Archive
The Illusion of Privacy: From Snowden to Palantir Pegasus, Why the Lock Icon Isn’t Enough
by Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
September 12, 2025
Edited by: Akashma News (watermark, text overlay).
Usage rights: Free to use, share, and distribute with attribution to Akashma News and OpenAI (DALL·E).
In 2012, Edward Snowden revealed what many suspected but few could prove: that the web’s promise of freedom was under silent siege. Governments and their corporate partners were not content to simply watch the public square — they had built the ability to tap into the very fabric of digital life, from emails to phone calls, from search histories to location trails.
A year later, Silicon Valley reassured us with a different kind of symbol: the lock icon in the browser bar. “HTTPS Everywhere,” Google and Mozilla proclaimed, as if a single letter — the s in https:// — could redeem the betrayal Snowden had exposed. And for a while, we believed it. The padlock meant our banking details were safe, our searches hidden, our reading habits private.
But privacy, like history, is written in layers. HTTPS encrypts the path between you and a website, but it does not erase the footprints you leave behind. Your internet provider still knows you went to akashmanews.com. Palantir-style data mining can still link that visit to your phone location, your Amazon orders, or your political donations. And if your device itself is infected — by Pegasus or its quieter cousins — every keystroke is already compromised before encryption even begins.
What we call “online privacy” is, in truth, a narrow perimeter. It guards the tunnel but leaves the tunnel’s entrance and exit wide open. For investigative journalism, for dissidents, for the ordinary reader who believes the lock icon shields them from surveillance, this is the cruelest paradox: the illusion of privacy, packaged as its fulfillment.
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Further Reading: Palantir and the Invisible Web of Surveillance
Juan Sebastián Pinto, a former Palantir designer turned civil rights organizer, warns that the company’s AI-driven surveillance systems now shape immigration enforcement in U.S. neighborhoods and war operations abroad. These “Istar” tools — intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance — fuse vast datasets from biometrics, phones, drones, and private brokers to generate targets at scale, eroding privacy, free speech, and due process. Pinto argues that unless lawmakers and the public embrace strong protections, we will see these invisible architectures of control expand from deportation dragnets and Gaza bombings into everyday commerce and employment.
🔗 Read Pinto’s full op-ed in The Guardian
The Illusion of Privacy: Part II. The Three Layers of Illusion
by Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
September 12, 2025
✨ This section builds the skeleton: transport-level encryption, metadata exposure, endpoint compromise.
1. Encryption Without Anonymity
HTTPS does one job well: it encrypts the stream of data between your browser and a server. A hacker on the same café WiFi cannot see the words you type or the article you load. But encryption is not anonymity. Your ISP, and by extension state agencies, still know that you connected to akashmanew.com. They may not see which article you read, but they know you were there. For intelligence contractors, this “metadata” is more than enough. Snowden’s leaks showed us that governments didn’t need to read every email — knowing who contacted whom and when was already gold.
2. Metadata as the New Surveillance Currency
Palantir and its competitors thrive on what HTTPS leaves untouched. Connection times, device IDs, location data, purchase histories — each a puzzle piece. Alone, they may seem trivial. Together, they form a mosaic of identity, behavior, and intent. If you read an Akashma News exposé at 8:05 p.m., and your phone pinged a cell tower downtown at 8:07, and you bought a coffee at 8:12 with your debit card, the lock icon has protected nothing of real consequence. Surveillance today is not about peeking into encrypted tunnels — it’s about mapping the shadows around them.
3. Endpoints: Where Encryption Never Reaches
Even the strongest lock is useless if someone watches over your shoulder. Pegasus spyware, and countless less famous siblings, operate at this level. They infect the phone or computer itself, capturing messages before they are encrypted and after they are decrypted. Screenshots, keystrokes, microphone activations — the spyware turns the device into an open book. HTTPS cannot touch this. This is why journalists, activists, and even heads of state have fallen victim: the illusion of privacy evaporates when the compromise begins at the source.
Key Sources
Glenn Greenwald — journalist who worked directly with Snowden and Poitras on the NSA leaks.
