'Worse than Orwell could ever imagine': How smartphones became government weapons

Most people know by now that our smart devices are spying on us — collecting data every time we purchase something, visit a website, or engage with social media content. But few understand just how invasive these little voyeurs really are. Turns out our secret watchers are picking up on our personality traits and taking detailed notes on our routines — even learning which side of the bed we sleep on.

Some skeptics dismiss this massive breach in privacy under the premise that they have “nothing to hide” or that the government already knows everything about them anyway. But their flippancy is a grave mistake, says retired Navy SEAL and Blackwater founder Erik Prince and retired Marine and Big Tech insider Ryan Patterson.

Not only are criminals using data to target and exploit people, rogue government agents can and do weaponize data against citizens. We saw it happen with Ad-IDs during the corrupt January 6 investigation.

“Highly politicized federal agents run amok because if you give a jackass a gun and a badge, you get a bigger jackass,” says Prince, condemning the 2024 FISA expansion under Joe Biden as a warrantless digital dragnet that turns every American’s phone into an open book for government “fishing expeditions.”

These scoundrels, he says, can build a case based on someone’s commercial data. If they “went to a school board meeting,” “a political rally,” or “a controversial sermon,” that information can be used to shape narratives.

“They use this data to get the probable cause to then unleash the rest of the government — the people that can hack, the people that can get a search warrant, the people that can enter your home,” adds Patterson.

When the Patriot Act passed after 9/11, letting the government spy on Americans with fewer checks, even liberal tech friends in San Francisco called it a “slippery slope,” he says.

“If we start allowing our government — whichever party — to criminalize things they couldn’t see before, but now can because of this data, it’s really scary.”

Prince calls it “antithetical to a free society” and “worse than George could even imagine.”

But targeting political opponents might not even be the most nefarious use of commercial data. There’s growing speculation that rogue agents also use it to groom potential killers.

“If I were in the CIA and I had access to Google, which I imagine they do, I could say I need 25 people in Texas who are unstable, really don't like Donald Trump, have a gun, good shot. ... I could probably have that in a couple of minutes, and then I could say now let's turn them into killers — Manchurian stuff, but you don't need to bring them to Russia; they won't even know that they've been turned,” says Glenn.

“It's terrifying because they know you better than you know yourself.”

To hear more of the conversation, watch the full interview above.

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