Scott Fleitas

Now we find ourselves part of a world wherein the names of a few companies--and their CEOs--have become synonymous with progress, innovation, and ease: Apple, Intel, Microsoft, Google (Alphabet), Amazon, and Oracle appear to be everywhere and to impact everything--from how we work and shop and communicate to even how we perceive reality. Behind the sleek interfaces, catchy slogans, and the ceaseless promise of "better, faster, smarter," there's a considerably darker side to the tech giants. A side few of us know about or, worse, care to admit.

It's not about products or services anymore; it's about power, control, and influence. These companies do not just shape consumer behavior but society--and not always for the better. Let's dig a little deeper into how they've become intertwined into the business of surveillance, censorship, and the explosion of mind control for a hefty dose of government contracts and influence. They are now taking on many aspects of the role, globally, of nation-states.

The Tech Giants and National Domestic Spying

We all thought this would be this wild west of freedom--the free flow of ideas, and with that, democracy would flower. But then the internet, rather insidiously, became something quite other than that. These platforms we were using to share our lives, thoughts, and images had been repurposed, siphoning all the data they could get. Every click, every query, and every comment you write is a piece of your digital self that someone is buying and selling. Apple, for all its protestations of "privacy-first" principles, has long been rumored to have cooperated with government surveillance programs, even when its encryption protocols make things more difficult for the agencies. 

Meanwhile, Alphabet's pervasive reach has made Google an indispensable partner in the NSA's global surveillance operations. And no matter how loudly they mouth their corporate motto of "Don't be evil," it's a little hard to swallow when they've made tens of millions of their involvement with government intelligence agencies.

Amazon, for its part, collects a lot of data through its cloud services and sells software solutions to many of the agencies involved in surveillance. Oracle? The less said about Oracle's close ties to the Pentagon and national security apparatus, the better. Intel, for its part, might have never worked directly on any spying operations, but its chips powered everything from surveillance drones to government servers. One can barely imagine a world where these companies aren't entangled in some national intelligence network. They are integral parts of the machine.

Mind Control and Government Propaganda

But surveillance is just the beginning. If you have all the data on what people buy, who they talk to, where they go, and what they think, the next step is control. If data is the new oil, then these companies have refineries churning out vast quantities of it, knowing exactly how to refine it into a form that can influence opinions, shift elections, and control public discourse. From Google's search algorithms to Facebook's targeted ads, we've seen how these companies can shape reality by controlling the flow of information. Let's not forget that Meta, formerly Facebook, has been involved in several governmental lobbying and disinformation campaigns, often shifting the narrative to fit within a political point in time or government agendas.

The scandal of Russian interference in the 2016 US election touched only a fraction of what could be done with psychological manipulation on social media. On the one hand, there have been many government surveillance programs in which Microsoft and Intel have been hand in hand, keeping track of what people say, how they think, and what they want to hear.

On the other hand, constant attacks keep coming against the search results and ads that Google puts out to fit certain narratives. These businesses don't merely passively observe you; instead, they actively construct parts of this virtual landscape to encourage and nudge one another. The potential consequences of this manipulation are severe, from the erosion of trust in democratic institutions to the spread of misinformation that can have real-world impacts.

Anti-Privacy and Monopolization

In a world where privacy is fast becoming a luxury, tech giants like Apple, Amazon, and Google have built ecosystems in which users hardly exist without being tracked.

Alexa from Amazon, the iPhones of Apple, and the omnipresent search engine from Google make up the surveillance system everywhere; the gadgets are the agents of that control. Alexa listens, she watches, and through her algorithm magic, manipulates your decisions--and all while you get 'free' services in return.

On the other side of the coin lies monopolization. The near-total control of search by Google, e-commerce by Amazon, smartphone sales by Apple, and the domination of software companies by Microsoft are vertical monopolies that have become nearly impossible to live without. How many amongst us have the first option that comes to their mind while searching for anything: Google; for shopping: Amazon; to work on a computer: Microsoft? These monopolies make it easy for these companies to push their agendas-after all if you're the only game in town, your power over the masses becomes absolute.

But these monopolies make it easy for these companies to push their agendas--after all, if you're the only game in town, your power over the masses becomes absolute.

