
Palantir’s User Manual for Cops - ericzawo
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9kx4z8/revealed-this-is-palantirs-top-secret-user-manual-for-cops
======
strooper
> "Palantir software is instrumental to the operations of ICE, which is
> planning one of the largest-ever targeted immigration enforcement raids this
> weekend on thousands of undocumented families. Activists argue raids of this
> scale would be impossible without software like Palantir."

Once and for all, it is the policy makers, not the tech industry, who are
responsible for these operations. Tech enables people doing things easily,
which can be good or evil. It is people, who should decide, be concern and
push the lawmakers towards the right/justified path.

~~~
_iyig
I'm an American citizen who is happy to see the law enforced. I don't live in
Atherton or Palo Alto. There were two Central American gang-related shootings
near my family's home last week; there were two MS-13 murders in the broader
area earlier this year. I grew up here, and it didn't used to be like this. I
want to see those who come here illegally, or who have been denied refugee
status as the result of due process, deported.

I don't care what race, nationality, or religion they are. I also want to see
families and young kids kept together, and treated humanely. But at the end of
the day, we [the U.S.] are a nation of laws, or we are not. I'm proud of
Palantir's efforts to help enforce the (democratically-enacted,
internationally-conventional) law of the land.

~~~
elbasti
I believe a [citation needed] is required for the claim that US immigration
policy is "internationally conventional".

There is of course enormous variance in how countries handle immigration, but
the ethical and conventional policy could be summarized as:

1\. Border enforcement. Ie, try to prevent people from entering illegally

2\. Tolerance for those who are illegally present

(2) Means that a person who emigrated illegally should be able to exist
outside the shadows. That is, they should be able to get ID, work, drive, etc
while their immigration case is decided, often indefinitely. As well, parents
of children born-in country can apply for residence in the EU, for example.

This obviously makes an enormous amount of practical sense. All of the
"problems" with illegal immigration ('job stealing', not paying taxes, etc)
are exacerbated when people cannot legally work. Distinguishing between MS-13
members and hotel room cleaners is harder when the latter cannot integrate.

Lastly, there is an enormous moral cost to the "crackdown" immigration policy
enacted by the US Government. Undocumented immigrants live in constant fear,
poverty and exploitation. This is a real ethical and moral cost for an act
which is, at the end of the day, pretty benign.

The US is a nation of laws, but the punishment (Can't complain when you're
exploited! Can't sign a lease! Get deported to a country you left when you
were two weeks old!) for illegal immigration is completely disproportionate to
the crime.

~~~
_iyig
Mexico is deporting illegal migrants at the highest rate since 2006, and has
deployed the military on their southern border:

[https://www.teledoce.com/telemundo/internacionales/mexico-
au...](https://www.teledoce.com/telemundo/internacionales/mexico-aumento-
en-33-las-deportaciones-de-migrantes-tras-el-pacto-alcanzado-con-donald-
trump/)

The E.U. tightened their border control policies after a wave of terrorist
attacks and upsurge in far-right political activity. We ran the experiment,
and it turns out that's what happens when you let in millions of people with
little job skills from cultures that broadly have, among other things, very
regressive views on women's civil rights.

~~~
elbasti
1) I think if you re-read my comment you'll notice that the issue with the US
policy isn't loose borders, it's unethical treatment of people who make it
_past_ the border.

2) Mexico's deportations are just as unethical as the US ones.

~~~
username90
The main issue with the US policy is that states doesn't follow it, leaving
millions of undocumented immigrants in the country. The correct course of
action is to document undocumented immigrants and then keep track of them
while you decide if they are allowed to stay or not, not to try to hide them
like many American states do.

------
rsweeney21
I'm mixed on this.

I hired a former CIA analyst a few years ago. Part of his job at the CIA was
to contribute to the daily briefings provided to president Obama. I asked him
how he felt about the ethics of spying on American citizens. He said I
wouldn't believe the number of threats that were prevented on a daily basis
because of the tools and data they have access to. He said they don't share
the information about what or how many crimes they prevent because it would
cause panic. They also don't share that information because it would give away
how they were uncovering the plans.

It seemed like a viable explanation and I don't think he had any incentive to
embellish...but it also seemed like something big brother would say to get me
to give up freedoms.