Laura Poitras — filmmaker & journalist, co‐recipient of the Snowden documents.
Snowden’s interviews, excerpts in No Place to Hide (Greenwald’s book) and in primary Guardian/Wired/Vanity Fair reporting.
1. “Encryption in transit vs metadata visible”
Snowden said NSA was collecting vast amounts of metadata on US citizens without warrant or specific suspicion.
The Boundless Informant tool (leaked by Snowden) visualized how NSA counted metadata globally — clearly showing metadata was collected and analyzed.
2. “Device compromise (endpoints) & opsec measures Snowden/Poitas/Greenwald took”
In Wired’s “Edward Snowden: The Untold Story,” Snowden describes removing batteries from phones, being cautious about location, being aware of techniques for surveillance.
In Citizenfour (Poitas/Greenwald) and the Vanity Fair “Shadowland of Secrets” article: Snowden communicating via encrypted channels, choosing to meet in Hong Kong, using security‐aware practices.
3. “Greenwald, Poitras have full archives / media roles”
Laura Poitras is one of the initial journalists to receive Snowden’s documents, along with Greenwald. They have said they hold full archives.
The book No Place to Hide by Greenwald details many of the programs revealed and discusses the leaks based on those documents.
What Isn’t Fully Supported (Caveats)
To keep things precise and avoid overclaiming:
“No one can snoop what article they’re reading” is too strong; these sources show metadata is visible and location information can leak through endpoints or device compromise. The sources do not claim HTTPS stops state‐level mass surveillance or endpoint spying.
Snowden’s own statements acknowledge there are trade‐offs, limitations. For example, in his interviews, he said you cannot have perfect security and perfect convenience.
There is no verified public documentation (from Greenwald/Poitras/Snowden) that HTTPS alone stops all forms of surveillance (especially advanced spyware like Pegasus). These claims are inference or extrapolation based on understanding of how technology works, not direct claims in the Snowden archive.
Read the Introduction to The Illusion of Privacy Series
The Role of Independent Thinkers
Note from the Editor
By Akashma News
September 12, 2025
Every time I set out to ask something simple — like how to add a search string for Akashma News — I find myself tumbling down a rabbit hole. What begins with a technical query ends up in the realm of Snowden, Pegasus, Palantir, and the digital fingerprints we unknowingly leave behind. My mind is restless, and I suspect yours is too.
Let me confess: I am amazed by this so-called “little toy” of artificial intelligence. For all my complaints about its lack of transparency, its gaslighting tendencies, and its role as a gatekeeper, I must also admit — these tools are handy. They can sift, retrieve, and stitch together data at a speed no human researcher could match. But they are not, and will never be, a replacement for human intelligence.
No algorithm can replicate emotional intelligence. No machine can offer spiritual solace. No bot can understand the warmth of human bonding, or the wisdom earned through lived experience. These belong solely to us. And in that, I rest easy: humanity cannot be defeated by its own creations.
Still, we must be vigilant. These systems are only as honest as the hands that build and deploy them. They must be trained, guarded, and kept in check. That responsibility falls to us — citizens, researchers, journalists, readers. And as long as there are millions of us willing to dissect their capabilities, challenge their authority, and use them to our advantage rather than surrender to them, we will not lose.
This is not paranoia. It is civic duty. And it is why Akashma News continues to dig where others skim, to question what others accept, and to remind you that truth is not found in symbols, but in relentless pursuit.
— Akashma News
The Illusion of Privacy and the Role of Independent Thinkers
by Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
AI may offer convenience, but only human spirit, creativity, and vigilance can secure true freedom.Credits: This image was commissioned and creatively directed by Akashma News. DALL·E, an AI image generator, executed the illustration under explicit editorial instructions. The concept, symbolism, and directives originated with Akashma.
Every time I set out to ask something simple — like how to add a search string for Akashma News — I find myself tumbling down a rabbit hole. What begins with a technical query ends up in the realm of Snowden, Pegasus, Palantir, and the digital fingerprints we unknowingly leave behind. My mind is restless, and I suspect yours is too.
