Authored by Brendan Steinhauser via RealClearPolitics,

In a country desperate for unifying issues, there is growing consensus on one: surveillance of American citizens. From progressives who want to hold ICE accountable to conservatives who fear Big Government,an ever-expanding federal government has put many Americans on high alert, and artificial intelligence is only making matters worse.

To quote New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom, “ICE is watching you.” It is true: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement saw its 2025 budgettriple to nearly $30 billion, which would rank the agency as the 14th highest-funded military in the world.Much of the money is funding surveillance technology, including tools to crack phones, monitor social media, and track the movements of U.S. citizens and non-citizens alike.The Department of Homeland Security and affiliated agencies are currently piloting and deployingmore than 100 AI systems, including some used in law enforcement activities.

Wherever one may stand on illegal immigration and related policies, there is cause for concern whenever Big Government threatens individual rights. Advanced, aggressive AI transcends the issue. Last year, federal agencies publicly reportedmore than 1,700 AI use cases– from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

We have heard the horror stories out ofChina, where AI is combined with social media monitoring, facial recognition, and new-age cameras to track the Chinese Communist Party’s critics (perceived or real), with the CCP following their statements and locations. But is that really unimaginable here?

Leaning on AI companies as core contractors, DHS has longscanned millions of social media posts, using new technologies to summarize findings. At theEnvironmental Protection Agency, AI spies on federal workers by monitoring communications. Citing “national security” at every turn, the federal government has given carte blanche to Palantir, whose sales and stock price havespiked in recent years.This meansintegratingPalantir data collection into operations at HHS and the Internal Revenue Service. Is that for national security, too?

What about “pattern of life” modeling thatidentifieswhen people deviate from normal routines? Or theriseof “predictive policing,” à la Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report”?

When pressed on Palantir’s surveillance agenda, Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s argument is thatAmericans essentially need more surveillance now to be more free later.You read that right:As Karp recently put it, “Freedom from unwarranted government surveillance ... requires the construction of a technical system that is built to make possible oversight of its own use and limit, not expand, the material and information subject to access.”

Federal surveillance is only the beginning of the problem. State by state, police departments and other entities are leaning into AI tools to study citizens and share data from coast to coast. In Florida, Massachusetts, Texas, and other states,thousands of police departmentsare using Flock’s AI-powered license plate reader cameras to track drivers when they pass one of Flock’s cameras on the road.

Take Massachusetts, wherethe state has spentmillions of taxpayer dollarsto monitor the locations of drivers and share that information with a network of over 7,000 agencies and organizations across America. Or considerMaine, where localities are using AI to scan license plates, create digital profiles, and experiment with facial recognition. This information can then be entered into anational databasefor federal access to information.

Source: ZeroHedge News