How America’s Privacy is Just a Memory
More than a decade ago, Edward Snowden exposed a vast, secret surveillance apparatus built by the U.S. government in partnership with private tech firms and foreign allies. The NSA revelations were a wake-up call—an uncomfortable reminder that the architecture of a surveillance state wasn’t a dystopian fantasy, but a growing reality. Today, those warnings are no longer theoretical. The tools Snowden helped reveal are now being expanded, refined, and normalized, pushing America further down the path toward authoritarianism.
In 2025, the U.S. government has deepened its relationship with private surveillance firms like Palantir Technologies to build a “master database” of personal information on every American. This effort, greenlit by a March executive order and implemented via Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, merges IRS, Social Security, Medicare, and potentially even law enforcement data into a single repository—powered by Palantir’s Foundry platform.
To many, this looks like administrative modernization. To those paying attention, it’s the foundation of a surveillance panopticon. Snowden warned us about this trajectory years ago, calling out not just the mass data collection itself, but the lack of meaningful oversight, the secrecy, and the vulnerability to political abuse. He famously said, “A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They’ll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves.” That future is no longer hypothetical. It’s here.
Palantir’s involvement adds another layer of unease. The company was built on the idea of using data analysis for intelligence and law enforcement, often at the expense of privacy and civil rights. It has faced criticism for enabling surveillance of immigrants, protestors, and marginalized communities. Now, it’s helping the federal government centralize citizen data in ways that would have seemed unthinkable even a few years ago.
This isn’t just about privacy. It’s about power. Centralized surveillance infrastructures are a hallmark of authoritarian regimes. They enable control, repression, and manipulation. They discourage dissent and chill free speech. And when run without transparency or accountability—as this program seems to be—they become a quiet mechanism for tyranny.
This is precisely what Snowden feared when he gave up his career, freedom, and homeland to warn the world. His disclosures showed that the technology to surveil everyone was already built. What he couldn’t predict—but clearly saw coming—was how easily the public could be lulled into accepting it.
We’re at a crossroads. The infrastructure of authoritarianism is no longer being built in the shadows. It’s being codified in executive orders, normalized in press releases, and legitimized by Silicon Valley contracts. If we don’t speak out—if we don’t demand transparency, oversight, and the protection of our civil liberties—we’ll lose the very freedoms that define us.
It’s time to heed Snowden’s warning, not as history, but as prophecy. And it’s time to decide whether we want to be surveilled subjects or free citizens.