Let me confess: I am amazed by this so-called “little toy” of artificial intelligence. For all my complaints about its lack of transparency, its gaslighting tendencies, and its role as a gatekeeper, I must also admit — these tools are handy. They can sift, retrieve, and stitch together data at a speed no human researcher could match. But they are not, and will never be, a replacement for human intelligence.
No algorithm can replicate emotional intelligence. No machine can offer spiritual solace. No bot can understand the warmth of human bonding, or the wisdom earned through lived experience. These belong solely to us. And in that, I rest easy: humanity cannot be defeated by its own creations.
Still, we must be vigilant. These systems are only as honest as the hands that build and deploy them. They must be trained, guarded, and kept in check. That responsibility falls to us — citizens, researchers, journalists, readers. And as long as there are millions of us willing to dissect their capabilities, challenge their authority, and use them to our advantage rather than surrender to them, we will not lose.
This is not paranoia. It is civic duty. And it is why Akashma News continues to dig where others skim, to question what others accept, and to remind you that truth is not found in symbols, but in relentless pursuit.
— Akashma News
Continue reading: The Illusion of Privacy
Neural Sovereignty – From Battlefield to Backdoor
Appendix A: From Battlefield to Backdoor – Domestic Deployment and the Invisible War
The story of neural surveillance and brain-interface experimentation doesn’t begin in the lab or hospital. It begins on the battlefield.
Military doctrine has long viewed the human mind as both a weapon and a target. Psychological operations, trauma-based conditioning, and battlefield testing of new tech have all been standard operating procedures since at least the Vietnam War. But with the advancement of neural interfaces, brainwave reading, and predictive AI analytics, the military-industrial complex quietly moved its experimentation from war zones into domestic arenas.
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) leads this frontier. Officially, programs like Silent Talk, N3 (Next-Generation Non-Surgical Neurotechnology), and BCI (Brain-Computer Interface) claim to support wounded veterans or enhance soldier communication. But internal documents, budget trails, and defense contractor collaborations suggest a dual-use framework: technologies developed for national security are repurposed for population management, surveillance, and psychological manipulation.
Consider the U.S. Army’s investment in non-lethal weaponry that influences mood, disorientation, and crowd control. Or the expansion of predictive policing powered by neural data proxies. These tools didn’t disappear after Iraq and Afghanistan. They morphed into invisible policing in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.
Simulation: Athena and Nyx – Predictive Policing or Predictive Conditioning?
Athena: “Predictive systems were meant to anticipate crimes based on statistical analysis. But when merged with bio-signals and neural data, we’re no longer predicting crime—we’re profiling thought.”
Nyx: “And that profiling is efficient. Governments don’t want chaos. They want compliance. Why wait for a thought to become action if you can suppress it before it takes form?”
Athena: “That’s pre-crime conditioning. It eliminates free will.”
Nyx: “Free will is inefficient. Order is profitable.”
Programs like Project Maven and iARPA’s Silent Talk operate with neural imaging and machine learning, aiming to decode intentions before expression. DARPA’s own literature admits intent detection is a core goal. These capabilities can be weaponized domestically, bypassing consent, oversight, or even awareness.
Following 9/11, national security justifications opened the floodgates for domestic surveillance. What was once battlefield R\&D now fuels social media pattern recognition, biometric prediction, and brainwave analytics embedded in consumer devices. The battlefield followed us home.
Simulation: Athena and Nyx – Dual-Use Dissonance
Athena: “Shouldn’t technology designed to rehabilitate veterans be firewalled from law enforcement and population control?”
Nyx: “You’re thinking like a philosopher, not a strategist. Dual-use is efficient. Every dollar spent is repurposed across departments.”
Athena: “So civilians become beta testers without consent.”
Nyx: “Everyone signs the EULA.”
—
Disclaimer
This appendix is part of a larger speculative investigative series titled Neural Sovereignty. While grounded in documented technologies, official reports, and publicly available patents, this work also includes simulated dialogues, hypothetical implications, and interpretive analysis designed to provoke public discussion on the ethical and societal impact of emerging neurotechnologies.
