this is kind of scary and sad when powerful technology is being misused ...probably it is better to live in China ??? ..the government openly monitoring its citizen instead of spying on them
Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
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Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#42I'm much less concerned with Palantir being used internally by corporations to detect information leaks (although in practice this also means it will be used to quash whistleblowers), since that's at least a viable use for their technology. And it's good that Palantir is pivoting towards less invasive applications of their technology such as supply chain tracking.
But the article touches on the biggest issue with Palantir, which is that they seem to be completely fine with allowing law enforcement agencies to use their software for parallel construction, which is in my opinion a pretty egregious violation of the 4th amendment. Although it may be constitutional for police departments to purchase data from e.g. Facebook or some data broker, even local police departments are known to employ dragnet-style surveillance through things like Stingray devices. Of course we have a number of three-letter agencies, also Palantir customers, who don't even need to pretend that they're following the 4th amendment.
Since Palantir is essentially enabling the construction of all the tools required for a complete surveillance state, and actively using their tools for that purpose for financial gain, I think that makes them one of the least ethical companies in tech. I certainly wouldn't be able to live with myself if I knew I was writing software with the explicit purpose of being able to track down rebels in Yemen, catch illegal immigrants, and violate the constitutional rights of millions of Americans.
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#43Culture flows from the top. Peter Thiel apparently views women's suffrage and poor people as "tough for libertarians [like him]". Can we talk about, well, how problematic it is that a company that has information on just about everyone (and all the power this yields) is lead by someone like this?
> As Thiel’s wealth has grown, he’s gotten more strident. In a 2009 essay for the Cato Institute, he railed against taxes, government, women, poor people, and society’s acquiescence to the inevitability of death. (Thiel doesn’t accept death as inexorable.) He wrote that he’d reached some radical conclusions: “Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” The 1920s was the last time one could feel “genuinely optimistic” about American democracy, he said; since then, “the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But if you’re not doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t have anything to hide, right? Isn’t that how the saying goes? The problem is that "wrong" can be anything arbitrary, and what's not "wrong" today, it can be "wrong" tomorrow, however arbitrary it is. Somewhere it is wrong (illegal) to call someone a "n*zi", even online. Also anyone who tells me that they have nothing to hide, I ask for their password. For some r…
Nothing to hide from the law != nothing to hide from you.
Law? These are people who have access to your data, how am I, a stranger, any different from any other stranger who have access to your data? Would it be OK if I indirectly obtained your password and use it to access your data or something?
Mind you, I was speaking in general about people who claim they don't care about their privacy, or about these companies collecting their personal data, or having a history of their private messages, etc.
How can you not care about them saving your conversations in plain text, but then suddenly care about it when I ask you to show it to me? The only difference seems to be that I'm actively, personally, directly asking you for it, but ultimately it would be the same outcome.
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#45I can't wait that EU citizen will hit them hard after May 25th.
I think palantir is CIA related... They probably are not going to worry about pesky international regulations
That's what sanctions are for. But I highly doubt the EU will ever sanction the US as they are so dependant on them.
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it may come as a surprise that a non-insurance, non-government business holds more private data about an individual than Facebook does Where in the article is that stated?
In the title?
It’s clickbait. It doesn’t state it or give a citation for it anywhere in the actual article.
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#47And they sell GPDR compliance solutions: https://www.palantir.com/solutions/gdpr/
Oh, the irony!
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
no I didn't, that's partly what I'm referencing. What specifically are you pointing to?
That's why they publish these kinds of stories. It's related to current events.
I realise this, but it stinks of artificial controversy. I get that a lot of people are unhappy that Trump was elected, but there are so many articles trying to spin Cambridge Analytica as some kind of shady political Illuminati instead of a me-too political digital consultancy, suggesting that Facebook collecting private data is a new shocking revelation, or now that we should be shocked that a big data processing government/enterprise contractor is processing big data for the government and enterprises. Alongside all the "democracy is broken" articles we're seeing, it seems to be all focused on harming the legitimacy of the election and implicating shady power players in the outcome, a play that would seem more at home on Alex Jones' show than splayed across every mainstream media outlet.
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#49Pop Quiz: Which two companies had their first office at 101 University Avenue in Palo Alto? The answer says quite a lot, I think.
I've found Piazza's Fine Foods Inc and PhysioTouch Inc. Not sure what I'm supposed to take away from this answer though.
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#50Why does the media seem to be publishing so many "well duh" tier articles about various companies at the moment? "Big data company collects big data", "company known for monetising private data collects private data", "political consulting company profiles voters and tries to affect vote". No shit?
> Why does the media…
Here’s a handy formula next time you ask yourself a similar question:
Why does the media X?
— Because people watch / listen to / read X.
Why do people read about companies collecting data? Because it sounds scary, and it blames someone who is not them. Fear + scapegoat + victimisation of people = read read read read.
Don’t think of it any more complex than this or you will drown in irrelevant details. They don’t matter, and they never will. Read some 19th century news papers to see this effect take hold with comical clarity.