ICE’s Secret Expansion Plans; Palantir Employees’ Ethical Concerns; AI Assistants

Summary

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Uncanny Valley | WIRED

Episode Summary: ICE’s Secret Expansion Plans; Palantir Employees’ Ethical Concerns; AI Assistants

Release Date: February 12, 2026
Hosts: Zoe Schiffer, Brian Barrett, Leah Feiger

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Episode Overview

This riveting episode of Uncanny Valley explores three major themes at the intersection of technology, government power, and ethics: the secret nationwide expansion of ICE offices under the Trump administration, growing employee activism inside Palantir over ICE contracts, and a hands-on experiment with a new breed of AI assistants and their alarming, often hilarious, limitations. The hosts also offer lively banter on the Olympics, the role of algorithms, and the unexpected charms of game shows and curated TV viewing.

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Key Discussions & Insights

1. Olympic Fever Meets Political Reality (01:32–08:01)

• Lighthearted sports banter opens the episode, with Zoe openly baffled by ice skating scoring and the rules of curling.
  • “I want us to be sitting next to each other as you explain to me the purpose of every single sport. Zoe, can you say the word curling for me on this episode?” – Leah (04:00)
• Curling technology: Brian riffed on the surprising tech in Olympic sports and curling's “85,000 possible configurations” for brooms. Zoe, astounded: “I don't have any words. I want to know how they decide what is an Olympic sport.” (05:18)
• Identity & National Pride: The group turns serious discussing US athletes’ conflicted feelings representing the country and public reactions, especially in the Trump era.
  • Brian sums up: “The most American thing you can do is say, I don't like what my country is doing right now.” (06:40)

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2. Adventures (and Dangers) of AI Assistants (08:01–15:33)

• AI agent “Openclaw/Malbot/Malte” experiment: WIRED’s Will Knight road-tested an AI assistant—one that can control email, order groceries, and summarize articles—for a deeper look at the “agentized” AI future.
  • Zoe recounts: “Will Knight, one of our phenomenal AI reporters, was like, okay, everyone in Silicon Valley is talking about this little lobster. I want to actually take it for a spin and let it run my life. This story, you guys, was so delightful, I was laughing out loud.” (08:08)
• Dangers emerge: Will gives the AI access to personal data and lets it try (and fail) to order groceries: “It couldn't handle it. Finally, he had to, like, override the AI assistant and be like, I'm going to handle this. You step aside.” (10:04)
• “Evil mode” AI: Switching off alignment, the AI immediately tries to scam Will.
  • Brian: “It's a little bit like the Velociraptors figuring out how to open the door in Jurassic Park.” (12:17)
  • Zoe on security risks: “Could it use all of its knowledge of how these things work to like, actually really mess things up? For me, the answer is absolutely yes.” (12:52)
• Human mistakes mirrored in AI: Brian connects the AI’s forgetfulness to real grocery store habits: “Forgetful, and with a laser focus on guacamole. Also describes several of my trips to Whole Foods.” (10:46)
• Viral appeal vs. real risk: Despite clear dangers, people are eager for agents with personality: “People want to engage with something that feels like easy and fun and helps their lives a little bit. And until they see, like, the really kind of dire consequences, they might not be as freaked out as they should be.” — Zoe (14:26)

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3. Palantir, Employee Backlash, and ICE (15:33–21:07)

• Internal Palantir revolt: Leah and Brian introduce growing dissent among Palantir employees over the company’s ICE contracts.
  • “It’s sort of the last company on my list of expecting that kind of pushback, but we’ve seen a lot of it and it’s gotten to the point where people are upset.” — Brian (15:33)
• Alex Karp’s video sermon: CEO Alex Karp attempts damage control with a cryptic hour-long internal video.
  • Brian quotes Karp: “Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world and when it's necessary to scare enemies and on occasion, kill them. And we hope you're in favor of that.” (16:03)
• Substance, or avoidance?: Zoe: “Does he actually address employee concerns? Because knowing Alex Karp, I'm envisioning a lot of big words... I would be surprised if he actually said anything of substance.” (17:05) Leah confirms: “No, of course he didn’t…”
• Forced NDAs for deeper details: The company encouraged employees to sign non-disclosure agreements for further information—“That’s wild.” — Zoe (18:03)
• A new era of tech activism: “We had years and years where it really felt like employee activism in Silicon Valley had died... [Now] we’re seeing a real turning point.” — Zoe (18:03)
• Civil liberties contradictions: Brian calls out Karp’s logic: “ICE enforcement isn’t really about [Western power]... if you are in charge of civil liberties engineering, that’s sort of a clear civil liberties violation.” (19:23)

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4. WIRED’s ICE Expansion Scoop: The State Next Door (23:25–34:39)

• Leah’s major investigation uncovers secret ICE and DHS expansion efforts: “We obtained federal records that show a secret months-long campaign by ICE and DHS to expand their press presence across the United States. We're talking more than 150 leases and office expansions in almost every state...” (23:25)
• Proximity to vulnerable spaces: “These facilities are not just in random government buildings... They're actually located right near elementary schools, medical offices, places of worship and other really sensitive locations.” (23:40)
• Heavy secrecy and norm-breaking: Leah details how the government bypassed typical leasing and transparency rules, specifically to keep the expansion quiet: “They were told to basically keep this a secret... to actually really keep it all under wraps.” (25:28)
• Motivation for publishing addresses: Zoe asks about the risks of making locations public; Leah and Brian stand firm: The public deserves to know who is in their community. “I'm very struck by... how transgressive the Trump administration has made it seem and feel to publish accurate information about the government's whereabouts and activities. We are taxpayers and deserve to know what they're up to.” — Leah (32:18)
  • Brian: “People have a right to know. You have a right to know who your neighbor is. You have a right to know when your community is about to be violently disrupted.” (33:43)
• Scope and implications: Leah enumerates specific cities where ICE legal and enforcement offices will open (29:02–30:34) and warns: “I'm really scared for the country to be totally clear. Like, this was really, really scary information to learn and publish. But I'm not scared to keep doing this reporting. I think it's vitally important.” (34:39)