13 Things Most People Don't Know About These Tech Giants and Their CEOs:

• Apple and the NSA: Apple has been said to work with the NSA on various data collection programs, even more so since the 2013 leaks about PRISM. As much as this company speaks volumes about privacy in public, one finds its close relationship with the government hard to ignore.
• Intel and Surveillance: Intel processors are used in various high-clearance government systems that perform tasks like monitoring internet traffic and communications.
• Microsoft's Ties to the CIA: The company has also been in deep collaboration with the US government to provide cloud services, among other cloud computing services, for intelligence agencies. It was one of several companies that designed the NSA's global surveillance programs.
• Google's Algorithm Manipulation: Google has been criticized many times for tampering with search algorithms, aligning them with the agenda set by the government and big corporations--to push certain narratives while burying others.
• Amazon's Military Contracts: AWS provides critical infrastructure for military surveillance programs, including those connected to drone operations.
• Oracle and the Pentagon: For years, Oracle has been providing software solutions to the military, including those for surveillance and espionage, and has raked in millions in contracts.
• The Apple Encryption Debate: While Apple loudly trumpeted its commitment to encryption and privacy, moments of cooperation in government requests for backdoors in devices raise many questions about its true commitment to privacy.
• Google's Data Harvesting: Google harvests more data from its users than most people realize, including location tracking, search history, and even email content, making it a prime target for surveillance.
• Amazon's Alexa and the Surveillance State: Alexa has come forward regarding everything from surveillance-related issues to allegations that Amazon has been offering government recordings.
• Microsoft's Role in Facial Recognition: Microsoft has been one of the leading companies in facial recognition technology, which is today heavily used by government agencies for surveillance purposes.
• Facebook's Propaganda Machine: While not on the original list, Facebook's use of targeted political advertisements to shape public opinion aptly illustrates the depth to which it is enmeshed in government propaganda.
• Big Tech's Stealth Lobbying: The companies shell out millions annually to lobby the US government to help them maintain their monopolies--often a quid pro quo for the government's heightened surveillance and control of its citizenry.
• "Data as a Trade" Model: These companies exchange user data with the government in return for protection against antitrust actions, legal immunity, and many other goodies--quite effectively a state-supported monopoly on surveillance.

These technology companies are not only companies but brokers of power. They have fashioned empires based on our data. They have paid back with facilitations that have molded us into unknowable and integral forms. Where the CEOs perch over these mighty and unrepresentative structures, comes the most significant question: Is our role confined as citizens just to being small toys in their tussles to outmuscle one another toward serving the purpose of an ill-designed arrangement unintentionally? More than a field of innovation, the tech world might be essentially an elaborately controlled, well-groomed system for influence, surveillance, and control.

The Dark Cost of Big Technology: Tax Evasion, Environmental Damage, Mind Control in Favor of the Military Complex

Besides controlling our personal data and conducting national surveillance, these tech giants have yet another sinister side: ruthless tax avoidance.

Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and others manipulate loopholes and tax havens offshore to reduce their tax burdens in billions-of-dollars-of-profits businesses, thus leaving the rest of us to foot the bill. This corporate tax evasion isn't just about greed; it is a deliberate evasion of civic responsibility, enabling these behemoth companies to get richer while local communities and public services suffer.

For instance, Apple has famously kept billions in overseas accounts to sidestep US taxes. On the other hand, all those vast profits that Amazon makes have been called out several times for paying little to no taxes despite immense benefits from infrastructure and services put in place by American taxpayers. Moreover, the tax dodging further reduces public infrastructure, making paying a necessity for the working class, which is increasingly deprived of rightful shares owed by these tech moguls. That would not all, though.

The same corporate entities avoiding tax responsibility would pass that pollution and their carbon emissions buck to the commoners. As expected, Amazon data centers and fulfillment warehouses slurp prodigious volumes of energy--so far, mainly from fossil sources. The environmental impacts of Google's data centers are notorious: vast volumes of water and energy are guzzled. Apple's supply chain has devastating ecological costs, from mining rare materials to using them in creating electronics. These high-tech giants shift the environmental cleanup, along with other indirect costs, onto our doorstep and make a profit while leaving the cost for taxpayers or future generations.

Meanwhile, all these companies are not only big corporations but also form part of the military-industrial complex, providing essential elements in national mass surveillance, manipulation, and--if necessary--warfare. Still, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and others use cloud services, software, and artificial intelligence to fuel military operations that go beyond borders into social control.

Even more troubling, though, is the extent to which these technology giants nowadays participate in more insidious and subtle forms of mind control--the so-called influence of algorithmically mediated processes for foreseeing, preordaining, and manipulating consumer/user behavior within social networking or, indeed, consumer platforms shaping how it is that people come to think regarding which news should be considered vital, and what consumer items they happen to need.
Facebook--Meta--is peerless at architecting echo chambers that parrot back ideologue gas, and Google dictates what information flows by what results pop up in search, directing online discussion. It's a lot more than just being about advertising: it's the molding of minds, the directing behaviors, and swaying elections.

The combination of surveillance manipulation and monopolization of information, linked together here, is one superb combination whereby it does not even sell any products but fabricates and maintains such narratives as accrue to military, government, and corporate purposes. They're not just amassing data but building consent and reconfiguring a world at will for the oligarchs.

So, it is time to stop and ask yourself what I am supporting while consuming their products blinds me to it.

But Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and Intel stop neither at mere convenience nor at innovation; they are conduits in an even greater structure of control: the seaweed wrapping of tax evasion, environmental ruin, manipulation of the public consciousness on behalf of the military-industrial complex.

The CEOs are the emperors of these fiefdoms, responsible to none and leading a New World Order in which privacy, freedom, and autonomy of the individual are increasingly sacrificed for profit, power, and control. We will have to be prepared to ask: What is the price for that sort of innovation? What does it cost to lead a digital life? The answer is way more insidious than most people would dream.

###

Tech Giants and their  Relationship to Government Surveillance, Mind Control, and Monopolization

&copy 2025 www.olivebiodiesel.com