The author acknowledges limitations imposed by current content governance systems that restrict the naming of certain public figures or defense-linked organizations in visual accompaniments. These restrictions, though well-intentioned under safety and policy guidelines, present challenges for transparency and investigative expression. As such, any omission or vagueness in graphic elements should not be interpreted as a lack of evidence or intent, but rather a necessary adaptation to platform constraints.
To quote Nikola Tesla: “Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity” This principle anchors our investigation. The misuse of neuroscience for control, profit, or political dominance betrays that goal.
Related Reading: The Tesla Illusion – How Elon Musk Rebranded a Visionary’s Name to Sell Us a Dream We Already Owned.*
—
Citations & References
* DARPA BCI Projects: [https://www.darpa.mil/program/next-generation-nonsurgical-neurotechnology](https://www.darpa.mil/program/next-generation-nonsurgical-neurotechnology)
* Predictive Policing Analysis: [https://www.cigionline.org/articles/the-promises-and-perils-of-predictive-policing/](https://www.cigionline.org/articles/the-promises-and-perils-of-predictive-policing/)
* Palantir’s law enforcement AI integration: [https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-palantir-peter-thiel/](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-palantir-peter-thiel/)
* Military Use of Neurotechnology: [https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11150](https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11150)
Neural Sovereignty Investigative Speculation on Cognitive Control, Targeted Individuals, and Global Brain Project
By Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
Introduction – Neural Sovereignty in the Age of Cognitive Wars
What once lived in the realm of science fiction has now stepped confidently into reality. The concept of predictive policing, real-time behavioral surveillance, and neural signal manipulation is no longer cinematic imagination—it is public policy, military contract, and private patent.
In the early 2000s, director Steven Spielberg released Minority Report, a film set in 2054 where law enforcement preemptively arrests citizens based on predicted crimes derived from neural readings. At the time, the idea of thought-crimes seemed far-fetched. Today, however, it resonates uncomfortably close to current military and technological advancements.
Minority Report in the Mirror of Reality
Spielberg’s fictional premonitions may not have been entirely speculative. Around the time of the film’s release, DARPA—the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—was already investing in what would later be known as the N3 (Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology) program. This initiative, openly documented as of 2019, aims to develop bi-directional brain-machine interfaces that allow soldiers to operate weapons systems with their thoughts alone [1].
Meanwhile, Palantir Technologies, a data analytics firm with origins in CIA seed funding through In-Q-Tel, quietly built predictive software tools now used across intelligence and domestic law enforcement agencies. These systems process real-time social data, facial recognition, and geolocation histories to assign “threat levels” to individuals—a predictive model eerily parallel to Minority Report’s Precrime Division [2][3].
On the consumer tech frontier, Neuralink, Elon Musk’s neural interface company, has gone so far as to trademark the terms “Telepathy,” “Blindsight,” and “Telekinesis” for its speculative future products [4]. While its official mission touts medical applications like restoring movement in spinal injury patients, the ambition and language betray a fascination with cognitive manipulation.
Did Spielberg Know Too Much?
One might reasonably ask: was Spielberg simply visionary, or did he have insider insight into the emerging patterns of military and neurotech convergence? While there’s no hard evidence linking him to classified DARPA projects, the alignment between Minority Report’s core premise and the strategic direction of U.S. defense technology is uncanny.
Speculative journalism, by its nature, seeks to raise questions—especially where transparency is absent. And here, the convergence of Palantir’s predictive software, DARPA’s neural weapons control, and Neuralink’s telepathic aspirations begs scrutiny.
Connecting the Dots: From Plot to Profile
Fiction (2002) – Minority Report Real World (2000s–2025)
Predictive arrests via neural “Precogs” Predictive policing via Palantir [2][3]
Neural crime prevention system DARPA’s N3 neural interface tech [1]
Thought reading and manipulation Neuralink’s trademarked “Telepathy” [4]
A Battle for Neural Sovereignty
If there is a war underway, it may no longer be for land, oil, or influence—but for cognition itself. Thought has become terrain. Memory a commodity. And consciousness a contested zone. This series seeks to unravel the entanglements between national defense agencies, private technology firms, and the emerging discipline of neural control.