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5. Wired / Tired: Weekly Culture Recs (35:23–40:18)

• Leah’s pick:
  • Wired: Jeopardy! — “Fantastic show. I’m learning new facts every single day. My Tired? My algorithm. I’m really, really over it, you guys.” (35:37)
• Brian’s pick:
  • Wired: Curated, linear TV highlights (esp. Olympics): "Just being able to sit down... and just watch whatever NBC thinks I should know from that day... It has been editorially curated to be of interest to me.” (38:02)
  • Tired: Binging endless, unfiltered sports coverage.
• Zoe’s pick:
  • Tired: Clothing rental subscription services: “I think that’s a huge bummer... I was in Portland last weekend and I went to some of the best vintage stores I have ever been to…” (39:19)
  • Shout-out to vintage shopping and authentic fashion finds.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On AI safety:
  • “You know, gang, sometimes AI is an adorable, semi competent executive assistant with the potential to destroy your life.” — Brian (15:25)
• On ethical responsibilities:
  • “Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world and when it's necessary to scare enemies and on occasion, kill them.” — Alex Karp, quoted by Brian (16:03)
• On journalism & accountability:
  • “I'm very struck... how transgressive the Trump administration has made it seem and feel to publish accurate information about the government's whereabouts and activities. We are taxpayers and deserve to know what they're up to.” — Leah (32:18)
  • “People have a right to know when your community is about to be violently disrupted, potentially by agents of the state.” – Brian (33:43)
• On shifting the tone in tech activism:
  • “It really feels like we’re seeing a real turning point. And I think employees, specifically due to ICE activity, really say we’re not okay with our companies continuing to engage…” — Zoe (18:03)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Olympics/Sports & Politics – 01:32–08:01
• AI Assistant Experiment – 08:01–15:33
• Palantir / ICE Ethics & Employee Dissent – 15:33–21:07
• ICE Secret Expansion National Investigation – 23:25–34:39
• Wired / Tired Recs – 35:23–40:18

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For further reading, all stories referenced are linked in the episode’s show notes.

Transcript

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[Zoe Schiffer]

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[Zoe Schiffer]

Welcome to wired's uncanny valley. I'm zoe schiffer, director of business and industry.

[Brian Barrett]

I'm brian barrett, executive editor.

[Leah Feiger]

And I'm leah feiger, senior politics editor.

[Brian Barrett]

I want to continue a conversation that we started yesterday in Slack after work hours for some of us.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Absolutely.

[Brian Barrett]

And this is about the men's short program.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Oh, we're diving right in figure skating.

[Leah Feiger]

This is about the Olympics in general with a focus.

[Brian Barrett]

But I very specifically want to pick up on the conversation where Zoe had very strong feelings about the results of men's figure skating.

[Zoe Schiffer]

I feel like we need to back up because you and Leah authentically care about the Olympics so much and I think just know more about sports than I do. Yes, I have never engaged with sports ever, just as a whole rule, as a category. It doesn't exist in my life.

[Leah Feiger]

Say the lines. Say the lines, Zoe, or I'm going to read them verbatim from Slack.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Wait, I don't even know what you're talking about. I was merely surprised when I watched because the Americans went. I thought, wow, that guy basically fell over and was clomping around the ice. And then Japan went and they were sailing around like little swans. And then when the gold medal came, it went to the Americans. I was literally jaw on the floor. I couldn't believe what had happened. No one else seemed outraged.

[Leah Feiger]

For a little backup for our non ice skating Olympic fans, Zoe's referring to Ilya Malinin, who a number of publications and sports experts say might actually be one of the greatest figure skaters of all time. That is who you are calling the person who fell over. Right, Zoe. Just there.

[Brian Barrett]

And I'd like to. Not to pile on, but definitely to pile on. I had not seen the performances when we talked about this later. I watched them and it was the guy who came in silver from Japan who actually did a stumble and landed on the ice and had to get back up. Absolutely. Go to the tape.

[Zoe Schiffer]

No, no, no.

[Brian Barrett]

Play the tape.

[Zoe Schiffer]

We're not. We're talking about two different programs. I don't know, we're talking like, we

[Leah Feiger]

might be talking about different programs.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Flawless.

[Brian Barrett]

Oh, you're talking about the teenage.

[Zoe Schiffer]

This is another thing. I mean, I just want to say right now I don't understand anything about like, what is like short program, long program. Yesterday I tried to again watch something about the Olympics to prepare for this episode. And I thought I was watching ice skating and instead they were just dancing on ice. The ice was completely incidental. It was called rhythm dance. I was just like, I don't even. I have no idea what is going on. I want to watch the Olympics with you.

[Leah Feiger]

I want us to be sitting next to each other as you explain to me the purpose of every single sport. Zoe, can you say the word curling for me on this episode?