~~~
lisper
> it also seemed like something big brother would say to get me to give up
> freedoms

Or to keep up morale at the agency.

The one indisputable fact is that _actual_ attacks are very rare. So there are
only two possibilities:

1\. Law enforcement is exceptionally effective at stopping them, or

2\. There are very few attempted attacks to begin with.

Here's a data point to help you decide which of these is more likely:

[https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-
undercover-...](https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-
operation-us-airports/story?id=51022188)

~~~
akiselev
I don't think a datapoint about a bunch of airport security guards paid
minimum wage with minimal training is relevant to the intelligence community.

At least I hope not.

~~~
lisper
Law enforcement (of which TSA is a subset) is a customer of the intelligence
community. If they aren't, what could possibly be the point?

(You might also want to re-read the headline.)

------
ummonk
Would this be all that shocking to the general public? Watch any detective
show and the fictional tools there are at least as capable as this real life
tool.

~~~
ng12
Not any more than it should be shocking to a forum of computer scientists that
police agencies have tools to query a database and produce visualizations.

------
spraak
I feel so ignorant that I didn't know such a company was behind tslint. I
wonder what Palantir uses TS for specifically

~~~
ng12
Building web applications, I'd imagine. Why is that surprising?

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gundmc
It blows my mind that Google and Facebook have been demonized by the wider
media as "surveillance capitalism" while Palantir, who for all intents and
purposes is literally a surveillance tech giant, has largely escaped public
consciousness and criticism.

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spinlock
One piece of data they cannot access is firearm ownership. It is illegal to
use a computer to store information about guns in America.

~~~
Doches
This is genuinely the most amusing joke I've heard today. How do you think
background checks for purchases work?

~~~
dfsegoat
I am not sure why it is amusing? The interpretation is correct:

The background system is called NICS [1], and all information submitted to it
is destroyed after 1 day. The system only outputs PROCEED or DENY to the FFL
when someone is being checked for a firearms purchase.

1 - "Per Title 28, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 25.9(b)(1), (2), and (3),
the NICS Section must destroy all identifying information on allowed
transactions prior to the start of the next NICS operational day. If a
potential purchaser is delayed or denied a firearm and successfully appeals
the decision, the NICS Section cannot retain a record of the overturned
appeal."

[https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/nics/about-
nics](https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/nics/about-nics)

~~~
ORioN63
What about FFL? Can FFL entities keep data about gun trade and share it with
third parties?

------
chance_state
What motivates extremely talented tech workers to devote their limited working
years to making the world a worse place to live in?

~~~
_iyig
What leads well-off Americans, whose safety and comfort is guaranteed by the
constant efforts of law enforcement, to conclude that legal efforts to make
law enforcement more efficient would make the world a worse place?

~~~
sswezey
Ethics. The amount and scope of information collected by things like Palantir
Gotham is beyond invasive. The fact that a police officer can type in your
name and know where you were driving is disconcerting. It is about as Big
Brother as you can get and not the kind of world I would like to live in. This
question is a slippery slope, where people become more and more accustomed to
less privacy. If you think this is justifiable, I would highly suggest reading
up about the the Stasi in East Germany or read 1984.

~~~
zymhan
This exact issue was pointed out many times with automated license plate
scanning came into existence. Is it really Palantir's fault for making
software to aggregate the data? In my view it is our fault as citizens for
allowing the government to collect such data in the first place.

Any other company with enough developers and data scientists can do what
Palantir does. It's the massive amount of information their software uses that
is the concern. But that data is collected by our government, and so we have
legal recourse to it, either under current law or by passing new privacy laws.

~~~
mdorazio
That’s like asking if it’s really a murderer’s fault for pulling the trigger
of a gun manufactured by someone else. Yes, it absolutely is their fault and
no, “if they didn’t, someone else would” is _not_ a valid moral excuse, ever.

~~~
zymhan
Who is the murderer in this analogy? To me it's the government misusing such a
tool.

~~~
mdorazio
Palantir. The government is the gun manufacturer collecting all the needed
data in various places.

~~~
zymhan
Why though? Palantir isn't the one using the tools for ill. The government is
collecting the information and using it, possibly, to violate civil liberties
and constitutional rights.

What can Palantir do to you?

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zymhan
I was under the impression "Gotham" is the name of their NYC office, not a
product.

~~~
akusete
Por que no los dos?

