On a recent episode of The Rip Current podcast, former Estonian president Toomas Ilves explained to me how his country’s all-in-one digital ID system helped to root out what had been longstanding corruption under Soviet rule. But he also helped me understand that there’s a crucial safeguard he put in place that kept it from becoming an Orwellian surveillance nightmare.
Now the Trump administration is showing military contractor Palantir into databases all across government agencies, under an executive order by the president. Here’s why this movie ends badly.