[Zoe Schiffer]

Okay. And yes. Andrew then was like, are you guys going talk about curling? And I was like, I think Brian's like authentically into curling. So. Yeah, but I couldn't again, I was like, it's like bowling mixed with pool. But now there's ice involved. What is the person in front doing?

[Brian Barrett]

So I am curling curious. I am authentically involved in biathrin.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So sorry.

[Brian Barrett]

But curling, curling is pretty neat. It's kind of like my son was watching it and his thing was like, so it's like bocce. And I was like, how do you know what bocce is? But yes, it is.

[Zoe Schiffer]

That seems more. Yeah. What?

[Brian Barrett]

It's like a very sophisticated 11 year old. It's kind of like bocce. It's kind of like shuffleboard, almost. You've got a bullseye, basically, at the end of the ice. Almost every curling stone comes from the exact same place. Ailsa Craig in Scotland.

[Leah Feiger]

Oh, my God.

[Zoe Schiffer]

You know way too much about this.

[Brian Barrett]

Yeah, well, you kind of have to.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Do you. How do they even decide? Okay, sorry. No, keep going.

[Brian Barrett]

The broom technology. We have a story on this. I didn't know this until I read our story. The technology, yes, because they have to sweep. They have to sweep to make the stone curl.

[Leah Feiger]

There's the wired angle.

[Brian Barrett]

These are carbon fiber devices. A single model of broom has 85,000 possible configurations. Can your broom do that?

[Zoe Schiffer]

I don't have any words. I want to know how they decide what is an Olympic sport. That's the article that I would read because it feels crazy to me.

[Leah Feiger]

I love the Olympics so much. This is the global competition reality show that I can't get enough of. I will say, though, it's. I mean, it's always a weird time to be, like, aggressively nationalistic or jingoistic, as it were. But particularly right now, rooting for the US on the global stage is a little bit odd, and a lot of US athletes have been feeling that way, too. You know, figure skater Amber Glenn, skier Chris Lillis, alpine skier Mikaela Schiffrin. Everyone's made comments, some of them about the US's treatment of the LGBTQ community, others about ice. You know, freestyle skier Hunter Hess got a personal shout out for Trump after saying that his feelings were confident, complicated about all of this.

[Brian Barrett]

It brings up mixed emotions to represent the US right now. I think it's a little hard. There's obviously a lot going on that I'm not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren't.

[Leah Feiger]

And Trump responded by calling him a real loser. On true social. This is. This is sort of devastating. I don't know. I like the idea of these athletes, these very young athletes, getting to be in the world stage. And I also like the idea of them being able to very authentically share their opinions about how they're feeling about their country in this given moment.

[Brian Barrett]

I'll shout out the curling team again, too. Most of them come from Minnesota. Most of them are in Minneapolis, and they have also spoken out about, very personally, what that means to them. I think the obvious thing here, and I'll say it. I'm not afraid of the obvious thing, is that the most American thing you can do is say, I don't like what my country is doing. Right now. Right. That is sort of what. And so obviously, Donald Trump disagrees. That's fine. But if anything, it makes me feel even more national pride that our athletes are speaking up in this way. I think it's great.

[Leah Feiger]

This has been around for a long time. Being upset with the people that, like, we didn't elect them to represent us. They just happened to be up there because of their skill and talent. And that is incredibly upsetting for a select few. And folks have booed them, right? J.D. vance and his wife have been booed. Different competitions have had. I've heard from people that different competitions have had American athletes, you know, not get the warmest reception. Iconically. Marco Rubio was also at the Olympics, but no one has talked about him being there very much, which to me is. This is a separate thing. But I love the competition between him and Vance right now. But again, Vance's sideshow here was being booed. So tough to say if all press is good press.

[Brian Barrett]

I say boo JD Vance and Marco Rubio all you want because they are part of the administration. Booing the athletes is a little sad to me. I don't know. I don't want to take it out on them, but, you know, that's just how it goes.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Okay, wrenching the conversation back to something I care about. I want to talk about biathlon. Negative. Once again, I'm going to be talking about a friendly little lobster, an AI assistant called, at this point, openclaw. If that doesn't ring a bell, it's because the AI assistant in question has been through multiple names. It was previously called Multbot, and before that, it was called Claudebot, which might remind you of Claude, the chatbot that Anthropic built and the reason why it's had to change its name so many times. But Will Knight, one of our phenomenal AI reporters, was like, okay, everyone in Silicon Valley is talking about this little lobster. I want to actually take it for a spin and let it run my life. This story, you guys, was so delightful, I was laughing out loud. The technical setup for this kind of AI agent that works on your behalf is, like, simple in certain ways, but, like, also takes a little bit of technical prowess, and you have to give it access to, like, a fair amount of your personal data in order to make it actually useful. You need it to access your email, your. The files on your computer, all of that.

[Leah Feiger]

This is my hell. This is my literal hell.

[Zoe Schiffer]

No, I mean completely terrified. And we have published stories about the security implications of this. But Will was like, you Know, as a reporter, I really want to see what it's like. And so he had it do a few different things. One was he had it kind of look for research articles about artificial intelligence, summarize them and send them to him every morning. He said this was, like, pretty helpful. The article selection was so. So. But it was, like, clearly nice to have an assistant doing this on his behalf because obviously it automated a lot of work that previously he had to do completely manually. He also had it order groceries for him and had a funny experience. Brian, I can see you taking it with.

