Surveillance & Privacy
Government surveillance and corporate data collection have created an unprecedented infrastructure of monitoring that most people do not fully understand. From NSA mass surveillance programs to tech company data harvesting, the erosion of privacy is a bipartisan project driven by national security budgets and advertising profits.
Gen Us covers surveillance and privacy because the combination of government surveillance powers and corporate data practices creates a system where virtually every digital action is tracked, stored, and potentially used — and the public has little meaningful ability to opt out.
We trace the funding behind surveillance technology companies, document the revolving door between intelligence agencies and Silicon Valley, and analyze how media coverage normalizes surveillance while marginalizing privacy advocates.
Key Questions We're Asking
- •What surveillance programs operate without meaningful public oversight or judicial review?
- •How do tech companies' data practices intersect with government surveillance capabilities?
- •Which defense contractors profit most from surveillance technology, and what are their government connections?
- •How is facial recognition technology being deployed by law enforcement, and what are the error rates across demographics?
- •What data do data brokers collect, and how is it sold to government agencies that would need warrants to collect it directly?
What Mainstream Media Misses
- •Coverage of surveillance typically focuses on individual scandals rather than the systemic architecture of mass data collection.
- •The relationship between surveillance companies and the intelligence community is rarely examined in depth.
- •Data broker sales to government agencies — a legal loophole around the Fourth Amendment — receive almost no sustained coverage.
- •Facial recognition error rates are significantly higher for people of color, but this disparity is treated as a technical detail rather than a civil rights issue.
Follow the Money
- •The U.S. intelligence community budget exceeds $90 billion annually, much of it flowing to private contractors.
- •Companies like Palantir, Clearview AI, and Cellebrite profit from government surveillance contracts worth billions.
- •Data brokers like Acxiom, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, and Oracle Data Cloud sell personal data to government agencies.
- •Big Tech companies (Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon) collect massive user data that can be accessed through legal processes like FISA orders.