
New Orleans ends its relationship with tech firm Palantir - dsr12
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2018/03/palantir_new_orleans_gang_case.html
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zitterbewegung
I wonder if all they did was parallel reconstruction . None of what was in the
article was doable or feasible. Predicting crime like they said they could is
just probably another form of profiling but just automated instead . Figuring
out influencers in a social network is hard from my experience as an
undergraduate researcher and community detection can be done but to predict
people’s behavior is quite another. I wonder if any other customers of
Palantir will have more fallout if people find out what they are doing ?

[http://leitang.net/presentation/Community%20Detection%20in%2...](http://leitang.net/presentation/Community%20Detection%20in%20Social%20Networks.pdf)

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260598010_PREDICTIN...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260598010_PREDICTING_INFLUENCE_IN_SOCIAL_NETWORKS)

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tptacek
First, it's "parallel construction", not "parallel reconstruction".

Second, that term refers to the use of SIGINT (or, more likely, aggregates)
collected by intelligence agencies to inform law enforcement but not add to
evidence available to prosecutors.

Despite the scary name, Palantir is not in fact a signals intelligence agency.

There is a lot to be concerned about with police department gang member
databases, but police departments predict crime routinely. It's a core part of
what it means to run a large city police department. You don't allocate
patrols uniformly across the city; that makes no sense.

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bigiain
Seems to me the major ethical problem with "parallel construction" isn't
whether or not the information used to identify and detain the suspect comes
from a signals intelligence agency, it's the intentional deception by law
enforcement investigators and prosecutors of how and why they acquired and
discovered evidence.

If the NSA illegally (or "legally" as they'd no doubt claim) intercepts
private communications, and tells local traffic cops to find a pretext to pull
over a particular car and search it - telling the defence and the court that
the drugs were discovered in a routine traffic stop is parallel construction.

If the tip off comes from Palantir instead of the NSA, and the investigators
and prosecutors deceive the court and defence about that involvement - I'd
argue it's still parallel construction.

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tptacek
No, the problem with parallel construction is that it involves the
introduction of tainted evidence into the law enforcement process. The
fundamental protection we have against the abuse of surveillance and searches
is the Exclusionary Rule, which dictates that the entire chain of evidence
that begins with unconstitutional search is off-limits in prosecution.
Parallel construction sidesteps that by avoiding the introduction of tainted
evidence into cases at all, while still taking advantage of it during
investigation.

But Palantir is a mechanism for collecting and analyzing evidence, not
generating new evidence. It's database software. Policing has been predictive
for decades; without Palantir, the police just use even dumber predictive
methods.

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Retric
Your argument assumes absolutely none of the information that Palantir uses is
tainted. That's a surprisingly difficult thing to demonstrate, and based on
the amount of data analyzed highly unlikely.

Thus, the impetus to use parallel construction to sidestep these issues.

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tptacek
This is a little like saying that a police department's use of Postgres might
be a sign that there's parallel construction happening.

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simonh
We know that parallel construction has, at various times and in various
places, been heavily used by some law enforcement elements. We don’t need to
know anything about the software used by law enforcement to know that, and to
suspect that this may be happening now. Systems such as those provided by
Palantir are just a more sophisticated way that tainted evidence could be
used.

It seems reasonable that, given a reasonable suspicion that such evidence is
used, that we should fear and want to prevent more widespread and systematic
use of that illegal evidence.

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aresant
This article suggests that the Palantir software, regardless of method, was in
fact instrumental in identifying a gang leader who was subsequently sentenced
to 100 years in prison.

And that the reason that it was cancelled was largely due to the public's
discomfort with the program, as raised by a previous Verge article, that laid
out the potential for civil liberties violations and potential macro
ineffectiveness of Palantir's identification methodology.

With that in mind it seems like Palantir's largest risk forward is running
afoul of due-process for their criminality / policing divisions, not that
municipalities won't fall over themselves to hand them billions in fees in the
name of efficiency.

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ineedasername
The article suggests the opposite: The prosecutor contends that Palantir was a
non-factor in the conviction, hence its lack of inclusion in material
disclosed to the defense. The reason for the contract getting cancelled was
also not confirmed or commented on by the city, the article only mentioned
"some" that were "leery" of its use because it could be used to connect gang
members to others. This is a very vague wording of any concerns about use of
Palantir. The article was very light on content here, using words that
indicate trepidation but not connected those loaded terms to any explanation.