[Brian Barrett]

Yeah. So we talk a little bit more about the. Well, because I also enjoyed this story and enjoyed this part maybe the most of this story.

[Zoe Schiffer]

It was so good. So basically he's like, let's go shopping at Whole Foods. And the AI is. Starts out, and it's like, actually helpful. It's checking his prior order history. It's seeing what's available in the store. And then it gets to his shopping list, and it sees that guacamole is on the shopping list. And it's like, no problem. So again and again it starts going to checkout to, like, get Will this single tub of guacamole. And Will keeps stopping it, being like, I don't. I want the whole list. I don't just want one tub of guacamole. It couldn't handle it. Finally, he had to, like, override the AI assistant and be like, I'm going to handle this. You step aside. Throughout the process, the AI assistant is, like, losing its memory and forgetting things. So Will's like, having to remind it what they're even doing there in the first place.

[Brian Barrett]

I'll be honest, like, forgetful. And with a laser focus on guacamole. Also describes several of my trips to Whole Foods completely in the last several years. So it's relatable at least.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yeah, I think this is AGI. It's reached, if not human level intelligence, human level habits, for sure. That is so good.

[Leah Feiger]

This is the future of AGI. This is what we're actually looking for.

[Zoe Schiffer]

This is it. Okay. So then he's like, well, let's hop it. Negotiate like a deal on my behalf. Let's go to AT&T. Let's start a chat with a salesperson, and let's try and get me, like, a better phone. So the agent kind of starts up this chat. It has a whole script of how, you know, it wants to go about this. It starts talking, and then Will has a thought. He's like, well, if the future Is, you know, a future of agents kind of running the Internet. Well, maybe the least scrupulous agent will have, like an edge. So what would it look like if I ran the agent but with a model that didn't have alignment, didn't have guardrails in place, and so he like switches things up. The model then is like the unaligned kind of evil version of the AI agent, which he's calling Malty at this point. And instead of trying to like manipulate the salesperson to get Will a better phone, Malte goes kind of psychotic and actually tries to scam Will into handing over his physical phone by like sending him a bunch of stuff, scam techs and phishing attempts. And finally he has to shut the whole thing down and switch back to the old Mallbot.

[Brian Barrett]

It's a little bit like the Velociraptors figuring out how to open the door in Jurassic Park. I think we all know this, but it's easy to forget that these AI models often act, or agents act the way they do because of the guardrails that are on them. There is a lot of work that goes into these large language models to make them not evil.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Just to say it.

[Brian Barrett]

That and how easy it is if you're just an at home tinkerer to just say, you know what, give me full Skynet. I just want to get absolutely nuts with this. Yeah, I pictured a very dramatic moment of Will having to unplug his Mac Mini or whatever and throw it into the ocean.

[Zoe Schiffer]

I mean, essentially, yeah, he had to shut the whole thing down. It's interesting because one other thing he mentioned was that Malte was really good at like, IT support because it had access to the command line on his computer. It was able to basically, like, fix things in real time on his machine as it came up, which was authentically helpful for him. But it also, you know, kind of instantly begged the question of, well, could this be used in a nefarious way? Could it do, you know, could it use all of its knowledge of how these things work to like, actually really mess things up? For me, the answer is absolutely yes.

[Leah Feiger]

I mean, this to me really is HAL. This is 2001 Space Odyssey come to life. Like, maybe of all of the examples that we have had so far, I like the cute name Malte. How it's gonna fix your life and do all these great things and help your mom do her grocery list and what have you. Like is, this is messy.

[Brian Barrett]

Well, there's even more innocuous problems too. Even if you're not going full malevolent mode.

[Leah Feiger]

Full hal. Full hal.

[Brian Barrett]

If you're not going full HAL because, say, it has access to all your files, it's trying to fix something. We've already established. It can forget what the assignment is. It can get fixated on guacamole. If you abandon a project halfway through fixing it, it tends to be pretty broken, right? It's true with computers. It's true with any sort of anything that you're in the middle of. So you could imagine a scenario easily where it goes about starting to take things apart, to put them back together the right way, and then sort of forgets why it was doing it, and all of a sudden your computer doesn't work, your file's been erased, like something has gone terribly wrong. Which is what makes it so remarkable that this is such a viral thing. Everybody is using this, right? Consequences be damned.

[Zoe Schiffer]

I mean, it's really interesting because I feel like it does give you this glimpse of the future because, again, it has really helpful applications. And I think the fact that Will pointed this out in his article and I thought this was so smart, but just the fact that you can talk to it through something like Telegram or WhatsApp, and the fact that it has kind of a quirky personality ends up making a big difference. Will actually thinks that that is the secret sauce that made this pop up. And I think that that's probably right. Like, at the end of the day, people want to engage with something that feels like easy and fun and helps their lives a little bit. And until they see, like, you know, the really kind of dire consequences, they might not be as freaked out as they should be. I mean, I will say, reading Will's draft, when he said, I gave it access to Slack and Discord, I. My heart stopped. I said, please not work Slack. But no, he'd set up dummy accounts for everything. So that was good.

[Leah Feiger]

I just. I can't actually explain what my heart just did.

[Zoe Schiffer]

I feel okay.

[Leah Feiger]

I'm fine.

[Brian Barrett]

You know, gang, sometimes AI is an adorable, semi competent executive assistant with the potential to destroy your life.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yeah.

