When politicians announce billions in savings, do not applaud until you inspect the arithmetic, the contracts, and the suspiciously empty space where the receipts should be. Government officials love announcing savings. Savings sound responsible. Savings sound efficient. Savings fit beautifully inside a social media graphic designed for people who will never ask whether the money …
Resistance Survival Guide #322 A government program does not always die with a press conference, a congressional vote, or even a properly signed piece of paper. Sometimes officials simply stop hiring the staff, announcing the grants, processing the applications, publishing the reports, answering the telephone, or updating the webpage. The program remains legally alive while …
A government contract may display the name of one large corporation, but that does not mean one company is performing all the work. The prime contractor may quietly divide the project among data brokers, cloud providers, consultants, software developers, staffing companies, and surveillance vendors. Those hidden companies can collect the information, build the system, train …