John,

Even with everything going on just this week, we can’t lose sight of the emerging threat of a Trump-Thiel surveillance state. It’s a privacy nightmare, and a potentially powerful weapon if put in the hands of a dictator.

Peter Thiel is the billionaire and anti-democracy activist who once said, "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." He gave over $1 million to Trump’s 2016 campaign, bankrolled JD Vance’s Senate campaign, and is the man who introduced Vance to Trump.

Now the Trump administration is funneling taxpayer dollars to Thiel’s powerful data-mining firm, Palantir, to build a vast surveillance infrastructure -- one that could give Trump sweeping access to Americans’ personal information, and the power to weaponize it against his political enemies. This is not speculation -- it’s already happening.

Palantir has received over $113 million in government contracts since Trump took office, to develop technology that allows data to be merged across agencies into a comprehensive, centralized profile of every individual in the U.S. This database may include your financial history, student loan balance, disability status, medical records -- even your private social media content.

Tell Congress to call for an end to Trump’s insidious surveillance scheme and Thiel’s data collection cash grab. Stop this dangerous concentration of personal information.

This is not about national security. It’s about building the tools of repression.

When authoritarian leaders seek to consolidate power, it’s not just about tanks in the streets. Equally important are the systems of mass surveillance that can be used to silence dissent and erode the checks and balances that define a free society.

This effort by Trump and Thiel is textbook authoritarianism: amass personal data, concentrate power, and bypass democratic accountability. The implications are chilling. With this data, Trump will be able to track, target, and punish political opponents, journalists, whistleblowers, and activists -- all while shielding his own corruption from scrutiny.

If Congress fails to intervene, we will see transparency sacrificed for control, and a trampling of civil liberties and the freedoms of speech, gathering, and dissent.

We can’t allow this to happen. Demand Congress immediately shut down Trump and Thiel’s mass data surveillance operation.

Thank you for defending our civil liberties and democracy. While we still can.

- DFA AF Team