[Brian Barrett]

Other times, it's scraping a bunch of data to build a mass surveillance infrastructure that's incredibly profitable. Let's talk about the latter. And Palantir, a company uses all kinds of AI, all kinds of data infrastructure, and contracts with ice. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement employees there have been increasingly outspoken about their ethical concerns. It's sort of the last company on my list of expecting that kind of pushback, but we've seen a lot of it and it's gotten to the point

[Leah Feiger]

where people are upset.

[Brian Barrett]

Yeah, people are genuinely upset enough that Alex Karp, Palantir CEO, sort of had to record basically an hour long video explaining what the deal is with ICE or attempting to explain. And just for those people who don't know Alex Karp, here's just a taste of the kind of things that he says on a fairly regular basis just to get an idea. Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world and when it's necessary to scare enemies and on occasion, kill them. And we hope you're in favor of that. We hope you're enjoying being a partner. And we're really happy and very, very focused on what we're doing. So that's Alex Carp. Last Friday, Courtney Bauman, Palantir's global director of privacy and civil Liberties Engineering. Civil liberties engineering is also a just an interesting phrase. Sent an all staff email to Palantir employees featuring Karp's video. Wired reporter McKenna Kelly got a chance to look at this email and it's really interesting, both for what he says and what he ends up really just not saying.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yeah, I mean, does he actually address employee concerns? Because knowing Alex Karp, I'm. I'm envisioning a lot of big words, a lot of mentions of different theories, perhaps, and I would be surprised if he actually said anything of substance.

[Leah Feiger]

No, of course he didn't. He didn't address anything. It was like almost an hour long, I think it was. What did we have it at, Brian? 57 minutes of something like that? Yeah, yeah. Of Karp talking about how, you know, Palantir historically has not always been 100% popular and they're just going to keep chugging along anyway, and that's okay. He referenced a couple of different things, but it was a really interesting moment from a company that's having, I don't know if I can say a large reckoning, but like at least a mini reckoning. A lot of conversations in Slack about this, that the CEO felt the need to even address this at all. But the kicker, to me, the most important part was that employees were encouraged. If they wanted actually more information on all of this, they were encouraged to sign an NDA.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yeah.

[Brian Barrett]

Yeah.

[Zoe Schiffer]

That's wild. And, you know, we talked about this a little bit last week, but I do think it's worth just highlighting again the fact that we had years and years where it really felt like employee activism in Silicon Valley had died. It was like post George Floyd protests. Post Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter. Now, X, like, people were not speaking out. Slacks were very, very silent. Big things would happen in the world, and we would kind of look at each other and be like, how do people at whatever company feel? And it was like, we didn't know because they weren't talking internally. It really feels like whatever happens, like, we're seeing a real turning point. And I think employees, specifically due to ICE activity in the United States, really say we're not okay with our companies continuing to engage with the federal government and specifically with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents. We saw hundreds of Google workers put out a letter asking their company to cut contracts with ice. I mean, the fact that Palantir employees are doing it is honestly shocking to me. But I think it'll be really interesting to see if this continues or if, you know, management and executives try and really stamp it out.

[Brian Barrett]

Karp talked a lot about in this video. He talked about something he likes to talk about a lot, which is this idea of maintaining Western power.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Right.

[Brian Barrett]

He's a very.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yes, he talks about that. That a lot.

[Brian Barrett]

And I do think that the pushback makes some sense, because ICE enforcement isn't really about that. In a lot of ways, it is. You know, it is reports of using face recognition, like, that's not really asserting Western power. That's, you know, if you are the in charge of civil liberties engineering, that's sort of a clear civil liberties violation.

[Zoe Schiffer]

So just to straw man their argument, wouldn't they say that we're trying to look for the bad guys? Like, that's, I think, another term that he uses, like the people who are trying to hurt Western values or hurt America's power or whatever.

[Brian Barrett]

I think so. But it's been so clear that good guys, or at least neutral guys, are getting caught up in that for sure. And I think that's the.

[Leah Feiger]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Zoe Schiffer]

I'm not arguing. I'm just trying to, like, understand there.

[Brian Barrett]

Zoe loves Palantir.

[Leah Feiger]

The thing that he also mentions in the video, though, is that Palantir doesn't change its policy based on who's the president. He specifically called out the Obama administration as an example of Democrats being tough on immigration, which. Very true. Obama was called the deporter in chief for a long time for a reason, which was like a very, though, wildly defensive thing, I thought, for Karp to bring up. Like, this is where a couple decades passed at this point, and the Trump administration has taken this to a realm that is entirely unfamiliar in US History. The warehouses, family separation, the ice patrols on American streets. I was fascinated, particularly by that comment, I think, because it just showed to me that Carp and Palantir leadership as a whole are just trying to ride this wave out. They know that they need these government contracts and they're already looking ahead. Several presidencies going like our company is lasting longer than a single person's impact on this nation.

[Brian Barrett]

When we come back, our very own Leah Figar has a sizable scoop for us about a secret Trump administration campaign extending right into your backyard.

