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What Next: TBD | Is Palantir Building a Data Big Brother?

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.66K Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

One of the goals of DOGE was to get rid of the “silos” that keep government agencies from sharing freely amongst themselves efficiently and instead organize data using tools offered by companies like Palantir. The thing is, a lot of those silos are there by design, and removing them could be a nightmare for privacy advocates.  Guest: Sheera Frenkel, tech reporter for the New York Times. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:11.1

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0:15.2

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0:20.3

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0:58.4

Back in April, I read a New York Times story that stuck with me.

1:03.0

It was about all the data the federal government might have about us.

1:12.2

The government is going to know everything from the expected, like your social security number and your home address if you've bought a house and filed taxes,

1:18.8

to more unusual things. If you are a vet, they might know a lot about your mental history and your personal family history. That's Shira Frankel, one of the reporters who wrote the story.

1:25.2

She and her co-author, Emily Badgerger found 314 pieces of data that the government

1:30.8

might have about individual Americans. If you are a student who's ever applied for a student loan,

1:37.6

they might know a lot about your extended family, your cousins, your aunts, your uncles,

1:42.7

where they went to school, if they're U.S. immigrants, if they live in other countries.

1:47.1

It's amazing once you think about all the different government agencies that we give data to, how much of our personal lives we kind of let them know about.

...

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