Privacy, encryption vs. Surveillance state

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Last week, the Trump administration announced the streamlining of access to illegally seized personal data from unsuspecting Americans, thereby making warrantless domestic spying easier for the spies.

Here is the backstory.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to privacy. Like other amendments in the Bill of Rights, it doesn’t create the right; it limits government interference with it. President Joe Biden often misquoted the late Justice Antonin Scalia suggesting that Justice Scalia believed that the Bill of Rights creates rights. As Justice Scalia wrote, referring to the right to keep and bear arms but reflecting his view on the origins of all personal liberty, the Bill of Rights secures rights; it doesn’t create them. It secures preexisting rights from interference by the government.

The Right to be Left Alone | Tenth Amendment Center

Today, the government rarely bothers to obtain a search warrant for surveillance because it is cumbersome to do so and because it is so easy to surveil folks on a massive scale without one.
blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com
 
Call it what it is: a panopticon presidency.

President Trump’s plan to fuse government power with private surveillance tech to build a centralized, national citizen database is the final step in transforming America from a constitutional republic into a digital dictatorship armed with algorithms and powered by unaccountable, all-seeing artificial intelligence.

This isn’t about national security. It’s about control.

According to news reports, the Trump administration is quietly collaborating with Palantir Technologies—the data-mining behemoth co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel—to construct a centralized, government-wide surveillance system that would consolidate biometric, behavioral, and geolocation data into a single, weaponized database of Americans’ private information.

This isn’t about protecting freedom. It’s about rendering freedom obsolete.

Trump’s Palantir-Powered Surveillance Is Turning America Into a Digital Prison | Tenth Amendment Center

President Trump’s plan to fuse government power with private surveillance tech to build a centralized, national citizen database is the final step in transforming America from a constitutional republic into a digital dictatorship armed with algorithms and powered by unaccountable, all-seeing...
blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com
 

Victory! Austin Organizers Cancel City's Flock ALPR Contract

Austin organizers turned out to rebuke the city’s misguided contract with Flock Safety— and won. This successful pushback from the community means at the end of the month Austin police will no longer be able to use the surveillance network of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) across the...
www.eff.org
 
Related.

The Shady World of Surveillance Pricing (Ft. Lina Khan)​

Jun 10, 2025
Should corporations be able to weaponize your personal data to rip you off?
Well, they may already be doing that thanks to a shady tactic called “surveillance pricing.”
Former FTC Chair Lina Khan explains what we can do about it.

5:10
 

Washington State Patrol to Find Speeding Hot Spots Using Harvested Phone Data​

Historically, it's been car enthusiasts of the particularly determined variety who have created technological ways to deal with speeding, with mostly legal radar detectors and extra-legal laser jammers being the most popular countermeasures. However, there's a new threat out of the Northwest to the lead-footed among us — and it might be one that isn't easily avoidable.

That's because the Washington State Patrol has revealed it will crack down on speeding by locating areas where fast driving is common using cell phone data, according to local NBC news affiliate KING 5. It sure sounds frightening, but it's not as Enemy of the State as it seems at first, as the way that law enforcement officials in the Evergreen State are using the phone data doesn't involve real-time tracking.

More:

 
Food for thought.

Weaponised surveillance: how spyware targets civil society

Revelations that the Italian government has used spyware against civil society and media – including activists for migrants’ rights – are the latest chapter in a catalogue of evidence that states are spying on people who present no criminal threat, creating a chilling effect on free speech and...
lens.civicus.org
 

How Cops Can Get Your Private Online Data

Can the cops get your online data? In short, yes. There are a variety of US federal and state laws which give law enforcement powers to obtain information that you provided to online services. But, there are steps you as a user and/or as a service provider can take to improve online privacy.Law...
www.eff.org
 

More:

Pluralistic: Surveillance pricing lets corporations decide what your dollar is worth (24 Jun 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

pluralistic.net
 

The Wearables Trap: How the Government Plans to Monitor, Score, and Control You​

“When the states legalize the deliberate ending of certain lives... it will eventually broaden the categories of those who can be put to death with impunity.”—Nat Hentoff, The Washington Post, 1992
Click to expand...
Bodily autonomy—the right to privacy and integrity over our own bodies—is rapidly vanishing.

The debate now extends beyond forced vaccinations or invasive searches to include biometric surveillance, wearable tracking, and predictive health profiling.

We are entering a new age of algorithmic, authoritarian control, where our thoughts, moods, and biology are monitored and judged by the state.

This is the dark promise behind the newest campaign by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, to push for a future in which all Americans wear biometric health-tracking devices.

More here:

Predict. Punish. Comply. Welcome to the Future of Health Surveillance | By John & Nisha Whitehead

Today’s fitness tracker is tomorrow’s surveillance leash.
www.rutherford.org
 
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