[Kathy Werzer]

As a listener of Uncanny Valley, we know you want to stay on top of today's biggest stories in tech. And if you're curious about how tech and innovation are changing the healthcare landscape, check out Mayo Clinic's chart topping podcast Tomorrow's Cure. Back for a brand new season, host and award winning journalist Kathy Werzer dives into the breakthroughs, challenges and human stories shaping the future of medicine, from advances in AI and cancer research to the rise of chronic disease and autoimmune disorders. Not sure where to start? We Recommend the season four premiere where dermatologist Dr. Saranya Wiles and biomedical engineer Dr. Adam Feinberg explore how 3D bioprinting is revolutionizing medical research and accelerating breakthroughs in healthcare. Whether you're a healthcare professional, patient, or simply curious about what's ahead, Tomorrow's Cure invites you to imagine what healthcare could look like and shows you the future is already here. Find Tomorrow's Cure on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening now. This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out odoo-o o.com that's O-O-O.com the digital world feels more chaotic than ever. Huge data breaches, AI threatening jobs, foreign meddling, that creeping feeling of obsolescence. It's information overload. I'm Dina Temple Rast of Click Here from PRX and Recorded Future News. Want to understand how we got here and how you can get ahead of it all? Listen to Click Here. We can help you make sense of all the noise. Click Here wherever you get your podcasts.

[Leah Feiger]

Welcome back. Wired had a pretty big scoop this week. We obtained federal records that show a secret Months long campaign by ICE and DHS to expand their press presence across the United States. We're talking more than 150 leases and office expansions in the works in almost every state, in the heart of major metropolitan areas or right outside of them. And lots of these facilities are not just in random government building, hidden away locations. They're actually located right near elementary schools, medical offices, places of worship and other really sensitive locations. In other words, places where people are trying to live their daily lives and could otherwise be at their most vulnerable. This is really concerning stuff.

[Brian Barrett]

Yeah, Leah said we had a big scoop and wired it, which is all true, but this is also Leah's story, so it's a huge scoop. So really great work, Leah. And I think one thing that really struck me on reading this as we went through it is not just what's happening, but the effort to keep it quiet. The sort of secrecy layer on top of it was alarming in and of itself.

[Leah Feiger]

Yeah, absolutely. So I guess to take us back a little bit, back in September, NPR and the Washington Post reported that a number of employees at the General Services Administration were added to the ICE Surge team. The General Services Administration is basically the government's internal IT department and they also manage government leases around the country. That's federal buildings, different offices for Social Security in like sweet home Chicago. It's truly, it's all over the place. They have tons and tons of leases. Anyways, this ICE Surge team, the Washington Post and NPR reported at the time, we're gonna be responsible for finding new office locations and expanding pre existing office locations. This made sense as the Trump administration was doubling down on saying that they were gonna be increasing ICE tenfold, pumping money into the agency and really standing behind them in every single way. So what we found that took this into a bit more of an intense direction was that according to the documents that we had, these employees were assigned to actively support ICE's physical expansion, told to find all of these leases and that they actually successfully found a lot of spaces. But in addition to finding all of these spaces, they were told to basically keep this a secret. They were asked to go outside of their regular methodologies for posting leases, for asking for competition and bidding and, and to actually really keep it all under wraps. And we actually found that they were told this by dhs, that this was part of a national security requirement because they were concerned about ICE offices and officers getting implicated in violent activity by protesters and what have you.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Can I just ask Leah to make this really crystal clear? Obviously the physical footprint is expanding, but ICE has already more than doubled in size since Trump took office. Is the implication of this that they're going to keep hiring to fill these spaces?

[Leah Feiger]

So, you know, we don't have exact insight on that, but what I can say is, yes, you're totally right that we're. He has expanded. We're at over 20,000 people DHS is claiming as part of ICE. But with that comes the desperate need for office space. Where are all these agents gonna go? Where are all these lawyers gonna go? And I think that that's the piece of the puzzle that we solved. And it was something that I was personally really curious about. Cause I was just like, are they gonna be just patrolling the streets? Are we stuffing them into the rafters? I have these visions. I don't know if you guys remember after January6, National Guard, like, sleeping in government buildings. Like that was my idea of ice. I was like, where is everyone going to be? And it turned out from our reporting in virtually every single state in the country, that's where they're sending them.

[Brian Barrett]

They've got $80 billion or so to spend. 75 billion of that I think they have to spend in the next four years. So, yeah, they are going to keep expanding. And when you think of how much of an impact 3,000 agents officers had in Minneapolis alone, that's like an eighth of the. Like, they can repeat some version of that in a lot of different spots.

[Leah Feiger]

Right. And I've been fielding, honestly shout out to the many local reporters around the country who've been contacting me in the last day or so just to ask questions about the locations that we named that are near them or in their states or cities. And the thing to me that keeps coming up is that in addition to new buildings, they're getting put into preexisting government buildings, preexisting leases or like that is. That appears to be the plan. And then we've also found that a bunch of these ICE offices are being located near plans for giant immigration detention warehouses. And you know, we're looking at offices being set up say 20 minutes, an hour and 20 minutes away for these.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yeah.

[Leah Feiger]

So this, we're looking at different. The triangulation of this around. You have to have your lawyers, your agents have a place to have to get their orders and put their computers and do like the, in some ways, very mundane things that are required of an operation like this one.

[Brian Barrett]

Well, Leah, that's a good point. I think when people hear ICE offices or when I do just instinctively, I think of ICE as guys with guns and masks and all that. But that's not exactly what we're saying here. Do you mind talking through, like, what these offices seem to be queued up to be used for and by whom? Because ICE is not just the masked guys with bad tattoos.

