Palantir und Gotham: Die perfide Überwachungsdystopie im neuen Gewand

The Gotham monitoring software, developed by the US company Palantir, has long been at the center of a creeping disempowerment of citizens and systematic control of entire societies. The name Gotham, borrowed from a dark fantasy world in which a self-appointed avenger ensures order, is a cynical allusion to the real screenplay: In fiction as in theReality alleged law enforcement officers with gigantic powers appear as health bringers – and cover up the fact that misery and need for control were only created by those powered circles that later sell themselves as a “solution”.

Gotham: Total Technological Monitoring as Normal

Gotham is not an ordinary investigative software, but a complete platform for integrating and analyzing heterogeneous mass data. It accesses countless databases at the same time, including the registration registers, police data, weapons registers, the central foreigners register and publicly freely accessible information. Artificial intelligence is used to create relationships, movements,Communication networks and patterns analyzed in huge personal data. Gotham is able to visualize networks between people, addresses, telephone numbers and vehicles and is therefore not only suitable for reconnaissance, but also for predictive police work. The boundaries between crime investigation, suspected production and prevention are blurred. The software can socialInvolve media, radio cell queries and other open sources – this means that even the arbitrary presence at the “wrong time in the wrong place” is enough to be used for authorities in databases as suspicious for the authorities.

Exerted fundamental rights under the guise of public safety

Gotham is the direct attack on the fundamental right to informal self-determination. Citizens do not learn which of your data is accessed, stored, combined or analyzed by the software. any transparency is lacking; The methods, criteria and, in particular, the scope of data processing elude effective control by the public and the judiciary. The system createsAn asymmetrical world where authorities and their foreign clients have unlimited access to personality profiles, movement data and social contacts, while citizens – whether innocent, witness or potential goal – are kept in sheer ignorance of who, when, why and with whom decides on their data.

International transfer mechanisms and complete lack of control

A particularly dark point is the complete lack of control over the transfer of highly sensitive information to foreign services. The software comes from a company with close ties to US intelligence, military and political circles explicitly pursuing a global surveillance interest. Data flows and exchange relationships between authorities, secret servicesand international partners are largely excluded and legally excluded. Citizens are thus permanently exposed to the danger that their most intimate information circulates across international apparatus without even a minimum of democratic control, legal action or even informative feedback.

Elitist cynicism: cause and solution from one source

The narrative, mass surveillance is the necessary answer to a society threatened by crime and is doubly cynical. In truth, uncertainties and rulelessness were only created by the same political elites who now want to “remedy” with technocratic surveillance solutions. The software is a means to an end, one’s own authority, control andto secure power. At the same time, citizens experience that they can not only defend themselves without effect against these instruments, but that they can also be labeled as “digital threats” if they defend their fundamental rights.

Gotham as a warning sign for informal freedom

In the end, there remains a society in whichFundamental right to informational self-determinationdegenerated into the empty phrase. The systematic non-information about the use and mode of action of the Gotham monitoring software, the ignorance of international data connections and the lack of any legal control are proof of the failure of the rule of law and democratic principles. Gotham symbolizes the reversal of deed and responsibility – notMore the perpetrator, but the transparent citizen is now at the sight of the system. A democratic society can only react to such methods with massive vigilance, criticism and the urge to radical transparency; Otherwise, the fantasy world of Gotham threatens to become a gloomy reality for an entire generation with all its arbitrariness.