
The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees - Balgair
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/08/22/war-inside-palantir-data-mining-firms-ties-ice-under-attack-by-employees/
======
burger_moon
It's kinda interesting how people are just now realizing that all the big tech
companies are government contractors and not this imaginary utopia of 'making
the world a better place' they were sold on.

Google, Amazon, Microsoft are all US gov't contractors. It's hilariously
ironic seeing the political views of the employees suddenly clashing with
their employers views of making money as if it's a new thing.

~~~
burtonator
This isn't a new debate though...

My grandfather started a company which was a smaller player in the military
contracting space.

It was somewhat large and his argument was that he was always 'helping
democracy' but he was willfully blind IMO.

It's always going to be a bit fuzzy but it's another thing entirely when the
organization you're selling to is just flat out evil.

------
mulmen
Maybe I misunderstand Palantir's mission but working with LEOs like ICE seems
to be their core business. All credit to these employees for standing up for
what they believe in but what exactly did they think they were signing up for?

I have a new coworker who wears his Palantir t-shirt and it makes me
uncomfortable to even see the name in my office.

~~~
qazpot
I am assuming ICE is "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement". I am not from
USA but why every comment here is implying ICE to be some evil thing.

~~~
_bxg1
Because they do stuff like this

[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/border-patrol-agent-
deta...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/border-patrol-agent-detains-
women-speaking-spanish-montana-gas-station-n876096)

~~~
1111236112347
Note that the article you linked is about CBP, which is not part of ICE.

Also note that ICE doesn't just enforce immigration laws, they also do things
like this: [https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/missouri-felon-indicted-
se...](https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/missouri-felon-indicted-second-time-
illegally-possessing-silencer-conversion-switches)

Officers executed a search warrant at Lee’s residence and found numerous
firearms, ammunition, firearm suppressors, suspected methamphetamine,
marijuana, suspected stolen farm equipment, and a large amount of cash. Lee
told officers that he received 10 to15 past deliveries of the selector
switches, and that he converted and successfully fired a Glock pistol as a
fully automatic firearm.

~~~
_bxg1
> The superseding indictment resulted from an investigation by the following
> agencies: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security
> Investigations (HSI); Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives;
> U.S. Postal Inspection Service; and Newton (Missouri) Sheriff’s Department.

I'd rather take the chance that those _several other law enforcement agencies_
couldn't have worked it out on their own than have thousands of innocent
families torn apart and kept in cages.

~~~
1111236112347
Is this an either/or choice? Does HSI have to not exist in order to prevent
reprehensible treatment of migrant families?

Conversely, would eliminating HSI prevent such reprehensible treatment of
migrant families? Wouldn't the abuses just pop up elsewhere, given the agenda
of the current administration?

~~~
_bxg1
> Does HSI have to not exist in order to prevent reprehensible treatment of
> migrant families?

It sure seems that way. And people often forget that we didn't have these
agencies at all before 9/11, and we did just fine. Metal detectors and
stronger cockpit doors are well and good, but what we have are agencies that
were created in a time of extreme fear, and have held on to fear as their
guiding ethos.

> Wouldn't the abuses just pop up elsewhere, given the agenda of the current
> administration?

Maybe, I don't know. But the problem right now is they have an excuse. We're
giving people license to commit whatever thuggish, nationalistic fantasies
they want, all sanctioned under some vague "rule of law" argument where the
letter has far, far outstripped the spirit. And what we end up with are goon
squads harassing and imprisoning innocents based on technicalities. I don't
think that sort of thing could persist at this scale without the pretense that
these agencies provide.

I'll put it this way: I live in southern Texas. I'm who they're allegedly
protecting. And if ICE were abolished overnight, I would throw a party.

~~~
1111236112347
> And people often forget that we didn't have these agencies at all before
> 9/11, and we did just fine.

ICE wasn't created out of thin air, it was formed by merging and reorganizing
existing organizations including Customs and INS.

> We're giving people license to commit whatever thuggish, nationalistic
> fantasies they want, all sanctioned under some vague "rule of law" argument
> where the letter has far, far outstripped the spirit.

I agree this is happening and we need to do something to stop it. At the same
time, I don't believe this is the only thing that's happening in ICE, as it's
a large and complex organization.

> if ICE were abolished overnight, I would throw a party.

If that happened but the fundamental issue of nationalism and lack of concern
for human rights was not addressed, I think we could end up in an even worse
place than we are currently.

I'm not against abolishing ICE, but I don't think it's a solution in itself.
The fundamental issue, in my opinion, is a lack of empathy and understanding
for people who seem different, and it's happening on a large scale. I believe
that is a much harder issue to tackle compared to restructuring our federal
bureaucracy, but that's what we should be focusing on to make a real, lasting
impact. Restructuring without addressing the underlying issue seems like a
placebo that would do more harm than good.

------
kd3
It's not just ICE but the entire government that is a problem. I personally
stopped accepting any work from any government a few years ago. Once you
realize what government is, there's no going back.

"The State […] is an anti-social institution, administered in the only way an
anti-social institution can be administered, and by the kind of person who, in
the nature of things, is best adapted to such service [a psychopath]. Taking
the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no
way to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and
beneficiaries from those of a professional-criminal class. As Dr. Sigmund
Freud has observed, it can not even be said that the State has ever shown any
disposition to suppress crime, but only to safeguard its own monopoly of
crime." \- Albert J. Nock in “Our Enemy, The State”

~~~
duqd_
It makes me sad that so many people are unwilling to engage with this
position. Anarchism is unreasonably vilified imo.

