TimeRonin

The same company that started on CIA venture capital now runs ICE’s case management system, maps neighborhoods for raids, and pulls Medicaid data to find people to deport. The same venture capitalist who co-founded that company founded a think tank that writes the camping bans. His investment firm profits from the surveillance and detention companies that enforce them.

And the same investors—BlackRock, UBS, the Swiss National Bank—hold stock in both the software and the cells.

Palantir holds a $1 billion DHS blanket purchase agreement. Half of its $3.2 billion in contract obligations since 2024 came through no-bid deals. Its ELITE tool gives ICE a target list of 20 million people.

GEO Group and CoreCivic hold over 90% of ICE detainees. GEO’s 2025 net income was $120.1 million. CoreCivic’s was $116.5 million, up 70%. Both gained an additional $2 billion in profit.

In 2026 alone, ICE bought $3.2 billion in detention facilities from these companies—then let them keep operating the facilities. Congresswomen Jayapal and Randall wrote that the purchases “appear designed to evade state-level oversight.”

The same capital bets on both the software that tracks people and the cells that hold them. The same man—Joe Lonsdale—co-founded Palantir, founded the Cicero Institute, and invests in the defense and surveillance companies that profit from the laws he writes.

This isn’t coincidence. This is manufactured cruelty.

The same company that started on CIA venture capital now runs ICE’s case management system, maps neighborhoods for raids, and pulls Medicaid data to find people to deport. The same venture capitalist who co-founded that company founded a think tank that writes the camping bans. His investment firm profits from the surveillance and detention companies that enforce them.

And the same investors—BlackRock, UBS, the Swiss National Bank—hold stock in both the software and the cells.

Palantir holds a $1 billion DHS blanket purchase agreement. Half of its $3.2 billion in contract obligations since 2024 came through no-bid deals. Its ELITE tool gives ICE a target list of 20 million people.

GEO Group and CoreCivic hold over 90% of ICE detainees. GEO’s 2025 net income was $120.1 million. CoreCivic’s was $116.5 million, up 70%. Both gained an additional $2 billion in profit.

In 2026 alone, ICE bought $3.2 billion in detention facilities from these companies—then let them keep operating the facilities. Congresswomen Jayapal and Randall wrote that the purchases “appear designed to evade state-level oversight.”

The same capital bets on both the software that tracks people and the cells that hold them. The same man—Joe Lonsdale—co-founded Palantir, founded the Cicero Institute, and invests in the defense and surveillance companies that profit from the laws he writes.

This isn’t coincidence. This is manufactured cruelty.

The Problem with Centralized Social Media

For two decades, social media has been dominated by a small handful of corporations. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Discord, and their peers built walled gardens that captured billions of users and then monetized them through surveillance advertising, algorithmic manipulation, and data extraction. These platforms don’t just host conversations — they shape them. They decide what you see, what reaches an audience, and who gets silenced.

The consequences are now well understood. Centralized platforms are vulnerable to a single point of failure: one CEO’s whim, one policy change, one acquisition, and the rules of engagement for millions of people change overnight. When Elon Musk bought Twitter, he didn’t just change the logo — he altered the fundamental dynamics of a global communication network. When Reddit changed its API pricing, third-party apps died overnight. This is not a bug of centralized systems; it is their defining feature.

The decentralized social stack offers an alternative. It is not a single platform or a single company. It is a set of open protocols and software that allow anyone to run a server, connect with others, and participate in a global conversation without asking permission from a central authority. No CEO can change the rules for everyone. No algorithm decides what you see. No corporation owns your data.

--feel free to share this article with your normie friends, perhaps they can benefit from this