Sentinel Shadow: Inside the Secret Domestic Surveillance Program Targeting Dissent in 2025
- James Bierre
- Jun 27
- 12 min read
In the spring of 2025, details began to emerge about a classified domestic surveillance program known as Sentinel Shadow, a real-time data aggregation and behavioral analysis system authorized and deployed by the second Trump administration. Publicly framed as a counterintelligence initiative to prevent domestic terrorism and protect national security, Sentinel Shadow was quietly developed under Executive Directive 14209 and overseen by the Office of National Continuity Affairs, a newly created executive agency reporting directly to the White House. The directive not only bypassed the usual legal checks on surveillance but also redefined the legal scope of "domestic threat" to include nonviolent protest, online criticism of government officials, and broad forms of political dissent.
Although the program was initially shrouded in layers of classification, internal memos leaked by whistleblowers within the NSA and DHS have confirmed its true scope: the tracking and profiling of American citizens based not on criminal activity, but on their speech, behavior, affiliations, and ideological patterns. Individuals are flagged for continued monitoring by an AI-driven risk algorithm that weighs criteria such as political donations, protest attendance, social media engagement, and even participation in labor organizing or mutual aid networks. These risk scores are logged into a federal database shared with agencies like the FBI, ICE, CBP, and select local law enforcement partners—often without warrants, notification, or legal recourse.
Behind the scenes, Sentinel Shadow has been built and maintained through public-private partnerships with a consortium of government contractors and tech firms, including Palantir Technologies, Anduril Industries, and Clearview AI. These companies, long known for supplying surveillance tools to ICE and the Pentagon, have played a central role in developing Sentinel’s predictive analytics systems, facial recognition libraries, and data aggregation infrastructure. Financial disclosures and procurement documents show that these firms have received over $2.1 billion in combined federal contracts since January 2025 tied specifically to “domestic stability operations,” a newly introduced budget category under the Department of Homeland Security.
Support for the program has come from senior administration officials, including National Security Advisor Brent Renshaw, who has described Sentinel Shadow as “a transformative tool for preempting domestic extremism.” Attorney General Rachel Cantor has also defended the legality of the program, claiming during a closed-door House Judiciary briefing that “national integrity threats” do not require judicial preclearance if deemed urgent by the executive. Right-wing media outlets and think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Center for American Security have endorsed the program, framing it as a necessary evolution of intelligence in an age of decentralized protest and “information insurgency.”
