Stephen Miller Profits. You Get Watched.

The Architecture of American Surveillance

A newly disclosed contract reveals that the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), jointly owned by Delta, United, American, Southwest, and five other major carriers, has been selling more than a billion passenger-name-record entries to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for just $11,000 a year. The data updated daily and spanning 39 months of past and future itineraries includes traveler names, complete flight schedules, and credit card details.

Most disturbing, the contract explicitly orders CBP not to reveal ARC as the source of this intelligence windfall. The secrecy clause prohibits the government from publicly identifying ARC unless “compelled to do so by a valid court order or subpoena.”

Travel industry sources confirm the same data feed flows to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under a parallel contract, covering 54 percent of global flights. Translation: every time you book through Expedia, Orbitz, or any travel agent, your name, route, and payment details slide straight into federal databases—no subpoena, no warrant required.

The Three-Layer Biometric Trap

Layer 1: REAL ID - A Federal Travel ID System

As of May 7, 2025, every U.S. air traveler over 18 must present a REAL ID–compliant license or passport to board a domestic flight. It marks the first time in U.S. history that domestic travel requires a nationally standardized federal ID.

Proponents argue it:

• Standardizes identity checks across states

• Reduces fraud and forgery

• Simplifies federal building access

• Modernizes DMV systems

However, here’s the catch: what starts as modernization can quickly evolve into a federal tracking infrastructure when linked to facial scans and lifetime biometric databases.

And what happens when that infrastructure is in the hands of officials who have a documented disregard for civil liberties and constitutional limits?

When combined with Transportation Security Agency (TSA) facial recognition scans (Layer 2) and DHS’s biometric mega-database (Layer 3), REAL ID becomes the anchor point of a biometric dragnet, one capable of tracking our movements, faces, and even our voices.

Layer 2: TSA CAT-2 Face Scanning

TSA’s second-generation Credential Authentication Technology (CAT-2) podiums are now active in 84 airports, with plans to expand to more than 400. Unlike older systems, CAT-2 includes cameras that take real-time photos of passengers and match them to the ID on file. While TSA insists the program is "voluntary," declining a scan means stepping aside for manual verification, introducing delays and pressure that make participation all but mandatory.

Layer 3: HART Database - the 75-year biometric vault

The Department of Homeland Security is building a $6.158 billion biometric database known as HART (Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology). It will eventually catalog over 270 million people, including juveniles, and retain that data for at least 75 years.

HART aggregates:

• Facial recognition data

• Iris scans

• Fingerprints

• Voiceprints

• DNA

Often collected without consent, these biometric markers are shared across federal departments, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, and with foreign partners like Mexico, Guatemala, and the UK. The result: a global, interoperable identity-tracking network, with HART at its core.

The Palantir Profit Machine

In my previous piece, “Built by Palantir, Sanctioned by Trump,” I warned that Palantir’s software was quietly wiring itself into the core of DHS operations, from ICE raids to biometric data mining paving the way for that national citizen database. What we’re seeing now is that warning materialize, and get monetized.

Stephen Miller, Trump’s immigration policy architect, reportedly owns between $100,001 and $250,000 in Palantir stock, the same company that’s powering ICE’s surveillance and deportation operations. The company’s stock has increased by more than 88% this year, fueled largely by new DHS contracts. At least a dozen other Trump administration officials also apparently hold Palantir shares. When a White House policymaker can personally benefit from the surveillance apparatus he champions, oversight becomes more than good governance; it's a firewall against legalized corruption.

Even former Palantir employees are raising alarms, warning that tools once marketed for national security are now being retooled for domestic political surveillance without oversight or ethical safeguards.

Why This Isn’t Just About Privacy

• Targeting Made Effortless: ARC’s feed lets DHS build networks of “possible associates” from shared itineraries—without judicial oversight.

• Mission Creep Is Guaranteed: A "voluntary" face scan today could be used against you in an unrelated investigation decades from now.

• Political Weaponization Is Possible: This system gives any future administration the ability to map a journalist’s or activist’s travel history in seconds.

• The Constitution Is Being Evaded: As Sen. Ron Wyden put it, “The big airlines, through a shady data broker they own, are selling the government bulk access to Americans’ sensitive information,” all without a warrant.

How to Push Back

For Travelers:

• Book Direct: Avoid third-party agencies and book through the airline's own site to bypass ARC.

• Opt-Out at Security: If this is all too much, you are allowed to decline facial recognition and request a manual ID check.

• Ask Your Airline: Demand transparency. Are they selling your data to ARC?

For Congress:

• Investigate Conflicts: Subpoena Stephen Miller and Palantir executives about financial ties to surveillance expansion.

• Audit HART: Freeze funding until privacy gaps are closed. The GAO has already flagged major concerns.

For the Courts:

• Challenge Warrantless Surveillance: Legal action is needed to contest the constitutionality of mass data purchases.

• Demand Data Minimization: Require DHS to justify retaining biometric data for 75 years.

Your boarding pass. Your face. Your fingerprint. Your payment history. All of it now flows into a government-run surveillance machine–designed by private contractors, maintained by federal agencies, and quietly subsidized by the airlines you trust.

This isn’t about trading privacy for safety. As someone who’s spent much of her career defending homeland security, I’m deeply concerned by the potential of an increasingly developing surveillance state that now runs in the shadows, profits those who built it, and quietly converts every American journey into a government intelligence file.

Until Congress forces every bolt of this machine into sunlight, assume your next flight is already tracked, analyzed, and warehoused for the next three-quarters of a century.

Privacy should never be treated as carry-on luggage, expendable when convenience demands it.

See you next time,

Olivia