days ago

And it's pronounced dog-e, let's be clear on that!

kizzlebizzle.bsky.social•9 days ago

ajgenz.bsky.social•9 days ago

Importantly, the information won't be un-siloed. If they pour it into existing databases that they're allowed to have, they won't be "able" to strip it back out and they won't accept deleting the data they have legitimately.

hkfinan.bsky.social•9 days ago

There will be dossiers on each of us when this is done 😳

jomoyo.bsky.social•9 days ago

…and then exfiltrating it, I’m almost certain we’ll eventually discover.

quercus48.bsky.social•9 days ago

That is before Meta decides to turn over their information.

hellyeah2030.bsky.social•9 days ago

Very scary especially in the hands of these clowns who are full of ill intent. I can’t think of a time in my life (even with Bush) where I felt my government was wholly corrupt, stupid and frankly evil.

zengali.bsky.social•9 days ago

Congress banned this, back when it was called Total Information Awareness.

Which is why the Bush regime split it up and hid it across departments.

whereisourtr-mp.bsky.social•9 days ago

Soon to be used as coercion, blackmail, physical threat to get common citizens to vote trump or stay home, to not protest, to inform on friends, family, neighbors. How far are we from a difficult to come back from Putinist America? Months? Weeks?

poo-d-etat.bsky.social•9 days ago

Doesn't China have a similar database? Where they actually rank their citizens? Rank by what, I'm not sure. Maybe their value? Or the women who are still available to breed? Yikes.

typoknig.bsky.social•9 days ago

Enemies lists

cooper67.bsky.social•9 days ago

Big Brother is alive and well
be very afraid

cfbsolon.bsky.social•9 days ago

Dems have got to start talking about freedom from tech, with massive changes to privacy laws

katiecannon.bsky.social•9 days ago

@nathantankus.bsky.social

@rohangrey.bsky.social

@raulcarrillo.bsky.social

Have been writing about the ways our payments systems have become weaponized for quite some time

joyyh.bsky.social•9 days ago

This is Big Brother stuff

elonynwa.bsky.social•9 days ago

The gop will scream about this as soon as the democrats are in the White House

uncommongrace25.bsky.social•9 days ago

Big brother.

The irony that the things conservatives feared about government are all coming to pass in the admin they created.

scrunchmeep.bsky.social•9 days ago

And they are leading the charge. They were only afraid that they would not have control.

ncsteve.bsky.social•9 days ago

"Dossier, we would have said in the 70's. As in: "they are scouring the files of every agency and major corporation to assemble detailed dossiers on every single American citizen and resident."

Maybe its just rose nostalgia glasses, but I think we'd have been scared-angry rather than scared-subbie.

richnyc.bsky.social•9 days ago

Is there any chance all these data don't make their way to the RNC for microtargeting for the 2026 and 2028 elections?

gripnoir.bsky.social•8 days ago

#DOGE throughline to #surveillance, targeted #retribution, #prosecution, #rendition, #enslavement, #coercion - for starters. Why do you think Trump got enthused over AI data centers on 1/23? And plans to fire up coal again? https://www.axios.com/2025/01/23/trump-ai-power-plants-data-centers

gripnoir.bsky.social•8 days ago

https://www.axios.com/2025/04/08/trump-seeks-to-prop-up-coal-to-feed-ai-power-demand

martindev4.bsky.social•9 days ago

Wouldn’t Americans want the government to be able to see everything about someone as it relates to their activities vis-a-vis the government, such as taxes, disability, veterans, social security, etc.? Seems normal for a developed society.

taratomato.bsky.social•9 days ago

I've been asking people how they feel about their data being siphoned off. It seems it's either not on their radar or they don't think it's a risk, somehow.

It must be that it seems so far-fetched that nobody can process that this theft is taking place.

bluemarcus.bsky.social•9 days ago

The bigger throughline is Musk will also bogart all the goverment data on citizens to his AI application, data no other AI platform will have access to use. #DOGE

nmfliss.bsky.social•9 days ago

THERE ARE LAWS AGAINST THIS FOR THIS VERY REASON. Information is siloed by design and by law to protect citizens.

lipstickscribbles.bsky.social•9 days ago

Hard to build a single social credit system without all the data.

Upside, our enemies only have to breach one place now to get everything.

stevenkatz.bsky.social•9 days ago

Total Information Awareness redux but for real this time.

awrjr.bsky.social•9 days ago

Meanwhile the same people want to allow companies to never have to disclose who the owners are!

darthburkie.bsky.social•9 days ago

Let me explain this in Marvel terms - You know in Winter Soldier SHIELD built those helicarriers to eliminate threats before they become threats? This is what the Trump administration wants to do.

no2sin.bsky.social•9 days ago

Americans (particularly on the right!) have long been scared of the government having too much information on us...and not nearly scared enough of private corps having it. Now the right is letting the government weaponize its information on us & hand it over to the worst corporations in the world.

oinonio.bsky.social•9 days ago

“The easier to deport you with, my dear”

kfc399.bsky.social•9 days ago

Police State Shit

slolisa.bsky.social•9 days ago

ANYONE who thinks this is a "good thing"...really needs to seek help.

mark-blu.bsky.social•9 days ago

If Russia's garx (oligarchs) with the help of the GRU, wanted to utterly destroy the U.S., would we be witnessing anything different? The Republican party (Christian nationalism) are a tool. Dems need to hire an army of hackers to get the criminals (behind the scenes) fighting each other.

prizscisurf.bsky.social•9 days ago

Big Brother

drgallifreystands.bsky.social•9 days ago

Exactly. I’ve been shouting on the rooftops at the real treasure is not the gold bars in Fort Knox. It’s the data. It’s a data heist for their own purposes, both governmental, and non-governmental.

ajlzarychta.bsky.social•9 days ago

All the better to see you with, my dear.