From prior stories about Palantir's lack of efficacy outside of well-resources
intelligence and military venue, my guess is that lack of efficacy was the
cause for the contract going belly up.

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bigiain
> The prosecutor contends that Palantir was a non-factor in the conviction

Parallel construction as a Service.

I bet with the right co-founder you'd be rolling in investment capital for
that...

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ineedasername
I don't see parallel construction here. There's no reason to think that any
information in Palantir was inappropriately obtained without a warrant when
one should have been required. Without that breach, then Palantir helped
generate leads, it didn't result in parallel construction. That's not even
what the defense contends in the criminal issue cited in the article: There,
they simply maintain that a Brady violation occurred by not disclosing that
Palantir was used, or that Palantir showed negative evidence that was
favorable to the defendant. I really don't understand where any issue or
suspicion of parallel construction arises from the use of Palantir. It's
basically a mashup of a social network and CRM with predictive modeling on
top.

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forapurpose
> There's no reason to think ...

There's no reason to think it happened either way. But I think there's
reasonable suspicion that Palantir might have been involved.

> information in Palantir was inappropriately obtained without a warrant when
> one should have been required

That's not the only issue, or even the main one. Government investigating and
collecting information on private citizens en masse, rather than individuals
for cause, is very dangerous. Doing it based on decisions made by Palantir's
software developers, seems even worse.

> It's basically a mashup of a social network and CRM with predictive modeling
> on top.

How do you know how it functions? And wouldn't that describe any government
system used for surveilling (and sometimes oppressing) its citizens? The Stasi
had the same thing, just with far less powerful tech. Using banal buzzwords
doesn't make Palantir or government surveillance any more banal.

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ineedasername
These are all reasonable concerns about palantir, but none of them are
parallel construction. And I know how palantir functions because there's
plenty of information available on it. Heck call their sales team and chat
them up about a use case if you want to learn more (it's what i did, about 10
years ago) my point is their gotham product isn't top secret, at one point
they even had some sort of demo client.

I'm sure their tech, like any other, can be misused. But parallel construction
isnt even hinted at here, its the potential Brady violation that is the issue.

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everdev
It's amazing how companies can get so big predicting the future. The process
is a glorified dart throw, especially in social systems. The variables are
always changing, and the effect of reacting to a prediction (like increasing
police presence) changes the expected outcome, so predictions become elusive
even if initially correct.

Also, when the variables like homicides are relatively low numbers, there are
huge percentage swings that happen naturally.

Macro indicators like weather and per capita income have long been known to be
correlated with crime, but trying to predict and proactively reduce it is much
harder.

The promise of AI and predictive analytics is huge, but it misses the mark in
non-closed systems.

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darawk
All of those things are true x10 in the stock market, but people still seem to
be able to consistently make money. I think you're overstating the difficulty
of the problem a bit. There's a lot you can do with simple models to predict
crime - they're not perfect, but as long as their users understand that,
that's fine.

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drb91
Nobody is more confident than a hedge fund trying to get your cash. It’s still
a zero sum game and not really an applicable metaphor here.

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JumpCrisscross
> _It’s still a zero sum game_

Stock markets aren't a zero sum game.

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drb91
They are if the transaction does not involve the company. If the value of
hedge funds is in IPOs, i’ve veen missold!

I am not an economist, but I would love it if you could correct me if I am
wrong :)

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miked
_Of particular concern to some was the use of Palantir as a tool that could
aid investigators both in connecting suspected gang members to others in the
community, and in identifying people deemed at high risk of either committing
gun violence or being the victim of it._

??? Isn't that precisely what the tool is meant to do?

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Havoc
I'd imagine they got the data they needed anyway

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cityofghosts
and mr palantir got up from his desk, steaming envelopes, and walked down the
street, into the future. "ill be a postman" he thought. "wont have to spy on
anybody".

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sly010
Since we are talking about a technology that basically speculates about
people, it's kind of funny that according to the article the "New Orleans
Police Department's Director of Analytics" is called Ben Horwitz. Hmm...

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alexilliamson
What are you implying?

