
How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped expand the NSA’s global spy network - swalsh
https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/
======
redwood
I just don't understand how he can call himself a libertarian. Self-
rationalizing has no ends.

~~~
clydethefrog
Look at the people behind Y Combinator that condemn Trump because according to
them he represents a real threat to the safety of women, minorities, and
immigrants[0], but at the same time have many financial ties with Thiel's
practices. They have financial power to take a stand against this threat, but
decide not do it.

[0]
[http://blog.samaltman.com/the-2016-election](http://blog.samaltman.com/the-2016-election)

~~~
potatosoup
> He represents a real threat to the safety of women, minorities, and
> immigrants

As an immigrant myself, I keep seeing famous people write this, but I want
some kind of "citation needed." What plans does this actually refer to?

~~~
beachstartup
they deliberately conflate legal (skilled) immigrants and illegal aliens. to
them, there is no difference.

it is a hyper-egalitarian interpretation of the word 'immigrant' with no basis
in law or social norms.

~~~
humanrebar
> no basis in law or social norms

To push back a little...

I'm generally pro immigration and didn't vote for Trump (partly for these
reasons). But there are valid points to be made about:

* what a healthy level of immigration is

* what a healthy immigration process looks like

* how much should family concerns affect immigration chances

* how much should professional skills affect immigration chances

* how to enforce immigration laws

The above are _entirely_ about law and social norms. Just because you disagree
doesn't mean there are no valid points.

Not engaging those points is just retrenching people, promoting more division,
and making reasonable people side with unreasonable ones like Trump. I'm
gathering that most people who voted for Trump voted for the least bad option
in their minds, not because they wanted a buffoon for a president.

~~~
beachstartup
wow, i must suck at writing because you just made the same point i did.

namely: legal and illegal immigration are completely different things and
anyone who says otherwise is disregarding law and social norms.

~~~
humanrebar
I was saying that social norms and _ideal_ laws aren't uniform and it's more
productive to start from there.

The point about legal vs. illegal immigration being different is well taken. I
presume even Trump agrees with that given his immigrant family.

------
angry-hacker
What about ex president Obama who actually used the tech? So much outrage for
Thiel, but where were the protests when Obama wiretapped the world?

Ps. I think Thiel is a hypocrite if he really thinks himself as libertarian.
Also, despite having money and power I think he has big balls to go against SV
where he made himself. I also don't understand how did he became so powerful,
every time he talks.. He has charisma of an old rag.

~~~
zzzeek
> but where were the protests when Obama wiretapped the world?

right here:

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/26/nsa-rally-
stop...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/26/nsa-rally-stop-
watching-washington-snowden)

now stop derailing. Thiel is the one in power right now.

~~~
ygaf
"Yes We Scan", I remember that.

------
griffinmmahon
As far as I can tell, there's no new "technology" in whatever product Palantir
offers (I have briefly used it before?). It seems to me that it's just a
program for data visualization, which given that the government is one of
their customers, is quite the grifting of the public.

~~~
clydethefrog
The technology in the first iPhone ten years ago also existed for many years.
Look how much society has changed thanks to Apple strategy of combining
technology with design and good usability.

That's the real and in my opinion frightening innovation behind Palantir. It's
selling mass surveillance that "just works".

