E-Pluribus |June 4, 2025
Palantir helps the feds spy on you. Student speech under assault. Colorado v the 1st Amendment
A round-up of the latest and best musings on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:
Elizabeth Nolan Brown: How Palantir Is Expanding the Surveillance State
The US government pays private contractors many millions of dollars each year to help it spy on Americans. At Reason, Elizabeth Nolan Brown explains how Palantir’s increasingly cozy relationship with the feds is poised to further erode our privacy:
When people complain about Big Tech … Much less attention is directed at … Companies like the data analytics firm Palantir, created by Paypal co-founder and Donald Trump supporter Peter Thiel.
Palantir has long been connected to government surveillance. It was founded in part with CIA money, it has served as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contractor since 2011, and it's been used for everything from local law enforcement to COVID-19 efforts. But the prominence of Palantir tools in federal agencies seems to be growing under President Trump.
"The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon," reports The New York Times, noting that this figure "does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent."
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Palantir technology has largely been used by the military, the intelligence agencies, the immigration enforcers, and the police. But its uses could be expanding.
"Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies—the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service—about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions," reports the Times.
Along with the Trump administration's efforts to share more data across federal agencies, this signals that Palantir's huge data analysis capabilities could wind up being wielded against all Americans.
This won't allow the authorities watch us more so much as it helps them make use of all the data it's already got on us. But that's unsettling too.
"The ultimate concern is a panopticon of a single federal database with everything that the government knows about every single person in this country," Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, told Wired in April. "What we are seeing is likely the first step in creating that centralized dossier on everyone in this country."
Sara Berinhout: Supreme Court rejects case over ‘Two genders’ shirt ban, threatening student speech across New England
As we reported last week, the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a middle-school student who was punished for wearing a supposedly offensive t-shirt to school. Sara Berinhout follows up with some helpful analysis of how the Court’s disinterest in the case could impact the free speech of millions of students:
The Supreme Court just declined to review a case that threatens freedom of speech for over a million students across New England. In thousands of public schools, administrators now have power to silence student speech they dislike.
Last year, the First Circuit Court of Appeals significantly weakened student speech rights in L.M. v. Town of Middleborough. The case involved a Massachusetts middle schooler named Liam Morrison who was banned from class for wearing a shirt that read, “There are only two genders.” When he taped “CENSORED” over the original message, the school banned that, too.
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That isn’t just a bad ruling. It’s a dangerous one … The Supreme Court could have reviewed the First Circuit’s problematic decision and put it to rest. Instead, it looked the other way, leaving the lower court’s decision to remain on the books.
That is quite a blow to student speech rights. As the Supreme Court recently said in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., “America’s public schools are the nurseries of democracy.”
Unfortunately, the First Circuit’s decision sends a very different message — and the Supreme Court has failed to set the record straight.
Alliance Defending Freedom: XX-XY Athletics sues Colorado for violating right to speak truth that men and women are different
Colorado’s ever-expanding anti-discrimination rules seem to govern every aspect of life—right down to the words private companies may use in their advertising. Alongside the Alliance Defending Freedom, one athletic apparel brand is suing the state in federal court to prevent it from “torching the First Amendment” and forcing Coloradans to censor themselves on pain of criminal punishment:
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of an athletic apparel company challenging a Colorado law restricting the company’s ability to speak truthfully about the biological differences between men and women. XX-XY Athletics is the only athletic brand to stand up for women’s sports.
On May 16, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed HB25-1312 into law, a policy that amends the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act to define “gender expression” to include “chosen name” and “how an individual chooses to be addressed.” The law, therefore, requires businesses like XX-XY Athletics to address male customers who identify as female as females and also requires businesses to avoid any statement or advertisement that indicates customers are “unwelcome” based on their gender expression and chosen name. The brand frequently refers to male athletes and male customers as male—even if they identify as female—putting the company at risk of violating Colorado’s law and facing cease-and-desist orders, expensive investigations, hearings, and civil and criminal penalties.
“Colorado continues to place itself on the wrong side of the law by forcing Coloradans to speak against their conscience,” said ADF Senior Counsel Hal Frampton, director of the ADF Center for Conscience Initiatives. “XX-XY Athletics believes that women deserve to compete fairly and holds to the commonsense view that biological differences exist between men and women, but Colorado’s law places them at risk for speaking the truth. We are urging the court to protect the ability of Coloradans to openly express their beliefs on this hotly debated issue.”
Around X
George Orwell’s 1984 is the book about totalitarian manipulation of language. Here, Walter Kirn explains that the 75th anniversary edition of the novel contains a trigger warning owing to the protagonist’s “misogyny.” Matt Taibbi’s reaction (at the 1:38:00 mark) says all that needs to be said:
Tone deaf as always, the United Nations has declared war on free speech. Of course, it’s for our own good. Their rationale? Something something “disinformation” blah blah blah:
You can’t put a price tag on free speech, a truth Elon Musk knows better than most people:
