#domestic-surveillance

#domestic-surveillance

The Pentagon had kept trying to leave itself little escape hatches in the agreements that it proposed to Anthropic. It would pledge not to use Anthropic's AI for mass domestic surveillance or for fully autonomous killing machines, but then qualify those pledges with loopholey phrases like as appropriate—suggesting that the terms were subject to change, based on the administration's interpretation of a given situation.

While the authority is legally limited to foreign intelligence, it can sweep in Americans' texts, emails and phone calls when they communicate with overseas targets. Those incidental collections - which have sometimes been followed by unauthorized searches of Americans' communications - have been extensively documented by government oversight bodies in recent years. The findings fueled reforms adopted when Congress last renewed the authority in April 2024.

In September 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order labeling "antifa"—short for "antifascism"—a domestic terrorist threat. Around the same time, Trump issued a presidential memorandum known as NSPM-7, which identifies "anti-Americanism," "anti-capitalism," "anti-Christianity," and "extremism on migration, race, and gender" as indicators of potential violence. The memorandum directs the secretaries of the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Homeland Security, along with the attorney general, to "investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations" that support antifascist organizing.