~~~
liquidise
They are selling data visualization, not mass surveillance. There is a key
distinction here. If it had some out that MongoDB was being used as the
underlying datastore for XKS or that Tableau was being used to visualize the
data, would we be decrying those products too?

~~~
throwaway2048
MongoDB developers arnt not writing said software in a way specificly targeted
at government usage for surveillance.

------
Nomentatus
Peter Thiel is at a disadvantage here, unless of course zip1234 is Peter
Thiel. He can't answer here or elsewhere about the apparent contradiction
between Palantir's use and his libertarianism. His corporate responsibilities
forbid it, since his comments might not be entirely positive about Palantir.

I can think of a couple of arguments. One, that he set out to make hammers and
thought they'd be used more responsibly but now can't exit without doing more
harm than good to others who's loyalty he asked for. Or perhaps he thinks that
libertarian regimes are only likely to arise from the collapse of totalitarian
governance; or that abuse is inevitable from non-ideal-libertarian governments
so it's the only game in town right now.

I'd love to know his answer, but as I've said, I don't think he's in a
position to disclose it.

------
lmdok
IP addresses on some slides were redacted but are still available here:

[https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-
uploads/sites/1/20...](https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-
uploads/sites/1/2017/02/Screen-
Shot-2017-02-13-at-4.29.14-PM-1487021383-1000x702-1487705673.png)

and mirrored here

[https://imgh.us/Screen-
Shot-2017-02-13-at-4.29.14-PM-1487021...](https://imgh.us/Screen-
Shot-2017-02-13-at-4.29.14-PM-1487021383-1000x702-1487705673.png)

------
dgut
So, a former Gawker Media writer decides to point out the US goverment is
using Thiel's data analysis and visualization company and you all (nearly all
of you) jump on the hate-train. You people are starting to act like a quasi-
religious group, and you've found your devil!

Palentir itself doesn't collect data. Palentir is used for a variety of
purposes, including medical and scientific research.

The article contains several false claims, take "[...] documents provided by
Edward Snowden, that Palantir has helped expand and accelerate the NSA’s
global spy network". I don't have the time to go through each false claim.

From Palentir's website:

[https://www.palantir.com/diversity/](https://www.palantir.com/diversity/)

\- Fully paid parental leave at the birth, adoption, or foster placement of a
child.

\- Fully paid medical coverage for spouses and domestic partners, regardless
of gender identity or expression.

\- Equal health coverage for transgender individuals without exclusion for
medically necessary care.

\- Wellness subsidy to support a wide range of health needs.

That's actually a pretty good company to work at.

~~~
piva00
I don't follow what benefits to work at a company has anything to do with the
ethics of its actions.

Note that I'm not accusing Palantir of doing whatever this article accuses
them of but your argument to support the company based on its perks is very
moot.

~~~
dgut
I pointed out these perks in response to some comments in this thread claiming
Thiel is anti LGBT, racist and sexist. The company profile is in fact very
diverse [1].

[1] [https://www.palantir.com/diversity/](https://www.palantir.com/diversity/)

~~~
harry8
Peter Thiel - date rape is belated regret. I call sexist.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/21/peter-
thi...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/21/peter-thiel-
support-donald-trump-date-rape-book)

Apartheid is good - I call racist.
[http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/03/500...](http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/03/500569299/major-
trump-backers-positive-comments-about-apartheid-stir-anger)

Palantir are freaking evil article hits the front page. "Hey come and work fcr
palantir" is top post. Do you work for palantir dgut? You have time for a
follow up about how good palantir is to work for but not to substantiate your
claim the article contains falsehoods.

Pretty poor effort.

~~~
dgut
Thiel wrote a book 22 years ago under his college years. So what? He later
retreated that position and apologized. I consider it a good thing when people
discuss sensitive topics.

It's pointless to discuss what Thiel said or not about apartheid, since the
allegations are purely anecdotal.

Calm down your paranoia.

Edit: I want to point out that in the country where I currently reside, this
is a very natural discussion [1]

[1] [https://morgenbladet.no/2016/08/elin-orjasaeter-voldtekt-
og-...](https://morgenbladet.no/2016/08/elin-orjasaeter-voldtekt-og-uonsket-
fyllesex)

~~~
harry8
Still no time to substantiate your claims in the top post but time for this
non-event, though. I call it how it looks, feel free to provide substance to
the claims in your original post. That would seem appropriate to HN.

------
brilliantcode
My personal opinion of Thiel aside...sad to see all this talent and potential
being wasted on keeping fellow humans down...by using technology & software in
the cruelest and darkest contexts...