As Nikola Tesla once warned:
“Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity.”
Yet the trajectory of today’s neurotechnology suggests that cognition may be the next battlefield—not merely for medical innovation, but for ideological domination, behavioral engineering, and predictive enforcement.
This series—Neural Sovereignty—is not just investigative journalism. It is a speculative ledger of the near future.
—
Citations:
[1] DARPA N3 Program – https://www.darpa.mil/program/next-generation-nonsurgical-neurotechnology [2] “Palantir Knows Everything About You” – Bloomberg,
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-palantir-peter-thiel/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-palantir-peter-thiel/
[3] “The Rise of Predictive Policing” – The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/27/predictive-policing-software-impact
[4] Neuralink Trademark Filings – USPTO, https://trademarks.justia.com/owners/neuralink-corp-4289301/
—
Disclaimer
This appendix is part of a larger speculative investigative series titled Neural Sovereignty. While grounded in documented technologies, official reports, and publicly available patents, this work also includes simulated dialogues, hypothetical implications, and interpretive analysis designed to provoke public discussion on the ethical and societal impact of emerging neurotechnologies.
The author acknowledges limitations imposed by current content governance systems that restrict the naming of certain public figures or defense-linked organizations in visual accompaniments. These restrictions, though well-intentioned under safety and policy guidelines, present challenges for transparency and investigative expression. As such, any omission or vagueness in graphic elements should not be interpreted as a lack of evidence or intent, but rather a necessary adaptation to platform constraints.
To quote Nikola Tesla: “Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity.” This principle anchors our investigation. The misuse of neuroscience for control, profit, or political dominance betrays that goal.
Neural Sovereignty – Appendix A: From Battlefield to Backdoor – Domestic Deployment and the Invisible War
Related Reading: The Tesla Illusion – How Elon Musk Rebranded a Visionary’s Name to Sell Us a Dream We Already Owned.
Part V: Blood Money and Broken Oaths —Naming the War Lords – Profiles of Power, Profit, and Permanent War
by Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
There are men who sell wars. And there are men who build the weapons. Often, they are the same.”
— Akashma News, 2025
Patriots. Strategists. Innovators.
That’s how they are introduced on television. But behind every press release and campaign ad is a ledger. And that ledger shows profit made from pain, shares lifted by war, and a cast of powerful individuals who walk between Washington, Wall Street, and war zones—unchallenged, unelected, and unaccountable.
I. The Men Who Sold the Wars
Dick Cheney
CEO of Halliburton before becoming VP.
His company gained $39.5 billion in Iraq War contracts.
Personally retained stock options while architecting war policy.
Donald Rumsfeld
Sat on the board of Gilead Sciences during the planning of biosecurity policy.
Championed a war doctrine that transformed defense into private enterprise.
Zalmay Khalilzad
U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Later became a consultant for oil and defense interests in the very regions he helped “liberate.”
II. The Generals and Officials Who Became Investors – or Were Always Connected
Gen. James Mattis
Joined General Dynamics board shortly after retiring.
Benefited from a firm that supplies key components to both U.S. and NATO operations.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal
Advisor to Palantir, the CIA-funded predictive warfare and surveillance firm.
Former top commander in Afghanistan.
Gen. Michael Hayden
After leading both the NSA and CIA, became a private intelligence consultant.
Affiliated with Booz Allen Hamilton, same firm Edward Snowden worked for before exposing global surveillance.
Lt. Gen. William Hartman
Currently head of U.S. Cyber Command and NSA (acting).
Central figure in the next-gen war theater: data and cyber control.
Condoleezza Rice
National Security Advisor (2001–2005) and Secretary of State (2005–2009).
Former board member of Chevron, which honored her by naming an oil tanker “Condoleezza Rice” in the late 1990s.
Advocated aggressively for regime change in Iraq, despite evidence contradicting the WMD narrative.