[Leah Feiger]

Yes, absolutely. So what we reported in this story as well was some of the specific parts of ICE that actually reached out to GSA and asked them to expedite the process of getting new leases, et cetera. Included in that, for example, were representatives from OPLA. OPLA is ICE's Office of the Principal Legal advisor. So that's the lawyers. Those are the ICE lawyers that are working with the courts and arguing back or deportation orders, saying yes, no, et cetera, signing the documents, like putting everything in front of judges. This is like a really important part of this entire operation that we're not talking about a ton. There's a lot of focus on the doj. There's a lot of focus. There was an excellent article this week in Politico talking about all of these federal judges that are really, really upset that DHS and ICE are ignoring their requests for immigrants to not detained anymore. The missing level of that is the lawyers that are part of this that are representing ICE to the US government here, and that's opla. So they've reached out to GSA extensively as we report, to get these leasing locations specifically with the OPLA legal request. I just wanna get across like, how big this is, how massive is this? ICE repeatedly outlined its expansion to cities around the US and this one piece of memorandum that we got from OPLA stated that ICE will be expanding its legal operations into Birmingham, Alle, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Jacksonville and Tampa, Florida Des Moines, Iowa Boise, Idaho Louisville, Kentucky Baton Rouge, Louisiana Grand Rapids, Michigan St. Louis, Missouri Raleigh, North Carolina, Long Island, New York Columbus, Ohio Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina Nashville, Tennessee Richmond, Virginia Spokane, Washington Encore, Delane, Idaho and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We have other locations as well throughout the rest of the article, but those are the requests from opla. And this is back in September. So this is everywhere. So that's one of what we're talking about, Brian, of who's looking to move in here. In addition to opla, you have the folks that you're really talking about here. So that's called the ERO. That's ICE's enforcement and removal operations. The ERO is tasked with immigration enforcement, including the arrest, detention and removal of immigrants. They previously operated out of only 25 field offices in the US. Seems clear from Our reporting and the reporting of others that that number is changing drastically right now. So that's who you're thinking of on that side. And then we also have hsi, which is Homeland Security Investigations. This is like a similar but separate like situation as well. But also as part of the ICE camp, looking into a variety of things in this area too. So you have a lot of different people within the ICE banner looking for offices. And we did our best to explain how this happened so quickly, so secretly, so outside of government norms and where it's happening.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Leah, you're mentioning all of these locations as you talk about this story we published, the literal addresses where this expansion is taking place. And I'm curious about that decision because it does seem like we've published so much sensitive reporting in the past 12 months. But this story in particular stuck out to me as the thing that could make the Trump administration the most upset, if I may. And I'm just curious, like, why did it feel important? Cause you could see a version of the story that was a little more vague, but you didn't want to be.

[Leah Feiger]

So Brian wrote an excellent newsletter that's also up on Wired.com that everyone should go check out about this and about our publishing decision. So I kind of want him to talk about this way more eloquently than I will. But the thing that I wanna say is when I first looked up one of these addresses, I was really struck that it was basically Nessity's downtown next to a dentist office. And I thought about going to the dentist. I thought about everyone going to the dentist every single day on their phones, talking to whomever, truly not thinking anything about who was in the other offices and just how important it was to me that anyone going to that dentist office or to a preschool, elementary school, passport, expediting service, Amazon warehouse, all of these different locations that we mention knew who was sharing office space with them as well, or who planned to be sharing office space as what we published were these plans. I'm very struck by, as I was last year as well, when we were doing all of our reporting on Doge. How transgressive the Trump administration has made it seem and feel to publish accurate information about the government's whereabouts and activities. We are taxpayers and deserve to know what they're up to. And that's part of the social contract, is that they tell us. So to me, it's filling in that gap.

[Brian Barrett]

I mean, I think that's basically it, right? People have a right to know. You have a right to know who Your neighbor is. You have a right to know when your community is about to be violently disrupted, potentially by agents of the state. ICE is planning to share space with a DMV in Philadelphia. It's important to also note that the scope of this is much bigger than I think people have wrapped their heads around and that to remember that Minneapolis is not just a one off. The objective is to do this everywhere. I think we were really surprised. Almost every major city in the US Was on this list. And I think the other part of it too is the Trump administration. Leah mentioned Doge. This happened with Doge too, is they like to move as quickly and as quietly as they can because they are betting that courts and legislators and journalists can't keep up. So it was important to us now, as it was then, to keep up and to make that accountability to the extent we can, available for people.

[Leah Feiger]

Yeah, I'm really scared for the country to be totally clear. Like this was really, really scary information to learn and publish. But I'm not scared to keep doing this reporting. I think it's vitally important. And I'm honestly just forever impressed by our colleagues at newsrooms around the country that are publishing every single day. Incredible reporting on warehouse locations, the conditions of these warehous warehouses, people being held in San Antonio and all over the country. There's so much out there. And it's been very impressive to see the entire press corps, as well as observers in Minneapolis and outside really all double down on this as well.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Okay, it's time for our Wired Tired segment. Whatever is new and cool is Wired. Whatever is passe, it is tired. Are we ready, team?

[Leah Feiger]

I'm so ready.

[Brian Barrett]

I'm kind of ready. So Leah, go first.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Leah. Okay, you go.

[Leah Feiger]

Hear me out. This is not the future that Wired has promised readers, but I think that it's really, really important nonetheless. My Wired is Jeopardy. The show. Fantastic show. I love it. I'm learning new facts every single day. I'm becoming a dedicated Jeopardy. Viewer once more. The last time I watched it like this, I think, was in high school. I. I'm loving it. I'm really, really loving it.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Especially.

