Peter Thiel Does His Bit To Build The Police State For Trump
Peter Thiel is really pulling his weight in helping the Trump/Bannon administration create a budding police state. Apparently using his awesome financial power to sue a media organization into oblivion and strike a fear-inducing blow against press freedom wasn’t enough for him.
Now Thiel, through his company Palantir Technologies, is working with Homeland Security to put together a massive database of potential illegal immigrants using information pulled from various government agencies. The system is called Investigative Case Management (ICM). According to the Intercept, “The system provides its users access to intelligence platforms maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and an array of other federal and private law enforcement entities. It can provide ICE agents access to information on a subject’s schooling, family relationships, employment information, phone records, immigration history, foreign exchange program status, personal connections, biometric traits, criminal records, and home and work addresses.”
It is important to note that the program was started under the Obama administration with a focus on cross-border investigations by Homeland Security into areas like drug trafficking but its scope has widened recently and now looks to be available to ICE agents focused on immigration enforcement and removal, in other words, deportation.
The system is scheduled to go into operation later this fall and it will greatly enhance the Trump/Bannon administration efforts to target and deport potentially millions of immigrants. In addition, does anyone doubt that a tool like this will not bleed over into targeting US citizens as well at some point in the future. Clearly, the system was initially designed to collect data on target of cross-border infractions which conceivably involve US citizens. But now the scope is so wide it could include any American.
It would really be nice if we could find a way to send Thiel off to his security bunker in New Zealand for a while. On the other hand, with Trump’s erratic policies, he may end up there sooner than even he thinks.