In Other News: Fears of flying, billionaire border surveillance and more

Plus the Trump administration yanks protected status from Afghans in the U.S. and circumvents federal law for his deportation agenda ... again.

Monday marked yet another day saturated with the latest Trump fails. From surrendering to China on tariffs, accepting a luxury jet from a foreign country, welcoming white South African “refugees” with open arms, and other assaults on America, here’s a few news items that you may have missed that have a direct impact on our lives right now, or in the future.

Trump sidesteps the Posse Comitatus Act with the creation of a second militarized “national defense zone” along the U.S. border: Trump recently ordered the transfer of the Roosevelt Reservation, a swatch of federal land from the Department of Interior to the Department of Defense, granting the Pentagon the authority to establish and enforce security measures around the new zone. This new designation allows the U.S. military to play a more direct role in the Trump regime’s crackdown on migrants and to bypass the federal law, the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the U.S. military from acting as law enforcement on U.S. soil.

Why It Matters: Trump and his evil cadre of Stephen Miller-like acolytes are finding disturbing new ways to sidestep federal laws that are meant to protect the rights and freedoms of Americans, and the checks and balances that uphold our democracy. It won’t stop with this. If they get away with acts that sidestep federal law, their attempts to violate the law through loopholes like this will only become more bold and dangerous for ALL Americans.

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Peter Thiel’s Palatir lands contract to track migrants: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records indicate that Palantir has recently been awarded a $30 million contract to develop a platform capable of tracking migrant movements in real time.

According to reports from Wired and CNN, Palantir is also being enlisted by Elon Musk's newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to build a centralized immigration database aimed at accelerating deportation processes. DOGE has already brought on board several former Palantir employees to support this effort.

This new collaboration with the Trump administration continues Palantir’s long-standing expansion into federal government work. In November, the company secured a major contract worth nearly $1 billion to provide software for the U.S. Navy. Since Trump’s return to office, Palantir has actively pursued additional government deals, contributing to a stock surge of over 200% since the day before Trump was reelected.

Why it matters: Following news of the company helping the Trump administration in immigration enforcement and deportations, Silicon Valley investors and civil rights organizations are accusing Palantir of "building the infrastructure of the police state.” The company’s original investors have asked Palatir’s leadership to commit to not building products that could be used to help the U.S. government violate citizens' constitutional rights. As of today, no promise or response has been given by Palatir.

Civil rights organizations say that the more likely use case of Palatir’s technology, coupled with DOGE’s fast-grab of personal data from Americans, is a blueprint for creating a citizen surveillance and social credit system, similar to the system the Chinese government uses to surveil and suppress dissent among Chinese citizens.

This platform won’t stop at migrants — they’re just the test subjects for an eventual use case to monitor and surveil Americans in the future.

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The Trump Regime has made flying less safe for Americans: The Trump administration claims that no employees in “critical safety” roles at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were terminated by DOGE. However, according to the employees' union and former staff, 130 of the roughly 400 workers laid off in February held positions that directly supported safety operations, including aviation safety assistants, maintenance mechanics, and nautical information specialists.

These roles are crucial to the FAA’s mission, assisting safety inspectors, maintaining air traffic control infrastructure, and updating in-flight digital navigation maps. Such updates can include urgent changes, like those related to aircraft routes over Washington following January’s fatal midair collision and can be attributed to three radar blackouts at the Newark Airport and significant delays in Atlanta . While the full scope of the layoffs remains unclear, concerns are growing over a potential impact on aviation safety.

Why it matters: Millions of lives are at risk under the leadership of Trump inexperienced Transportation Sean Duffy, and the young thugs at DOGE. Without an understanding of the critical roles air safety employees play in the safe operation of aircraft in the U.S. airspace, we are likely to see more failures and air disasters in the future.

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The Trump administration ends protected status for Afghans living in the U.S.: HHS Secretary Kristi Noem made the announcement Monday, arguing that improving conditions in the TALIBAN-RULED country means Afghans who fled Afghanistan because they were targeted for helping US Troops no longer merit such protections. Noem said, “Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country.”

The Afghan-American Foundation condemned the move when plans to lift the protections were first reported last month, calling it a betrayal of those who assisted the U.S. during its 20 years in the country. Additionally, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees last month condemned forced deportations to Afghanistan: “The large-scale returns are putting even greater pressure on already stretched humanitarian resources and worsening the plight of millions struggling to survive,” A 2023 report from the State Department noted extensive gender-based violence and a “significant deterioration in women’s rights during the year due to edicts that further restricted access to education and employment.”

It also cited a crackdown on religious minorities, LGBTQ Afghans, activists, and widespread food insecurity.

Why It Matters: Afghans played a crucial role in assisting the U.S. military as translators and providing important information to our troops during the war on terror. With the devastating and deadly aftermath of Trump’s surrender to the Taliban, Trump’s disastrous withdrawal plan that Biden was forced to carry out, and now the expulsion of Afghans to whom many US Troops owe their lives, we can guarantee that residents of other countries where US operations are being carried out, will think twice before helping protect American troops or provide any assistance to the United States’ war efforts. This betrayal weakens our national security and will undoubtedly cost American lives in future conflicts.

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