Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Are You Okay with the US Government Conducting Mass Surveillance of Its Citizens?

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Screenshot of statement issued earlier this week by AI company Anthropic.

I don’t often get into national issues in this blog, but this is something that impacts all Americans, including those of us who live in Los Angeles. Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has come under pressure by the US government to allow the use of its technology for mass domestic surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons. While both are a concern, in this post I’m going to focus on the surveillance issue.

Anthropic seems to have been the first AI company cleared by the US government for use in handling classified information. This came about through its partnership with Palantir, a defense contractor which works with the Pentagon. When this partnership began, Anthropic stressed that its large language model Claude should not be used for surveillance of US citizens or to enable lethal autonomous weapons systems. In January of this year, Anthropic became concerned that the Department of Defense had ignored both of these restrictions. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei sent a letter outlining his concerns. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth responded by saying that, unless Anthropic withdrew its objections to the use of Claude for domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons, the DOD would stop using it and bar Anthropic from receiving further contracts with the Department of Defense. On Thursday, Anthropic issued a statement saying it would reject these demands. Today President Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using all artificial intelligence technology made by Anthropic.

Now, the first question I’m asking is, Why does the Department of Defense need to do mass surveillance of US citizens? If there’s reason to suspect that a US citizen might be a threat, the government already has the power to conduct surveillance, but only after it has presented evidence of the threat and received a warrant. Concerns about mass surveillance of US citizens aren’t new. Over the past 20+ years the US government has tried (often successfully) to increase its ability to spy on citizens. There has also been pushback (sometimes successful) from privacy groups, and there are court decisions that have kept checks on the government’s ability to gather information on Americans.

But this is crossing a new line. In this case it appears that the US government is asserting that it has a right to conduct mass surveillance of citizens, and that it will only work with AI companies that are comfortable with that kind of surveillance.

This comes at a time when corporations are gathering more of our data than ever. You’ve probably heard that Ring cameras are being enabled to collect biometric information that would allow identification of people who visit your home. You probably haven’t heard that the City of LA may be issuing a request for proposals for digital kiosks to be placed on city streets, and that at least one of the companies interested in getting the contract allows its kiosks to collect personal information, including your IP address, phone number, geolocation data and biometric information.

In the past, the US government has moved slowly and quietly when expanding its surveillance powers. But now, the US government is stating openly that it wants to use AI to conduct mass surveillance of US citizens.

Years ago, the Chinese government implemented a massive surveillance network. It explicitly told Chinese citizens that they were being watched, and that it could grant or limit opportunities for jobs, education and travel based on the data it collected. At the time, I told myself that the US government would never take such a drastic step. I guess I was wrong.

If you’re concerned about our government using AI to keep us under surveillance, you could always write to the White House to let them know you’re worried.

White House Contact Form

Protest in Hollywood over Kimmel Show Suspension

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Protesters on Hollywood Blvd. on Thursday night

A few hundred protesters gathered in Hollywood on Wednesday night to protest ABC’s decision to pull the Jimmy Kimmel show, at least for the time being. I’ve never seen the show. If I’d heard that he was going off the air for low ratings, it wouldn’t have made any difference to me. But it appears that ABC pulled the show because of pressure from the Trump administration over comments Kimmel made in the wake of the Charlie Kirk shooting. This is really disturbing.

Crowd listening to speaker at protest.

According to both the New York Times and Fox News, in the aftermath of Kirk’s killing, Kimmel said on air that the right was working hard to portray the killer as a leftist in order to score political points. Apparently, Kimmel mistakenly believed that that killer had right wing views. Brendan Carr, the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission appointed by Trump, was angered by Kimmel’s comments, which he believes were part of a concerted effort to lie to Americans. According to the New York Times, Carr stated that broadcast companies needed to “find ways to change conduct and take action”, or the FCC might take action against them.

Unfortunately, while Carr claimed that Kimmel’s statements were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people,” I couldn’t find any reports that he gave other example of those lies, or that he talked about who was involved in the effort. No doubt he’s pointing the finger at the “liberal media”, a loosely defined term that seems to include any broadcaster or publisher that presents news that could be seen as critical of Trump.

Plenty of signs objecting to ABC’s action.

None of the published accounts I’ve read quote Kimmel as saying anything negative about Kirk himself, nor does it seem like he made any comments that could be perceived as condoning the killing. He made an inaccurate comment about the killer. TV personalities say things that are inaccurate all the time. They often make inaccurate statements because of their own personal bias. They often say controversial or shocking things because that draws media attention. This is true of celebrities on the right and the left. American popular culture rewards people who create controversy.

As many people have pointed out, when Trump was re-elected he claimed that he was going to restore free speech in America. But just in the last two years, he’s aggressivley gone after news organizations that have published stories he doesn’t like, suing the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and CBS for billions of dollars. Now it looks like the Trump administration is willing to use the power of the FCC to punish broadcasters that don’t fall in line.

Free speech is under attack. This is a scary time for America.