They want you to think it’s over. That Elon Musk stepping aside was a retreat. That DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, died quietly in some bureaucratic corner.
It didn’t.
That was just the costume change.
While the public watched Musk tweet himself into irrelevance, Donald Trump pulled a classic bait and switch. He handed the keys of the American data machine to someone even more dangerous: Peter Thiel.
You may not see him in press briefings, but Thiel is everywhere that matters. Through his company, Palantir Technologies, he is now building what might be the most dangerous infrastructure in modern American history. It is a unified, government-run data platform that can see, sort, and track every single one of us.
The Executive Order Nobody Talked About
In March of this year, Trump signed Executive Order 14243. It requires every federal agency to share its data. That includes the IRS, Social Security, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services.
The order demands "unfettered access" not only to federal systems but also to state-run programs funded by the government. Even third-party databases are now within reach and the people authorized to access all this data? Anyone the President or his agency heads choose.
When people hear "third-party databases," they might picture something obscure or harmless. But what this Executive Order allows is anything but.
Under this EO, the federal government now has acess to data from any state program that receives federal funding and yes, that includes data stored by private companies hired to run those programs. In other words, if a contractor manages a database on behalf of a state or federal agency, Trump’s appointees can now demand access to that information.
Here’s what that looks like in real life:
1. Health Insurance Providers managing Medicaid
Private insurers like Centene, Aetna, or UnitedHealthcare are contracted to run Medicaid in many states. These companies store detailed health data: medical diagnoses, mental health treatment, prescriptions, doctor visits, and billing histories. Under this order, those files can now be shared with federal agencies.
2. Unemployment Systems and Workforce Programs
Companies like Deloitte, ID.me, or Geographic Solutions handle unemployment claims and fraud detection. They store employment histories, biometric facial scans, flagged "suspicious" accounts, and even bank information. That’s now accessible too.
3. Public Education Software
School districts often use platforms like PowerSchool, Infinite Campus, or Naviance to track student records. That includes attendance, discipline history, disability accommodations, standardized test scores, and eligibility for free or reduced lunch. All of it could now be pulled into a federal system, without parents ever knowing.
4. Food Assistance and Public Housing Platforms
SNAP benefits, Section 8 housing, and utility subsidies are often managed by private vendors. These systems track income, number of people in a household, eviction records, rent payments, and even utility usage. That’s not just poverty data. That’s a blueprint of someone’s life.
5. Electronic Medical Record Companies
Palantir and others have already worked with Cerner, Epic Systems, and other hospital software companies. These systems hold comprehensive medical records and are increasingly linked to state programs. That’s now within reach, too. The vague language of the EO could be used to override HIPAA.
What this means is simple: if your life has intersected with a government safety net: healthcare, housing, food, school, or unemployment. Well, your data is now potentially on the table. Not just your government file, but your digital footprint in every private system connected to it.
This is not about detecting waste or fraud. This is about building a massive, centralized database that reaches into every corner of American life, managed by political appointees, and built by a billionaire with a history of selling surveillance tools to ICE and authoritarian regimes.
If you're poor, sick, or marginalized, you're not invisible. You’re more visible than ever and to people who do not have your best interests in mind.
Plantir Already Has The Contracts
The company has secured over $113 million in federal funding since Trump returned to office and just landed a $795 million deal with the Department of Defense.
Historically and even today, its software helped ICE deport families, powered predictive policing in Black neighborhoods, tracked COVID patients, and aided military operations abroad.
Now it wants your tax records and healthcare history. When even the Alt National Park Service is sounding the alarm, you know something is deeply wrong. This isn’t modernization. It is the construction of a digital dragnet, run by billionaires and staffed by loyalists. The surveillance state is not coming. It is already here.
Since Trump returned to office, Palantir has pulled in more than $113 million in new federal contracts, specifically related to that EO. That number is climbing fast. In May 2025, the company secured a $795 million deal with the Department of Defense to expand its Maven Smart System software, a contract now nearing $1.3 billion.
Palantir picked up Project Maven after Google walked away, unwilling to help the Pentagon weaponize AI. Now Palantir is quietly repurposing that same war tech to sift through American lives.
Palantir’s platforms are already embedded inside agencies like Homeland Security, The Department of Education, and Health and Human Services. Now it’s in talks with both the IRS and the Social Security Administration, angling for access to taxpayer records and benefit data. This is not speculation. It is documented. The federal government is quietly turning over the machinery of state data to a private surveillance company with a track record of enabling ICE raids and predictive policing.
