Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon admitted Sunday that he would be a lot more vocal about the privacy concerns surrounding Palantir, the tech company currently streamlining data on U.S. citizens for the federal government, if a Democrat were leading the charge.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March calling for comprehensive data-sharing across federal agencies, which The New York Times reported in May includes the IRS, Social Security Administration, Education Department and ICE.
The report raised serious concerns over government surveillance powers and personal privacy rights. Palantir addressed the article Monday, calling it “reckless and irresponsible” and full of “false allegations,” and stating that civil liberties are “at the center of our mission.”
“Some of the Palantir stuff that’s going up now, I think everybody’s gotta take a step back,” said Bannon on “Sunday Night With Chuck Todd,” whose eponymous host went on to ask how Bannon would feel if a Democratic administration were merging these databases.
“I think ‘War Room’ would open every show about it,” the far-right strategist and podcast host replied. “We’re pretty upset about it. The MAGA base is not happy. And Palantir is a Democratic company.”
Bannon notably helped launch Cambridge Analytica, the consulting firm exposed in 2018 for having harvested the data of millions of Facebook users in order to influence voters in the 2016 election, but is now echoing privacy watchdogs and civil liberties organizations.
Palantir was co-founded by pro-Trump tech billionaire Peter Thiel and has received more than $113 million in federal spending since January and a $795 million contract with the Department of Defense in May, according to the Times report.
“President Donald Trump signed an executive order to eliminate information silos and streamline data collection across all agencies to increase government efficiency and save hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rodgers told Newsweek in June, albeit without confirming the company tapped to spearhead the effort.
The stated aim of merely improving preexisting access to such data hasn’t convinced skeptics, however, with social media users warning that a “master database” will inevitably be weaponized against citizens who “dare to dissent” — and “must be rejected by all.”
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Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, argued as much in April.
“The ultimate concern is a panopticon of a single federal database with everything that the government knows about every single person in this country,” he told Wired. “What we’re seeing is likely the first step in creating that centralized dossier on everyone in this country.”
Numerous Palantir employees who spoke with the Times in May said they’re “unnerved” by the project, warning that a master database could be “vulnerable” if hacked. Bannon, while certainly not the voice of reason on other issues, has a more dire view.
“They’re techno-feudalists,” he told Todd. “They believe in networks, not nation states.”