~~~
frenchyatwork
A big problem with anarchy is that it's really complicated and is usually
either misunderstood by the proponent or the listeners. Anarchy is about
levelling the playing field and reducing the power that the most powerful
structures have in our society. The problem of removing power structures in
institutions, is that they will naturally get replaced by other ones, and the
replacements are often as authoritarian as the originals.

In the US, it's popular to think that you can somehow replace elected
government (where power is somewhat dependant on votes, and somewhat dependent
on advertising budgets/capital) with business (where power is dependent
entirely on capital), and that somehow this is more "anarchist". This is a
naive idea.

------
caymanjim
Palantir's entire business is providing data mining and surveillance software
to government agencies. ICE is probably the least-morally-reprehensible thing
they support. They are deeply involved with DHS, CIA, NSA, all manner of
classified agencies. If any of their employees have a problem with ICE, they
never belonged there in the first place.

~~~
1111236112347
> Palantir's entire business is providing data mining and surveillance
> software to government agencies.

Palantir has a number of commercial customers, here's a few examples:
[https://www.palantir.com/palantir-
foundry/impact/](https://www.palantir.com/palantir-foundry/impact/)

~~~
nabnob
>Its two main products are Palantir Gotham and Palantir Metropolis, more geeky
winks from a company whose Tolkien namesake is a type of magical sphere used
by the evil lord Sauron to surveil, trick, and threaten his enemies across
Middle Earth. While Palantir Metropolis is pegged to quantitative analysis for
Wall Street banks and hedge funds, Gotham (formerly Palantir Government) is
designed for the needs of intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security
customers.

[https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-
palanti...](https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-
helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/)

------
totoasticot
I'm maybe wrong, but I would like to share some ideas.

Where does this money is coming from ? I mean, does the whole question isn't a
level "above" : why does such entity exists in a democratic gouvernement ?
Isn't it showing a deep loophole in the system ? Same idea : how is this
entity funded ? Isn't it with US-citizens's taxes ? So, aren't all US-citizens
involved in this story as well ? Why would Palantir's employees be more
involved than all the persons that allowed the money to be there for Palantir
to be funded ?

I'm seeing more Palantir as a consequence of a system's failure than its
premice.

Woild love to discuss about that however.

------
olliej
Uhh, but unlike other tech companies palantir’s core business model is
violating the privacy of individuals to support the governments of many
countries. Protesting your employer doing what it has always said it did is a
bit rich.

------
htek
That seems... odd? They're fine with the domestic spying, pre-crime profiling
based on flimsy evidence, but help with rounding up people for the
concentration camps and people suddenly get cold feet.

------
cybersnowflake
Palantir: hey dude want to work for a company whose job it is to help punish
people, manipulate, and violate their privacy through big data?

Engineer: sure! Just as long as I'm not enforcing a national border that's
where I draw the line!

~~~
gervase
If you replace "punish" with "control" I think that's an easily-extensible
template, because isn't that ultimately tied to the personal ethics of the
employee?

<Some Company>: hey dude want to work for a company whose job it is to help
manipulate and control people by violating their privacy through big data?

Engineer: sure! Just as long as it doesn't violate this very specific aspect
of my personal ethics!

That could easily describe Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.

------
_bxg1
The company is literally named after the magic orb that Sauron uses to surveil
Middle-Earth. I don't know what you expected.

~~~
prepend
It’s not the Palantir that are bad, but Sauron and Saruman. They were created
by elves for useful purposes.

Possibly the Palantir saved middle earth when Aragorn used it to scry events
leading up to the final battles.

~~~
AndrewBissell
I guess this explains the "Defend the Shire" shirts I see Palantir employees
wear sometimes. Always thought the idea they're on the side of the pastoral,
mind-their-own-business Hobbits was one of the most absurd misconceptions of
their purpose of any company in Silicon Valley, and that's _really_ saying
something.

~~~
alistairSH
Oh. Wow. That is insane. Photo for reference:

[https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/edit...](https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2016/01/11/103295500-Untitled-2.530x298.jpg?v=1452536513)

~~~
CydeWeys
I have one of these shirts (different color) and get favorable comments from
LOTR fans periodically who see me wearing it in public. The front just says
"Save the Shire", and it only says "Palantir" in smaller lettering on the
back.

It's a pretty good shirt, just going by people's reactions to it. I'm just
talking about the shirt in isolation though, not in the larger context of what
Palantir the company does for their business.

------
tzakrajs
I want to join Palantir just to disrupt their business because Peter Thiel is
a scum sucker and deserves the absolute worst workforce. Palantir should be
liquidated and the proceeds returned to tax payers.

~~~
dang
Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN, and especially not
ragey unsubstantive comments. They just make this place worse, and we're
hoping for better here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
ReptileMan
This is a big company profile for palantir with the "attackers" getting less
than a paragraph. 60 people out of 2500 is not much and the article didn't
mention who are they - so probably low level and easily replacable if they
decide to quit or be fired.

Those types of articles under the umbrella of "some people on twitter are
outraged about something" that give impression of society wide consensus when
they are a tiny minority or widespread action are distorting the discourse
quite a bit.

Also - they wanted Palantir to donate profits from ICE contracts, but they
didn't donate their salaries.

I wouldn't go after Thiel. The guy has a habbit of winning.