When Peter Thiel is building the digital infrastructure, and Trump is naming the people who control it, what you get is not modernization. You get a blueprint for authoritarian power.
Authoritarianism rarely begins with tanks in the street. It starts with information control. The more a government knows about you, where you live, what you earn, who you know, how you think, the easier it becomes to predict, manipulate, and punish you.
1. Your privacy disappears
Every time you apply for government help, go to the doctor, file taxes, or use public services, that information is collected. With this order, it can now be merged into one system. You will have no idea who can see it, how long it is kept, or how it might be used later.
2. You get profiled
Algorithms will sort people into risk categories based on things like where they live, what benefits they receive, or past contact with police. You might be flagged as suspicious without ever doing anything wrong. You might not even know you’ve been flagged until something goes wrong.
3. Retaliation becomes quiet and surgical
If you post something critical online or join a protest, there is now a file ready to be used against you. Maybe it's a surprise audit. Maybe it's a delayed benefits payment. Maybe your immigration status is suddenly under review. Punishment won't look like prison. It will look like red tape.
Oh, all of a sudden your student loans get hit with an insane interest rate after you made a meme about Trump having a dark, fecal like substance in his hair on the news.
4. Communities get targeted
When all this data is pooled together, it becomes easy to map entire groups. Activists. Journalists. Immigrants. Poor families. Neighborhoods can be digitally redlined. Programs can be defunded or shut down. Surveillance can be concentrated with terrifying precision.
5. People stop speaking out
You don’t need to arrest people to silence them. You just need to make them feel watched. Self-censorship spreads fast. People stop organizing. Stop applying for help. Stop asking questions. Fear does what force used to.
6. The punishment becomes invisible
No one kicks down your door. Your name just quietly disappears from a list. Your loan doesn’t come through. Your security clearance gets denied. Your application is rejected for no clear reason. The system doesn’t need to scream. It just needs to stop you.
They distract you with the loud thing so you don’t notice the dangerous one. They make headlines out of Elon Musk stepping back while quietly giving Peter Thiel the real keys. They shout about “waste and fraud” while wiring together a machine that can see every corner of your life.
This is what happens when data becomes a weapon. The people building it say it's about efficiency. But history says otherwise. A centralized database like this is not a neutral tool. It is a foundation for control. And once it’s built, it does not get unbuilt. It gets used.
So what can people do?
You can’t vote away a database that’s already being built. But that doesn’t mean you’re powerless.
1. Expose it. Loudly. Repeatedly.
Talk about Executive Order 14243. Talk about Palantir. Say Peter Thiel’s name. Most people still don’t know this is happening. Most people don’t even know who Thiel is. The silence is strategic. Break it.
2. Pressure local and state governments.
State agencies don’t have to hand everything over without a fight. Demand that governors, state legislatures, and attorneys general refuse to comply or challenge the order. States have blocked overreach before & they can do it again.
3. Support organizations filing lawsuits.
Groups like the ACLU, EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), and others have legal teams built to fight this kind of surveillance. Give them your attention. Give them your money if you can. They’re some of the only lines of defense left.
They count on you watching the circus while they rewrite the rules backstage.
A note from the author:
None of my reporting will ever be behind a paywall. Everyone deserves access to the truth, especially when the stakes are this high.
If you’d like to keep seeing work like this, you can subscribe for free to stay informed. And if you’re in a position to support this work with a paid subscription, it helps keep this going: research, writing, and staying one step ahead of the silence.
Thank you for reading. Stay loud.
Time to call states’ attorneys general, governors, state reps.
I think it's too late to stop, but we must try. Felonpotus ignores judges' orders, there's no transparency from the feds, and this regime gets away with far too much illegality. But we do have posts like Dissent in Bloom and others here, and a few still investigative journalists elsewhere, to get the word out. Because it won't be just the federal government having bits of data on every single person, dead or alive, in the US. MuskX, Thiel, Fpotus, Vance, and Altman have, or will have, all of it personally, as well, I'm sure. And for a price, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Ellison, and whatever corporation or nation pays up, will have some too. To wreak havoc on anyone's personal, financial, political, economic or whatever, life, at will. Or burnish theirs. Tech power. Money. Watch the HBO Mountainhead movie streaming now. That's where we could wind up.