Palantir and Anduril, known for mass-surveillance and AI military technologies, will send employees to the State Department.
The U.S. State Department has selected Palantir Technologies and Anduril Industries as private-sector partners in a new program focused on freedom of expression and digital rights, bringing two companies known for mass-surveillance and military technologies into an initiative intended to promote online freedoms.
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Under the Technology Excellence for Freedom Program (FTEP), employees from Palantir and Anduril will serve temporary assignments at the State Department. Their work will cover cybersecurity, emerging technologies, data privacy, online child protection, artificial intelligence, and technology policy and governance.
The choice of partners has drawn questions from experts who argue that companies facing scrutiny over their surveillance practices may be an unusual fit for a program focused on freedom of expression.
“It is not clear why these first private-sector partners would have specialized expertise in freedom of expression,” said Chris Painter, a former cybersecurity official at the FBI, State Department and White House.
Steve Feldstein, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, also questioned the Trump administration’s decision to recruit personnel from companies whose surveillance practices have come under scrutiny.
Palantir and Anduril face scrutiny
Palantir develops surveillance software used by the military, intelligence services and law enforcement agencies. Its technology enables large-scale tracking and detention and, in the context of war, the killing of people with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
The company has faced increasing scrutiny over alleged human rights violations, including its reported involvement in Israel’s war against Palestinians in Gaza. The press release says Palantir has assisted the Israeli military in compiling lists of people to be killed.
Anduril is primarily known for developing weapons systems. Its main product, Lattice, uses artificial intelligence to operate drones, surveillance cameras and underwater vessels with a high degree of autonomy.
Other partners
The FTEP’s other partners include the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and the Bitcoin Policy Institute.
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation was established by the U.S. Congress to document crimes it attributes to former communist regimes and oppose what it describes as totalitarian governments. The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor awarded the foundation a $40 million grant in July.
In a statement to Foreign Policy, the foundation said it was pleased to join Palantir, Anduril and the Bitcoin Policy Institute in developing tools and policies intended to promote freedom of expression online, strengthen privacy and counter digital surveillance.
The Bitcoin Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, studies the social, economic and political implications of Bitcoin and emerging monetary networks. The institute has links to the Trump administration through its director of research, Sam Lyman, who previously served as a senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The institute has accused China of conducting what it calls a “foreign influence campaign against U.S. AI,” including efforts to discourage the construction of data centers in the United States.
According to the press release, the campaign is allegedly led by Neville Roy Singham, a Shanghai-based activist who has funded peace groups and alternative media organizations, including The People’s Forum, the ANSWER Coalition, BreakThrough News and the Justice and Education Fund.
Specialists have compared the initiative with the Internet Freedom agenda promoted by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
According to the press release, that effort involved developing technologies and training activists to support “color revolutions” aimed at destabilizing governments considered adversarial to the United States, including Iran and Syria.
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