
How Palantir Pushed Its Way into Policing - rbanffy
https://www.wired.com/story/how-peter-thiels-secretive-data-company-pushed-into-policing/?mbid=social_tw_backchannel
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clydethefrog
Previous discussion about this article:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14967371](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14967371)

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chillingeffect
> on two separate occasions, police shot at trucks misidentified as belonging
> to Dorner, injuring three civilians. [1]

> We used Palantir extensively to address that [1]

>A team of Los Angeles police officers protecting the home of a high-ranking
officer in the 19500 block of Redbeam Avenue believed a pickup that stopped in
front of the house matched Dorner’s Nissan Titan. Police opened fire, wounding
two women tossing copies of the Los Angeles Times onto porches. [1]

> a driver in another pickup that looked similar to Dorner’s drove toward them
> on Flagler Lane near Beryl Street. Officers, suspecting it was Dorner,
> purposely collided with the truck and shot at him. [1]

[1] [http://www.ocregister.com/2013/02/08/police-confuse-truck-
fo...](http://www.ocregister.com/2013/02/08/police-confuse-truck-for-dorners-
shoot-at-3-in-torrance/)

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token_throwaway
Interesting read. Sounds like some inefficient government bodies grappling
with complicated software that they dropped tons of money on without fully
understanding. And now they're using the insights from that software in a way
that doesn't work well. That reflects more poorly on the police depts than
Palantir.

For everyone's sake, I hope police are able to use data within reason to do
their jobs better. That will either involve police depts getting smarter about
spending on/using software, Palantir getting more user-friendly, or a company
focused on doing this well specifically for police departments disrupting
Palantir... all of these are good things which I hope happen in due time.

Also,

> "Palantir’s customers must rely on software that only the company itself can
> secure, upgrade, and maintain."

This is a weird thing to include. Were they hoping for open source?

~~~
eeZah7Ux
> complicated software that they dropped tons of money on without fully
> understanding. And now they're using the insights from that software

A complicated software telling cops where to start looking for suspects - what
could possibly go wrong?

Political and racial profiling as-a-service.

> I hope police are able to use data within reason

...how? You either trust the software and follow the "insights" or not.

>> "Palantir’s customers must rely on software that only the company itself
can secure, upgrade, and maintain." > This is a weird thing to include. Were
they hoping for open source?

In most countries the whole legal/judicial system is designed to be fully
transparent and thoroughly auditable to ensure fairness and impartiality.

Even at the cost of having a lengthy, expensive (for the tax payers) and
sometimes ineffective process. History shows that quick and cheap justice is
no justice.

Do you see the problem with having closed source software telling cops which
person / neighborhood / company investigate first?

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rdtsc
Selling to police departments can be quite lucrative. I know someone who sells
"forensics" software. I won't say what it does but it's both basic and snake-
oil-y at the same time. They are raking in big bucks. It's also not a market
many in the startup world thinks about usually.

> California’s cops have become accustomed to the adrenaline rush of data and
> analysis that Palantir provides, and the more departments that join, the
> more addictive its products.

It's just a matter of making the software seem and look like like magic.
Police departments traditionally are not very tech savvy, so they will readily
throw money at stuff they don't understand. Well, not unlike enterprises but
it's just more pronounced it seems.

~~~
jhanschoo
> I won't say what it does but it's both basic and snake-oil-y at the same
> time. They are raking in big bucks.

On the other hand in this case it seems like Palantir is providing some value-
add by nearly-transparently integrating data across departments which would
otherwise not be communicating with each other on this scale.

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thisisit
While the article provides a lot of good info, it is a very difficult read due
to the structuring.

Here's something which I found strange: "In fact, on two separate occasions,
police shot at trucks misidentified as belonging to Dorner, injuring three
civilians. “We said [to Palantir], ‘We need an application that can span
multiple units within an agency…multiple agencies within a county... and
multiple counties within a state,’” says Jackson. “[They developed an
application] based on lessons learned from Dorner.” That application, called
ClueMan, short for Clue Manager, has just gone live at JRIC."

Makes me wonder - Is software some day going to replace good police work?

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JackFr
Software giant uses opaque pricing and vendor lock in to bamboozle overmatched
civil servants. In the annals of government contracting, the fact that their
software seems to be useful and work pretty well is notable in itself.