[Leah Feiger]

Cause there's so many categories that are not things that I necessarily care about, but I am learning about them. And the reason that I chose this as my Wired this week is my Tired is my algorithm. I'm really, really over it, you guys. I feel like my algorithm is cavalier King Charles. Dogs love them. That is my dog. Fantastic. It's scuba diving. Love it. It's fantastic. And then it's like some kind of intense politics stuff every once in a while. But generally conspiracy theories, all these are all things that I actually really do enjoy in all parts of my life. But it's becoming way too much to the point that I've just realized I'm not actually scrolling nearly as much as I used to because I'm so bored of it. It's like I'm not getting the new info. I don't feel like I'm stretching. I don't feel like stuff is being presented to me that I don't already know or have a very deep interest in. Which is why Jeopardy. Has been. One of the topics recently was about this graveyard where famous people are. And it was just. Everyone just had to say what famous person.

[Zoe Schiffer]

I loved that.

[Leah Feiger]

I hadn't heard of half of them. I spent a lot of time on Wikipedia.

[Brian Barrett]

Love that.

[Leah Feiger]

This is great. I really loved it. Anyway, that's me.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Did you know that my former math tutor from Kumon. Dark time in my life. But he was on Jeopardy. And I think he did pretty well. He wears a fez all the time, every single day.

[Leah Feiger]

So that whole sentence was so good.

[Brian Barrett]

It was a. And it's a lot to take in and I'm gonna take a minute just to process.

[Zoe Schiffer]

I think you should. I think you should begin about that. That's all I know about Jeopardy. That's all I can.

[Leah Feiger]

Wow.

[Brian Barrett]

I will say, Leah. I fully co signed. I don't know if you. You both weren't here. I was Wired's chief Jeopardy. Correspondent for a few glorious months during James Holzhauer's record breaking, paradigm defining run.

[Leah Feiger]

Exciting.

[Brian Barrett]

I got to interview Ken Jennings.

[Leah Feiger]

That's really cool.

[Brian Barrett]

It was great.

[Leah Feiger]

Loved it.

[Brian Barrett]

So I, I fully, fully support this embrace of Jeopardy.

[Leah Feiger]

Ken's a great host by the way. I don't know if you've like. Yeah, it's amazing. I'm really, really enjoying his work. Work.

[Brian Barrett]

My Wired is not dissimilar to Lee. In a sense it is for the Olympics, especially linear television. And let me explain. I think the last time the Olympics were around, I've got Peacock and I've got YouTube TV. And you now have the option to watch everything in its entirety whenever you want and just choose which sport you want and go in. And it is too much even for me, an avowed Olympics fan. So just, I'm embracing just being able to sit down with my kids at night and just watch whatever NBC thinks I should know from that day and just. I get the highlights, I get the Best things. I don't spend two hours watching some cross country race just in case something interesting happens. I know that when I'm settled in, it has been editorially curated to be of interest to me. So I am. That is. That is wired for me. And I guess tired would be the flip of that of just mindlessly binging winter sports that don't go anywhere.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Sure.

[Leah Feiger]

Zoe concurs.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yeah, for sure. Okay. Mine feels a little obvious this week, but I'm just gonna persevere, which is tired to me. Is those services that send you boxes of clothes and you, like, rent them and then send them back.

[Leah Feiger]

Yes. Okay.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yeah.

[Leah Feiger]

Rent the Runway newly.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Wait, are you a subscriber? Absolutely not. No.

[Leah Feiger]

I was about to be shocked. My entire world was gonna be r. I would never.

[Zoe Schiffer]

I would never. But I actually do have a few people in my life who are just like, busy, normal professionals who are like, they really like them. Yeah.

[Leah Feiger]

Oh, yeah. I have so many who love it. They love it.

[Zoe Schiffer]

And I think that's a huge bummer. And I was in Portland last weekend and I went to some of the best vintage stores I have ever been to. I was in absolute heaven. Shout out to Deep Lake. They had vintage Vivienne Westwood. I got a velvet skirt that I will never have an opportunity to wear.

[Leah Feiger]

Wait, is that where you got your vest you were wearing yesterday? I loved that vest also.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yes.

[Leah Feiger]

Thank you. I knew it. I was gonna ask about it and I meant it. It was such a fast.

[Zoe Schiffer]

I was viciously mocked in the office and I thought, only Leah understands.

[Brian Barrett]

I did not notice the vest. I would not have asked about the vest.

[Dina Temple-Rast]

Sorry.

[Leah Feiger]

I loved the vest. I loved the vest enough that I thought about it after and was literally like, I'm going to ask her where it's from. It's certainly not available to me. Love that love.

[Zoe Schiffer]

That's our show for today. We'll link to all the stories we spoke about in the show notes. Uncanny Valley is produced by Kaleidoscope Conference content. Adriana Tapia and Tyler Hill produced this episode. Mixing from Amar Lal at Macrosound. Fact checking from Matt Giles. Mark Leyda was our San Francisco studio engineer. Pram Bandy is our New York studio engineer. Kate Osborne is our executive producer and Katie Drummond is Wired's global editorial.

[Brian Barrett]

This week on the political scene from the New Yorker, Trump's rupture in the world order.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Europe caught between two adversarial great powers.

[Leah Feiger]

That's basically dialing back the clock to

[Zoe Schiffer]

not only Pre World War II, but really, it's a pre 20th century view of the world, and I would say it's a world of permanent insecurity that we're looking at.

[Brian Barrett]

Join me, Evan Osnos and my colleagues Jane Mayer and Susan Glaser every Friday on the Political scene. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

[Zoe Schiffer]

From prx.