From The American Prospect (emphasis added):
The Trump administration is building a surveillance network to spy on its own workforce across multiple agencies. It has already given Palantir an initial $3.9 million to do so at the Department of Agriculture (USDA), federal spending disclosures show.
The artificial intelligence war profiteer will “design, configure, deploy and manage a secure, user-friendly tool to track USDA employees’ return to the office,” according to a disclosure. The contract started May 1 and has the potential to grow to $13.3 million over the next fiscal year, which runs from October 1 to September 30.
The Lever first reported in March that the USDA had hired Palantir to help it enforce its return-to-office demand, a story based on an initial disclosure justifying the reasoning behind the department’s opting for a sole-source contract, commonly known as a no-bid contract, before a dollar amount had been published. Since then, union officials and additional spending disclosures show that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) are seeking to implement similar programs.
Union officials with AFGE Council 220, which represents SSA workers, said they expect the surveillance at that agency is a prelude to consolidating or outright shuttering of more offices nationwide, based on a determination that too few people work at certain sites to justify keeping them open. …
Palantir is a very sinister corporation owned by an even more sinister man.
What a waste of money. Instead, spend it on hiring, or at least on upgrading systems.
ReplyDeleteIn April, Trump posted on social media that Palantir has proven to have "great war fighting capabilities and equipment. Just ask our enemies!!!" It marked the first time a sitting U.S. president publicly promoted a publicly traded company by its stock ticker.
ReplyDeleteAnd he bought the stock before making this April post.
DeleteUnion officials with AFGE Council 220, which represents SSA workers, said they expect the surveillance at that agency is a prelude to consolidating or outright shuttering of more offices nationwide, based on a determination that too few people work at certain sites to justify keeping them open. But staff levels are low because DOGE pushed out 7,000 SSA workers last year, so swipes in and out of offices will be lower because of that, AFGE officials said. A better measure of office use would be assessing the needs of the people who use them, which would also show the need for more, not fewer, workers.
ReplyDelete“SSA is already stretched thin as we face a 59-year staffing low,” AFGE Council 220 President Jessica LaPointe said in a press statement. “Determining office usage based solely on the number of staff in attendance creates a false narrative that offices are underused or under needed. In reality, they are simply understaffed.”
Several attempts have been made over the years to gather this type of employee environmental data. Each attempt has had issues and failed. This attempt will make some grand noise then fade away. Costing taxpayers money with few results.
ReplyDeleteSo we’re paying Palantir to design a system to track something we already have multiple systems tracking? Is this really what you idiots wanted when you re-elected Trump? Or was it the sky-high inflation and supply chain problems you just didn’t get enough of during his first term?
ReplyDeleteHow many and which offices are they planning to shutter? Will the employees get RIFd or will they be allowed to transfer to other offices?
ReplyDelete