{"id":1666027,"date":"2026-02-22T20:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T01:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1666027"},"modified":"2026-02-22T20:25:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T01:25:00","slug":"ai-surveillance-should-scare-both-democrats-and-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/ai-surveillance-should-scare-both-democrats-and-republicans\/1666027\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Surveillance Should Scare Both Democrats And Republicans"},"content":{"rendered":"

AI Surveillance Should Scare Both Democrats And Republicans<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Brendan Steinhauser via RealClearPolitics<\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

To quote New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom, \u201cICE is watching you.\u201d It is true: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement saw its 2025 budget\u00a0triple to nearly $30 billion<\/a>, 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.<\/strong> The Department of Homeland Security and affiliated agencies are currently piloting and deploying\u00a0more than 100 AI systems<\/a>, including some used in law enforcement activities.<\/p>\n

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 reported\u00a0more than 1,700 AI use cases<\/a> \u2013 from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Veterans Affairs.<\/p>\n

We have heard the horror stories out of\u00a0China<\/a>, where AI is combined with social media monitoring, facial recognition, and new-age cameras to track the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s critics (perceived or real), with the CCP following their statements and locations. But is that really unimaginable here?<\/p>\n

Leaning on AI companies as core contractors, DHS has long\u00a0scanned millions of social media posts<\/a>, using new technologies to summarize findings. At the\u00a0Environmental Protection Agency<\/a>, AI spies on federal workers by monitoring communications. Citing \u201cnational security\u201d at every turn, the federal government has given carte blanche to Palantir, whose sales and stock price have\u00a0spiked in recent years<\/a>. This means\u00a0integrating<\/a>\u00a0Palantir data collection into operations at HHS and the Internal Revenue Service. Is that for national security, too?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What about \u201cpattern of life\u201d modeling that\u00a0identifies<\/a>\u00a0when people deviate from normal routines? Or the\u00a0rise<\/a>\u00a0of \u201cpredictive policing,\u201d \u00e0 la Steven Spielberg\u2019s\u00a0\u201cMinority Report\u201d?<\/p>\n

When pressed on Palantir\u2019s surveillance agenda, Palantir CEO Alex Karp\u2019s argument is that Americans essentially need more surveillance now to be more free later.<\/strong> You read that right:\u00a0As Karp recently put it<\/a>, \u201cFreedom 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Florida, Massachusetts, Texas, and other states,\u00a0thousands of police departments<\/a>\u00a0are using Flock\u2019s AI-powered license plate reader cameras to track drivers when they pass one of Flock\u2019s cameras on the road.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Take Massachusetts, where the state has spent\u00a0millions of taxpayer dollars<\/a>\u00a0to monitor the locations of drivers and share that information with a network of over 7,000 agencies and organizations across America<\/strong>. Or consider\u00a0Maine<\/a>, where localities are using AI to scan license plates, create digital profiles, and experiment with facial recognition. This information can then be entered into a\u00a0national database<\/a>\u00a0for federal access to information.<\/p>\n

With each passing week, the mainstream media\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0on \u201cauthoritarian AI surveillance\u201d in China, but Americans do not need to look overseas for proof. From social media to our morning commute, we have countless case studies in government overreach right here at home. Our AI surveillance state is driven by a sweeping alliance of federal, state, and local governments with Silicon Valley\u2019s most innovative monitoring systems.<\/p>\n

It is not just Washington, D.C., or your state capitol or city hall or Palantir; it is all of the above<\/strong>. When it comes to civil liberties, no fight is more important than the people against the surveillance state. AI has pushed the limits of what is possible at our expense, making\u00a0post-Patriot Act surveillance<\/a>\u00a0look like child\u2019s play.<\/p>\n

Democrat or Republican, liberal, conservative, or libertarian, now is the time for the people to check \u201cthe machine\u201d and its machine learning. This is not political; it is about every American\u2019s personal liberty.<\/p>\n

Brendan Steinhauser is CEO of The Alliance for Secure AI<\/a>, a nonprofit organization that educates policymakers and the public about the implications of advanced AI.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSun, 02\/22\/2026 – 15:25<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/ai\/ai-surveillance-should-scare-both-democrats-and-republicans<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AI Surveillance Should Scare Both Democrats And Republicans Authored by Brendan Steinhauser via RealClearPolitics, In a country desperate for unifying issues, there is growing consensus…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1666028,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1666027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1666027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1666028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1666027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1666027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1666027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}