Next comes the teeth.

archie-doodle.bsky.social•9 days ago

Freaking shocker. I had Trump supporters act like this was no big deal “because it’s all out there anyway.” Good god how are people so short sighted?????

lexlibrarian.bsky.social•9 days ago

FWIW, my students say this constantly and no amount of explaining the danger seems to get through.

joebauernotsure.bsky.social•9 days ago

Done by the same party that forced ATF to use boxes of disks for gun registrations because a (easily searchable) database would be unthinkable governmental overreach.
https://www.thetrace.org/2016/08/atf-non-searchable-databases/

mcsweeney.bsky.social•9 days ago

When is Musk going to sever ties with Trump? He's not good for His Tesla brand.

jmcjimbob.bsky.social•9 days ago

This is the tool that the Trump Regime will use to choose individuals to hurt.

capitolhunters.bsky.social•9 days ago

The emphasis on data is why it matters so much who is now in a position to control data flow or to purchase new software. Who are our new federal Chief Information Officers? The CIOs of HHS and for the whole federal government - both former Palantir employees. Deputy HHS secretary, also Palantir. 1/

lucidchick.bsky.social•7 days ago

https://youtu.be/Epk2U7O3fy0?si=z7MGJ0i1NFwfHr7h

redross49.bsky.social•9 days ago

So, Peter Thiel is now the man in charge. Watch out Donald!

no2sin.bsky.social•9 days ago

Trump is handing over detailed information on all Americans to a guy who doesn't believe in democracy.

redross49.bsky.social•9 days ago

Yep, and his protoge is VP.

curator1967.bsky.social•9 days ago

Yep! Very possibly the most dangerous man out there!!!

capitolhunters.bsky.social•9 days ago

Greg Barbaccia was installed as US Federal Chief Information Officer despite never having run a major IT system before. At Palantir he was in charge of security ("executive protection"), then "intelligence and investigations". Why this guy? 2/
https://bsky.app/profile/capitolhunters.bsky.social/post/3lil7lsfxpc2w

matt-not-mat.bsky.social•1 day ago

You all are digging in the wrong place. You casually clipped off his military service and love for his country from his LinkedIn profile. He is one of the (very few) good ppl in this administration, striving to keep our adversaries out of the federal government IT system while also keeping it up.

zengali.bsky.social•9 days ago

In The Lord of the Rings, a palantír is a powerful, indestructible crystal ball used for all-seeing and communication across vast distances. It's how Sauron controls Saruman.

Fucking nerds.

mpinga.bsky.social•9 days ago

And why did any Dem Senator vote in favor of the nomination?

capitolhunters.bsky.social•9 days ago

Some Dem Senators didn't get it - they are old and this is a new-fangled way of seizing power. Some Dem Senators are, well, effectively bought by the crypto / AI / techbro interests. So they likely convinced themselves this was all fine. The Senate needs new people.

jaredhardd.bsky.social•9 days ago

Why? Because he's absolutely loyal to Trump and is willing to ignore and/or break the law to do his bidding. Same as every nominee.

ulrichulfhednar.bsky.social•9 days ago

Just another thug with a gun and a security patch

zengali.bsky.social•9 days ago

and an 8-sided die

kjboyle.bsky.social•9 days ago

On top of the Palantir stuff, he also worked at an SBF funded blockchain start up & a start up that used AI to screen credit applications.

sybilltrelawney.bsky.social•9 days ago

Elon is feeding all this to Grok and will enroll us in his X “everything app” whether we like it or not.

johnnysoco.bsky.social•9 days ago

Brought to you by the party that howls constantly about "big brother" government.

sparkyclarkson.bsky.social•9 days ago

The goal of course is to create a panopticon-style security state in which "AI" of some kind monitors the population for "crime" and, inevitably, thoughtcrime.

tobellz.bsky.social•9 days ago

Thoughtcrime is the only thing they're interested in.

muddlethrough.bsky.social•9 days ago

This is already a movie (albeit with some weird human instead of machine intelligence). And to think I used to watch Minority Report for fun…

4peoplebythepeople.bsky.social•9 days ago

Security state sounds too nice. It's a surveillance state on steroids when combined with AI.

And yes, they want to control our thoughts too. Influence combined with punishments becomes absolute control.

schmidtbrian.bsky.social•9 days ago

Good to see this highlighted, however alarming it is.

Privacy concerns haven't been as powerful in the US as in Europe, but that doesn't mean they can't become important. Democrats should run against this government overreach.

benalpers.bsky.social•9 days ago

aaah... the "Party of Small Government" is it?

thanklesswh.bsky.social•9 days ago

Big data, small government.

sailorjourno.bsky.social•9 days ago

21st century Undesirable list.

foundhistory.bsky.social•8 days ago

The sad part is that this power could be used for good. Imagine if we used this linked data to deliver preventive health care services or to improve natural disaster response or .... a thousand other things.

jcstarbuck.bsky.social•9 days ago

Data is power and control of data is power and money.

You can bet that the culled data will wind up in certain oligarch's hands.

rbachmr.bsky.social•9 days ago

And this is likely tied to the whole Voter ID issue. They want to create a National Voter ID system to gather information on all US Citizens. It's much easier to target dissidents when you have information on everybody. The Republican party used to care about privacy.