------
arca_vorago
While there is plenty of discussion to be had on Palanyir, I think the more
relevant discussion would be in the role the CIA plays in infiltration-by-
default through In-Q-Tel of companies we like to forget got their start there,
such as Facebook and Google and many more.

~~~
arca_vorago
To clarify, I understand that George Tenet said that IQT was completely
seperate from _the company_ , but I doubt anyone really beleives that. If you
really think there is such a seperation I would like to know what indicates
that seperation to you. (for example, I could imagine one argument being the
prism documents showing resistence to tapping from google) Hence, I think it's
a relevant issue to bring up that Google and Facebook and others may have had
CIA-inside from the start, which could explain some of the privacy-eroding
feature-creep and mass-cognitive influence that has happened since both of
their inceptions. You can bury your head in the sand all you want, but think
of the implications if I am even partially correct about that.

------
0x27081990
Most comments here seem to hate Peter Thiel, but when it comes to Bill Gates,
Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page (all whom seem to be in bed with governments
since a long time and worked with Hillary Clinton's campaign staff), well
there's nothing wrong there because democrats are the good guys, right?

What would you do in their place? They don't make the rules. Government does,
and you vote for government. So don't try to blame them.

IBM, Microsoft and RedHat main clients are the US Government. You think they
don't have backdoors? What about Google and Facebook?

For the record, I'm not even American so don't start calling me whatever you
call Trump supporters. I'm libertarian.

~~~
throwaway2048
Multiple people can be bad for reasons entirely their own, "but shes doing it
TOOOOOOO" is the reasoning and defense of a child.

~~~
holydude
Where did he imply he was defending it ? He was just pointing out that Peter
Thiel gets all the hate while Zuck and the others are praised as technology
innovators and saviors of humanity.

~~~
throwaway2048
hardly, all the people he named get critisized constantly, here especially.

~~~
0x27081990
Wait to see 2020 when everybody here will be on Zuckerberg For President's
train

------
metaphorm
what did you expect from a vampire?

------
trome
So, why does anyone pay attention to the truly awful human being known as
Peter Thiel? Between his plots to destroy the infrastructure that allowed
PayPal and Y Combinator to be built, and his active attempts to rip away
rights from other LGBT people, of which he is one, it seems like a poor idea
to pay this person any mind.

~~~
reese_john
What are some of his active attempts to rip away LGBT rights?

~~~
Dagwoodie
He voted for a <whisper>Republican</whisper>.

~~~
krath94
It's sad that people generalize about people that vote Republican. Most
republicans (or people that vote republican) I have met, including myself,
have been supportive of the LGBT community. Not ALL Republicans are against
LGBT, just like not all liberals want free government handouts. These
generalizations about the "other side" are counter-productive.

Also, I'm not saying you came across as generalizing, I know you were making a
joke, but a lot of people actually do think this way.

~~~
foldr
All of the Republican nominees this time around were opposed to gay marriage.
So it doesn't seem to be that unfair to generalize to the conclusion that
Republicans aren't very concerned about LGBT rights. They're certainly willing
to vote for candidates who don't support LGBT rights.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
They also added anti-LBGT elements to the GOP platform.

There are of course gay Republicans, and they argued against this, both on the
grounds that it's immoral and discriminatory, but also that it wasn't in the
Republican party's long term interest as younger members are far less anti-
LGBT but they couldn't convince anyone.

------
madengr
I stopped reading when I hit "petty and vengeful".

------
zip1234
Palantir makes an analysis tool. Excel is also used for Intel analysis. Does
that make Bill Gates evil? Poor click bait article that starts off with
personal attacks and is completely meant to sensationalize what is basically a
souped up MS Excel.

~~~
Nokinside
Someone might argue that there is difference between off the shelf analysis
tool and government contractor selling his services.

~~~
zip1234
A fair critique although Microsoft is also a government contractor. I suppose
the difference is that their income is not entirely dependent on the
government.

