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

washingtonpost.com

151–160 of 231 posts

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

#151

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!

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?

: 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.

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

#152
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? Every news article I've seen shows that the problem is far worse under Trump.

It actually was higher under Obama - https://www.axios.com/immigration-ice-deportation-trump-obam... >By the numbers: Under the Obama administration, total ICE deportations were above 385,000 each year in fiscal years 2009-2011, and hit a high of 409,849 in fiscal 2012. The numbers dropped to below 250,000 in fiscal years 2015 and 2016. >Under Trump, ICE deportations fell to 226,119 in fiscal 2017, then ticked up to…

What does that have to do with the rate of kids dying in cages?

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

#153
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 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…

obama did just as bad things, most of these policies started under him. people like you just didn’t care

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

#154
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So, building a wall would have exactly zero impact on the influx of refugees, and I'm not sure why that isn't brought up more often. Border Patrol is still required to hear asylum claims and grant the person entry into the US if they pass a credible fear interview.

We're talking about the detention facilities, not whether there should be a physical barrier on the border.

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

#155
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually was higher under Obama - https://www.axios.com/immigration-ice-deportation-trump-obam... >By the numbers: Under the Obama administration, total ICE deportations were above 385,000 each year in fiscal years 2009-2011, and hit a high of 409,849 in fiscal 2012. The numbers dropped to below 250,000 in fiscal years 2015 and 2016. >Under Trump, ICE deportations fell to 226,119 in fiscal 2017, then ticked up to…

What does that have to do with the rate of kids dying in cages?

Sorry, I don't support Trump or ICE. But it's dishonest to act like Obama was a leftist, this has been an ongoing problem for a while.

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

#156

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…

How has immigration policy in the US become "explicitly racist"? Immigration law has essentially remained unchanged. DACA was repealed, but DACA was an executive action not partial to country of origin. H-1B denials have increased, but based on pre-existing requirements and quotas. Administrative changes in asylum rules and public charge requirements affect every immigrant regardless of country of origin or race.

Remember the Muslim ban? That was racist. You know, for starters...

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

#157
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICE isnt a war criminal. They're a law enforcement agency

The similarity is in the fact that, like war criminals, they are committing acts that many would classify as crimes against humanity.

The hype and angst that some people are raising over fake news articles is reaching a fevered pitch. I don't think I've ever seen such a dichotomy between what the left and the right believe to be true.

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to hear you may have experienced this. But is it really fair to call it "Mexican" heroin? Is that a bonafide statement or an assumption? Lethal drugs don't explicitly come from outside the US, and in the presence of stronger border security the supply-demand curve would just re-balance itself with an all domestic supply. Heroin has always been illegal. Illegally crossing the border has always been illegal.…

Demonizing immigration? How about simply enforcing the law against coming or staying here illegally while others wait in line?

I was responding to a specific comment where the OP insinuated that overdose deaths were caused by "Mexican" heroin as reasoning to support strict immigration enforcement.

I was simply pointing out that it is highly unlikely that he actually knows where the drugs came from and therefore it is an unfair assumption to blame Mexico (and Mexicans) for something that could have just as easily come from Spokane Washington.

Using the death of a loved one who killed themselves presumably by accident to pass any kind of law that isn't relevant to the circumstances surrounding the death is disingenuous. It's like if Mothers Against Drunk Driving wanted to close the Canadian border because someone might drink Molson beer and crash their car.

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

#159
post #128
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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? False dichotomy, intellectual dishonesty, etc. How about abolishing inhumane practices, period? How about not trying to placate victims to abuse by saying "oh it's not so bad, at least you have real beds"?

It's not a false dichotomy to compare the two things that were explicitly compared. My initial response was to someone who said that Trump got elected and ICE started with child separation, concentration camps, and racism. The objectively verifiable items in that list are child separation and concentration camps. The reality is that under Obama both of those things started and in the years since, both under Obama and under Trump, the child separation continues, but the detention facilities have improved. When I pointed this out, the first response was "you and I have different ideas of better."

You are entitled to ask for a discussion of different policy choices, but the reality is that children were detained in shittier conditions under Obama than they are under Trump.

There's literally only two possible reasons why a person would think that the worse conditions is better. 1- the person preferring the worse conditions is stupid. 2- they want a club to bludgeon Trump with, even if that club is suffering children. Which do you think better describes bovermyer?

My post is neither a false dichotomy nor intellectually dishonest.

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

#160

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…

obama did just as bad things, most of these policies started under him. people like you just didn’t care

Not really.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/us/politics/fact-check-tr...

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