A State Department program that would see defense tech companies Palantir and Anduril provide expertise on digital freedom-of-speech issues is raising eyebrows among some experts—even if it’s unclear specifically what Palantir and other partners involved would actually work on.
Under the Freedom Tech Excellence Program (FTEP), in late July, private-sector employees would work limited-term assignments at the U.S. agency in areas including “freedom of expression protections in the digital age,” “countering unlawful digital surveillance and online scams,” “privacy-enhancing technologies,” “responsible governance of emerging technologies,” and “safeguarding children and other users online,” according to a press release.
A State Department program that would see defense tech companies Palantir and Anduril provide expertise on digital freedom-of-speech issues is raising eyebrows among some experts—even if it’s unclear specifically what Palantir and other partners involved would actually work on.
Under the Freedom Tech Excellence Program (FTEP), in late July, private-sector employees would work limited-term assignments at the U.S. agency in areas including “freedom of expression protections in the digital age,” “countering unlawful digital surveillance and online scams,” “privacy-enhancing technologies,” “responsible governance of emerging technologies,” and “safeguarding children and other users online,” according to a press release.
Members of the program will work at the State Department for one year, with an option for an extension, and will not receive pay from the State Department, a State Department spokesperson who requested anonymity as they were not authorized to speak on the record told Foreign Policy. The State Department expects the first participant to begin work “within the year,” the spokesperson said.
The initial partners for the project include Palantir and Anduril, as well as two other organizations: the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and the Bitcoin Policy Institute.
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation was founded by Congress for the purpose of documenting crimes committed in past communist regimes and resisting current totalitarian governments. The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in July reportedly singled out the foundation for an unusual grant of $40 million.
“[The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation] is excited to join this program alongside technology industry giants Palantir Technologies and Anduril Industries, as well as the Bitcoin Policy Institute, to build new tools and policies that advance online freedom of expression, enhance privacy, and counter digital surveillance,” the foundation said in a statement to Foreign Policy. “Together, we are taking a stand so the more than 1.5 billion people still oppressed under these evil regimes can freely express themselves and learn about the crimes of communism.”
The State Department has taken a renewed interest in combating left-wing groups, from issuing a paper alleging that Cuba has been a major threat to the United States, to organizing a conference on left-wing terrorism.
The Bitcoin Policy Institute, created in 2021, has argued that there is a “foreign influence campaign against American AI.” The group has ties to the current Trump administration via Sam Lyman, its head of research, who is a former senior advisor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
“We believe decentralized, privacy-preserving technologies advance American interests by empowering global citizens and weakening the grip of authoritarian states,” the institute’s president, David Zell, said in a statement to Foreign Policy.
Palantir and Anduril did not respond to requests for comment on which aspects of the program they will be working on.
Palantir produces software used for the military, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement, and has been criticized for its data-collection practices. Anduril is primarily known as a manufacturer of weapons systems, including drones, missiles, and unmanned aircraft. It also produces unmanned sentry towers for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.
“It isn’t clear why these initial private-sector partners have any expertise on freedom of expression,” said Chris Painter, a former cybersecurity official at the FBI, State Department, and White House. “When you want to talk about freedom-of-expression issues, there are a myriad of civil society organizations that do this.”
“For the Trump administration to recruit from the same firms that are under scrutiny for their surveillance practices—I find the whole thing totally head-scratching,” said Steve Feldstein, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
While the companies may be able to advise on artificial intelligence, it’s not clear why they would be chosen for such a task, Feldstein added. “Palantir is peddling software that is used for national security purposes—they are not developing frontier AI models. Anduril is not considered to be a leader on responsible AI,” he said.
But the unusual choice of partners fits with this Trump administration’s track record of breaking with years of axiomatic foreign-policy precedent in Washington, said Michelle Giuda, who served in a variety of roles in the State Department during the first Trump administration including acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs.
“The big opportunity now is that it’s no longer business as usual, and so we’re going to be creative, fast-moving and agile, and think out of the box about how we’re getting this private-sector talent into State,” said Giuda, who is now CEO of the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University.
“You want a really broad, diverse perspective with a lot of different vantage points on high tech, the information space, and organizations and teams that understand the surveillance state,” she added. “Whether you’re building next-generation defense technology or fighting censorship on the ground, having a lot of range is really important—I think they started with an initial group that could do that.”
Asked why these particular partners were selected, the State Department spokesperson told Foreign Policy that the department is “building a founding consortium of tech companies, civil society, think tanks, and the individuals and organizations who understand the cost of censorship.”
“Partnering organizations are selected based on expertise in digital freedom-related areas that are critical to our national security, including cybersecurity, emerging technologies, data privacy, child online protection, artificial intelligence, and technology policy and governance,” the spokesperson said, but they added that any participants in the program will focus on “digital freedom and freedom of expression.”
Giuda said the true test of the program will be how effectively it can expand. “You need a big, broad ecosystem of partners because it’s so complex and there are so many different types of specializations needed,” she said. “I’d say the most important thing is to go 10x the amount of partners that are a part of this in order to really be effective. It’s a great start, and it needs to scale.”
Under the Biden administration, the State Department also brought in private-sector partners from the tech world under a program called the Franklin Talent Exchange Partnership—also known as FTEP.
Partners in that program included tech companies such as Intel, Salesforce, and Amazon Web Services as well as carmaker Lucid Motors, the Special Competitive Studies Project think tank, and the Clinton Healthcare Access Initiative.
It is not clear whether both programs are the same. The State Department did not provide a response to a request for clarification.
