Pressure Systems edition
Palantir Apps and ICE Databases Weaponize Federal Enforcement
September 4, 2026
What this edition shows
Palantir software integrations, secret AI identity-masking tools, and multi-million-dollar DHS voter databases are expanding the operational capacity and legal insulation of ICE agents. Meanwhile, federal agencies like the USPS and Department of Justice face internal friction over ballot-blocking systems and dropped shooting charges, revealing a coordinated push toward unaccountable executive enforcement ahead of midterms.
Reporting and analysis behind this edition 10 sources
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ICE Gave New Hires Access to Restricted Info on Palantir App Before They Passed Background Checks
Palantir created ELITE, a powerful new app for ICE to target immigrants. The feds never published a legally required privacy assessment for it. The post ICE Gave New Hires Access to Restricted Info on Palantir App Before They Passed Background Checks appeared first on The Intercept.
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ICE Is Paying a Controversial AI Firm to Hide the Identities of Agents
In a leaked memo, an ICE official tells employees the new AI tech will protect them from doxing. Some worry it could be used to root out whistleblowers. The post ICE Is Paying a Controversial AI Firm to Hide the Identities of Agents appeared first on The Intercept.
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Trump’s DOJ Blocked Serious ICE Shooting Charge Over Federal Prosecutor’s “Strongest Possible” Objections
The post Trump’s DOJ Blocked Serious ICE Shooting Charge Over Federal Prosecutor’s “Strongest Possible” Objections appeared first on ProPublica.
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We Are Living in the Fantasy World of 13-Year-Old Boys
After reading Jill Lepore’s The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, I have a new destination for a time machine, should I ever finally get my hands on one. I’d set the dial to some night in the late 1970s or ’80s and visit the boyhood rooms of the Silicon Valley titans Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and…
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ICE Plans to Pay $5 Million to Create National Voting Database
As part of a broader DHS surge to investigate alleged voter fraud, ICE has announced it plans to pay up to $5 million to create what amounts to a federal voter database.
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Whistleblower: USPS Defied A Court Injunction To Build An Untested, Undocumented Ballot-Blocking System. Its Own Staff Call The Process “A Shit Show.”
Even as Donald Trump regularly uses mail-in ballots himself, he has decided that mail-in ballots are a system by which voting fraud occurs. To be quite clear, this is bullshit. There is astoundingly little evidence of significant voter fraud, and that’s equally true between in-person and voting-by-m…
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Trump tells FCC to punish journalist for calling his election results "mixed"
Trump furious at NBC's Kristen Welker for saying he had mixed results in primary endorsements.
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Working With ICE Is So Toxic, ICE Is Now Offering Liability Insurance To Local Police Officers
If you’re worried about the bad optics of working with ICE, the federal government is here to help subsidize your recovery from mass deportation conjunctivitis. If you’re worried about the personal negative side effects of buddying up to ICE’s masked kidnapping squads, the administration is here to…
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ICE Finalizes Stun Glove Purchase, Claims There’s No Other Way To Handle ‘Violent’ Migrants
This was inevitable. ICE has billions of new money to spend, zero shame, and not a single adult in a leadership position capable (or willing!) to talk the agency off the ledge. ICE decided the neat new tool of cruelty it absolutely had to have were gloves that behave like stun guns or low-powered Ta…
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ICE agent charged with lying under oath about Minnesota shooting
Authorities say agent fired into home with people inside, lied about circumstances.