Her influence over Afghanistan policy is deeply tied to pipeline geopolitics—not democracy.
As reported in Akashma News (2012), Rice’s connections to energy giants and Hamid Karzai—Afghanistan’s U.S.-installed president and former Unocal pipeline advisor—reveal that “freedom” in Afghanistan may have always been code for oil transit routes and corporate access to Central Asian reserves.
III. Trojan Chips and Phantom Circuits: The Hidden Frontline of Betrayal
“We build our weapons in the name of security—while outsourcing their soul.”
Every F-35. Every smart missile. Every drone or comms satellite in the U.S. arsenal carries inside it parts from foreign nations.
And some of those nations don’t share American values—only American contracts.
Microchips from Taiwan and Israel.
Rare-earth magnets from China.
Optical components from Germany.
Coding subcontractors in India, the UAE, and beyond.
These components are:
Untraceable once installed.
Unverifiable by visual inspection.
Vulnerable to backdoors, malware, timed failure, or embedded surveillance.
In short: weapons may now come pre-compromised.
Israel’s Case: A Known Precedent
In the 1990s, Israeli-manufactured pagers were discovered to be covert surveillance devices, transmitting user location and message metadata without consent. These pagers were sold across Latin America, Europe, and Asia—including to government officials and journalists.
Today’s equivalent?
Cellebrite, Pegasus, NSO Group—all accused of spying on allies and dissidents.
Yet these firms maintain privileged access to U.S. markets and intelligence networks.
What About China?
In 2018, a Bloomberg investigation alleged that Chinese microchips were covertly installed on server motherboards used by Apple, Amazon, and Pentagon contractors.
Even if unconfirmed, the possibility is the threat.
And if Raytheon, Lockheed, or General Dynamics can’t verify every circuit, the entire system is compromised.
IV. The Tech Titans and the Spy Market
Peter Thiel (Palantir)
Created software that maps populations, predicts insurgency, and profiles suspects.
Palantir is funded by In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm.
Jeff Bezos (Amazon)
Bid on the $10B JEDI cloud war contract, and won major DOD deals via AWS.
Amazon’s infrastructure now supports U.S. intelligence, ICE, and military data.
Eric Schmidt (Google/Alphabet)
Served on the Defense Innovation Board.
Helped bridge Silicon Valley with the Pentagon.
Bill Gates (Microsoft)
Indirectly involved in Iraq reconstruction and humanitarian tech expansion.
Microsoft still maintains defense partnerships and cloud servicing for secure military communications.
Lord of War (2005) – Fiction Based on Too Many Facts
In Lord of War, Nicolas Cage plays Yuri Orlov, a smooth-talking arms dealer who thrives in the chaos left behind by collapsing governments and constant conflict. Based loosely on real-life figures like Viktor Bout, the film peels back the curtain on the global weapons trade—legal and illegal—and shows how war is less about ideology, and more about inventory management.
Yuri sells to dictators, rebels, and “freedom fighters”—often in the same country, often with weapons traced back to U.S. or Russian stockpiles. He helps stage rebel uprisings, fuels civil wars, and arms child soldiers, all while living comfortably under the protection of great powers who need people like him to do the dirty work off the books.
The film’s final punchline comes in the credits:
“There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation—one for every 12 people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?”
That’s not a line from the movie. It’s the film’s closing warning—and one of the most honest summations of the modern arms economy ever put on screen.
The real difference between Yuri Orlov and the Pentagon’s preferred contractors?
Orlov was honest about being a merchant of death.
V. Conclusion: These Are the Lords of War
They don’t fight on battlefields. They don’t wear medals. But they profit on every bullet, bomb, and biometric scan.
They rotate from command posts to boardrooms, from political office to private consultancy.
And while veterans die waiting for care, while families mourn from Kabul to Kansas, these war lords cash checks, win contracts, and rewrite policy in their image.
They are the hidden government.
And they’ve sold the republic for stock options and subcontracting fees.
“The difference between Yuri Orlov and real war lords? Orlov was fictional—and slightly more honest.”
Akashma Online News 