Purge the surveillance state

The nation’s sprawling surveillance state through the Cold War and the post-9/11 era was always of great concern. Programs like the CIA’s HTLINGUAL mail intercept program photographed millions of letters for over twenty years during the Cold War. In response to September 11, Congress passed the PATRIOT Act and the following year, George W. Bush issued an executive order on warrantless surveillance by the NSA.

Palantir

The federal government’s relationship with data surveillance firms like Palantir, co-founded by major donor Peter Thiel, grew immensely with Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Palantir’s federal contracts amount to nearly $14 billion. They are leading efforts to amalgamate data sources from across the federal government. The concentration of tax, Social Security, and health data from across agencies creates an unprecedented surveillance power for the Executive Branch. A 2025 report noted the administration sought access to bank account numbers, student loan debt balances, medical claims, and disability status. The administration refuses to release documents about such data sharing.

ICE as a testing ground

ICE is one of the largest customers of Clearview AI, a facial recognition firm which reportedly scraped over 30 billion faces from internet sources. Paragon holds a $2 million contract with ICE for use of its Graphite spyware designed to infiltrate devices.

Matt is fighting to purge Palantir and other data surveillance tech from the federal government. He signed the Purge Palantir pledge to refuse their money and commit to excising firms like Palantir from the federal government. Matt believes we must act as soon as possible before these powerful tools become exceptionally difficult to dismantle.

• Modernize the Privacy Act of 1974 to protect Americans from the loopholes of a fifty year old law
• Prohibit a unified data query layer of Americans’ sensitive data
• Direct inspectors general to audit existing contracts
• Pursue contract cancellations on a budgetary basis or by congressional statute
• Strengthen whistleblower protections and encourage reporting civil liberties violations
• Congressional investigation of abuses and pursue prosecutions for violations of federal law

Statehood for DC

Over 700,000 people live within the District of Columbia—a population larger than Vermont (644,000) and Wyoming (588,000) but without the representation on Capitol Hill. Residents of Vermont and Wyoming have a voting member in the U.S. House of Representatives and two U.S. senators. Yet D.C. residents do not.

It’s taxation without representation. A clarion call that helped spark the American revolution. It is long past time to ensure residents of the District of Columbia receive full representation in Congress.

Matt is fighting for D.C. statehood. As a former resident of D.C. for over a decade, Matt knows taxation without representation first-hand. It’s unfair to the city’s residents who pay federal taxes like everyone else.

Protect and expand voting rights

Self-determination through the franchise is fundamental right for which this nation was founded. In our constant struggle to live up to our founding creed, Americans fought, and bled, and died for it on distant battlefields and American streets. We would dishonor their sacrifices if we did not protect the right for which many gave their lives.

Matt is fighting to protect and expand voting rights.

• Pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act
  • Restoration and modernization of preclearance
  • Prohibition of partisan gerrymandering
  • Transparency with 180 day notifications for changes to voting laws and procedures like polling site closures
  • Improve polling location accessibility for voters with disabilities
  • Expand early voting
  • Same day and automatic voter registration
  • Establish standards to combat voter suppression tactics
• Set minimum standards for national mail-in voting, early voting periods, federal standards for adequate number of polling sites and location accessibility
• Restoration of voting rights for the formerly incarcerated

Settle Puerto Rico political status

Puerto Rico is a U.S. colonial possession and territory since the war with Spain in 1898. Its people enjoy American citizenship but lack true representation within its relationship to the federal government.

It lacks sovereignty with plenary power over the territory held by Congress by the Territorial Clause of the Constitution. Puerto Ricans cannot vote for president with a single non-voting representative in Congress for 3 million U.S. citizens—more than Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, and many other states and territories. Governance is imposed on the island through the PROMESA oversight board with ultimate control over its budget and finances and appointed by Washington.

We must take this opportunity for sweeping democratic reforms to include an equitable settlement of Puerto Rico’s status.

Matt is fighting to correct a historical wrong and push for an equitable settlement of Puerto Rico’s political status with the United States. Congress must set a federally-sponsored, binding referendum for Puerto Rico to choose its path forward with statehood, independence, or autonomous free association.

Legislation must include a gesture of friendship and justice with federal funding to rebuild and repair the island’s electrical grid and the assumption of Puerto Rico’s outstanding debt by the federal government. In the wake of the Revolution, the federal government assumed the war debts of the original thirteen colonies and established a national line of credit. This courtesy must be extended to the Puerto Rican people, regardless of the outcome of a plebiscite.

• Congressional authorization for a binding referendum of the Puerto Rican people to determine the island’s status
  • Selection between statehood, full independence as a sovereign nation, or free association with the U.S.
• Assumption of all remaining Puerto Rican debt by the federal government
• Increase federal funding for, and resolve the delayed disbursement of, federal funding for repairs to the island’s electrical grid
  • Properly fund FEMA operations to adequately review energy projects and provide technical support to PREPA
  • Streamline the review process to speed up approvals

Abolish ICE

This administration and their Republican lackeys in Congress greatly increased the budget for immigration and deportation measures to $170 billion. It makes immigration enforcement the largest paramilitary force in the country. The budget surpasses all annual law enforcement expenditures on police by state and local governments. Deportation operations under ICE saw a three-fold increase in its annual budget. $30 billion over four years to hire 10,000 new agents.

DHS and ICE recruitment propaganda are overtly white supremacist. The standards and training for new ICE agents are abysmal. The process, by which corners are cut, was described as a “shit show.” The results are predictable.

Masked ICE agents without name badges are documented to have:

• Murdered a woman in her car and an observer on the street in Minnesota
• Unlawfully detained U.S. citizens without proper due process
• Unlawfully detained legal immigrants without proper due process
• Misidentified individuals with benign NIKE or autism tattoos as signifiers for MS-13 gang membership and deported them to a foreign torture gulag
• Drawn firearms on peaceful protesters
• Fired “non-lethal” projectiles at peaceful protesters including in the head
• Violently assault U.S. citizens and immigrants on the streets and within government buildings

Despite its claims to deport “the worst of the worst,” data leaked in October 2025 showed only 5 percent of those detained by ICE held violent convictions. 73 percent had no convictions at all.

Matt will fight for the abolition of ICE and prosecution of human rights violators. Under this administration, supercharged by the Republican Congress with massive increase to its budget, ICE is a flagrant human rights violator. It regularly violates the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens and immigrants of every status. ICE agents hide their identities in an attempt to escape accountability.

ICE must be abolished and its functions drawn-and-quartered into separate agencies. We must clean house. Everybody involved in this national disgrace must understand that the present circumstances are not going to last forever. There will be a day of reckoning and it is coming.