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The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

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Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#91

Post by cybersnowflake »

openasocket wrote: post #53
cybersnowflake wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> If you're a citizen and you commit certain crimes you are separated from your children The overwhelming majority of these cases are people coming to the border and requesting asylum. They passed a credible fear interview administered by CBP, and have been granted entry into the US pending their hearing. They have not committed a crime.

Link to proof that every single immigrant family seeking asylum is separated from their children is current official policy and not just those guilty or suspected of some crime.

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#92

Post by jakear »

tempsy wrote: post #46
mulmen wrote: post #2

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.

I also don't understand this. Seems like if you were willing to work for Palantir before this made news you'd have understood that surveillance tech to police depts, corporations, etc. is exactly what the company sells/enables. I did have a recruiter reach out a long time ago and remember they did actually pitch the social good use case of helping law enforcement find and arrest criminals involved in child prostituti…

I had a recruiter reach out, and I actually played along with their interview process, but at every step of the way I’d inquire about the company’s ethics. Nailed all the tech questions, but in the end did not get an offer.

Maybe I didn’t do as well as I thought I did on the tech, or maybe Palantir recruiting is selecting for people who don’t ask questions.

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#93

Post by _bxg1 »

1111236112347 wrote: post #82
_bxg1 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they do stuff like this https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/border-patrol-agent-deta...

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... 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 l…

> 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.

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#94

Post by prepend »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #79
prepend wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

That’s pretty funny, I’ve never heard of that shirt. I just remembered the Palantir as the coolest thing ever when I was 8 and read about it. Years later learning someone named that company that made sense to me before I had any idea what they did. Was actually kind of let down because I was expecting some sort of AI/ knowledge company.

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#95

Post by ceejayoz »

basseq wrote: post #90
CydeWeys wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interviewed with Palantir maybe seven years ago (didn't get the job) and definitely wasn't aware at the time that they were doing this kind of work, if they even were back then. And had I known they were doing CBP stuff, I may have been OK with it under Obama even. It wasn't until Trump got elected and immigration policy became explicitly racist and enforcement child-separationy and concentration-campy that I reall…

Counter-anecdote: I interviewed with Palatir 6.5 years ago (also didn't get the job) and was absolutely made aware that a core part of their business was in law enforcement at both the Federal and State level.

For many folks, "we do business with the FBI" and "we do business with ICE" are still different moral realms.

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#96

Post by prepend »

notJim wrote: post #56
prepend wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not their core business. Their core business is data analysis. If I remember from some tech book, they were spun out from the fraud department in PayPal detecting fraudulent transactions and then selling services to FBI. I became familiar with them through their disease prevention activities trying to evaluate bug transmissions and food borne diseases. Certainly, you can analyze innocent people, but it’s not…

> Their core business is data analysis. This is like saying Raytheon's core business is antennas. Yes, Palantir does data analysis, specifically for ICE, the military and the police.

Palantir is private so hard to know revenue breakdown. But hard to believe that over 50% of their revenue (what I would consider core) comes from ICE, military and police.

I found this article [0] from 2018 that said half of its $1B in revenue comes from government and the other half from corporate.

So if every penny of government work comes from ICE and ICE-likes maybe that’s core.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-16/palantir-...

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#97

Post by 3sd63_w92jw »

tempsy wrote: post #46
mulmen wrote: post #2

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.

I also don't understand this. Seems like if you were willing to work for Palantir before this made news you'd have understood that surveillance tech to police depts, corporations, etc. is exactly what the company sells/enables. I did have a recruiter reach out a long time ago and remember they did actually pitch the social good use case of helping law enforcement find and arrest criminals involved in child prostituti…

But people can change their opinions as new information becomes available to them. Also, organizations are dynamic and change over time. Willingness to work for someone yesterday is no guarantee of willingness to work for them tomorrow should they change for the worse.

20-30 years ago companies like Yahoo and Oracle were innovators. They had robust software engineering and R&D operations that could attract the top talent in the field. Now, not so much...

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#98

Post by jbob2000 »

burger_moon wrote: post #32

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.

Every tech company I've ever worked for has done a project, in some way, with the government. I worked for a small healthcare startup of 5 developers, we had government contracts. I worked for a medium sized dropbox-like startup, we had government contracts.

Unless you're some dinky, meaningless, retail company, you will do business with the government at some point. That's not a bad thing, it means your company is actually doing something important.

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#99

Post by wang_li »

bovermyer wrote: post #73
wang_li wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean enforcing the laws of the US and controlling the borders of the country? Yes, that is good. They are dealing with a situation largely created by the people illegally crossing the border. It's crazy to think that any country should maintain 4-star luxury housing sufficient to house the global population just in case. The reality is that the US is not being cruel or harming people. And ICE has upgraded the fac…

You and I have very different ideas of what constitutes "better."

My idea of better is things like walls instead of chain link fences and beds instead of sleeping pallets.

Is your idea of better actual cages and thin mattresses on the floor but with the cool president instead of higher quality conditions but the crass president? That seems quite self serving and inhumane.

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#100

Post by 1111236112347 »

_bxg1 wrote: post #93
1111236112347 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... 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 l…

> 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 o…

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?

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