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

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

#211

Post by blackflame7000 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 11:32 PM UTC

openasocket wrote: post #208

wang_li wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paragraph 8 from your link: > The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) placed him in detention and commenced exclusion proceedings. Yes, people can apply for asylum after entering the country unlawfully. No, that doesn't mean you get free reign of the country while your case is decided. Nor does your illegal entry bar you from applying or receiving. It's notable though that the vast majority of asylum seekers…

> that doesn't mean you get free reign of the country while your case is decided Of course not, that's where bail hearings come into play. The state can't keep an asylum claimee detained indefinitely without providing due process and evidence this person is a flight risk. >This is easily seen by the fact that they are crossing from their home country into Mexico and not applying for asylum even though Mexico is large…

How can they determine a proper bail for a person they are trying to vet in the first place? If El Chapo showed up I don't think he would care much.

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

#212

Post by drak0n1c » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 12:07 AM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #124

ceejayoz wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And ICE wasn't what many of us consider to be evil until recently, when Trump made it so.

It's myopic to blame the enforcement of existing laws on Trump. Laws make it clear that stepping foot on US soil without authorization requires federal detention pending a court date. The court system is clogged due to the ease of entry and massive backlog. In early 2018 Democrats boycotted an opportunity to negotiate a change in the laws and build a wall. Despite all the criticisms of a wall, it is the only tool that would physically prevent and deter the majority of the 100k migrants stepping foot onto US soil every month, and thus solve the current overcrowding of facilities. Facilities that are on par with the rest of the developed world, if they aren't overcrowded.

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

#213

Post by drak0n1c » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 12:17 AM UTC

d1zzy wrote: post #204

immaway wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interview that is easily gamed. If people self deported after getting all their hearing and being determined not to qualify for asylum there would not be as much of a problem. Most of the people claiming asylum do not qualify for asylum, but once they are in the country it is hard and costly to find them.

So how do you propose to handle this in a humane and practical way? (separating children from their parents because the parents failed their asylum application is not humane, just to be clear)

A wall would ensure that far fewer economic migrants are backing up the court system that asylum cases must also go through, and resolve the facility overcrowding issue. The problem is not with the facilities (which are on par with other developed countries), it is with the overcrowding causing medical cases being unseen and abuse between detainees.

After conducting blood tests, up to 1/3 of migrant children were found to not be related to the adults claiming to be their family. It is for humane anti-trafficking reasons that the separation rule was instituted in the first place.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-s...

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

#214

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 1:14 AM UTC

drak0n1c wrote: post #212

CydeWeys wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And ICE wasn't what many of us consider to be evil until recently, when Trump made it so.

It's myopic to blame the enforcement of existing laws on Trump. Laws make it clear that stepping foot on US soil without authorization requires federal detention pending a court date. The court system is clogged due to the ease of entry and massive backlog. In early 2018 Democrats boycotted an opportunity to negotiate a change in the laws and build a wall. Despite all the criticisms of a wall, it is the only tool tha…

> It's myopic to blame the enforcement of existing laws on Trump.

That's silly. It's clear, given the contrast between Obama and Trump on this issue, that the President has substantial leeway on how ICE acts in this regard.

> Laws make it clear that stepping foot on US soil without authorization requires federal detention pending a court date.

This is plainly false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_detention_in_the_U...

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

#215

Post by afutd » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 1:29 AM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #124

ceejayoz wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And ICE wasn't what many of us consider to be evil until recently, when Trump made it so.

Are you sure what ICE is doing is really all that much different and what’s instead dramatically different is your awareness of every even borderline thing ICE is doing now?

Just how familiar were you, or are you for that matter, with the full scope of ICE’s activities circa 2015?

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

#216

Post by CydeWeys » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 1:58 AM UTC

nabnob wrote: post #147

CydeWeys wrote: post #133

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…

The parent comment claimed "child seperation and children dying in ICE facilities" was happening under Obama, implying to the same degree.

This certainly was not true and you have not provided sources saying so.

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

#217

Post by CydeWeys » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 2:00 AM UTC

nabnob wrote: post #174

root_axis wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total non-sequitur. Nobody is making any assertions about how "left" Obama is.

And so is your question? I was responding to someone else asking for a source on deportations being higher than Obama. Nowhere did I say I support holding undocumented immigrants in concentration camps.

No, that isn't the question I asked. The question I asked was for a source to the claim that "child seperation and children dying in ICE facilities happened under the Obama administration and it wasn't a big deal then" -- which isn't remotely true. This problem is vastly worse under Trump. Obama was not doing this.

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

#218

Post by CydeWeys » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 2:56 AM UTC

afutd wrote: post #215

CydeWeys wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And ICE wasn't what many of us consider to be evil until recently, when Trump made it so.

Are you sure what ICE is doing is really all that much different and what’s instead dramatically different is your awareness of every even borderline thing ICE is doing now? Just how familiar were you, or are you for that matter, with the full scope of ICE’s activities circa 2015?

ICE was not routinely separating children from their families back in 2015. They weren't putting kids in fucking cages. This false equivalence is nonsense.

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

#219

Post by akusete » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 2:56 AM UTC

tzakrajs wrote: post #188

prepend wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What if the other corporations they serve are subcontracted by LEO, ICE and CBP? Palantir is deeply in cahoots with CBP/ICE and Peter Thiel (isn't even a US Citizen so I can't even call him a traitor, but) is an enemy of the American people. Fuck ICE, Fuck Palantir, Fuck Peter Thiel

I believe Peter Thiel is a US citizen (previously a German and, more recently a NZ citizen) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel

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

#220

Post by 1111236112347 » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 3:11 AM UTC

naravara wrote: post #106

jakear wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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. My money is on the latter. In "Winners Take All" Anand Giridharadas has a really good sentence where he points out how major employers usually try to find entry level hires who possess an ideal degree of intelligence and impressionability. The latter is just as important for them as…

I definitely agree this can happen, and I've worked for a company where what you described rings all too true. However, I joined Palantir last year, and I genuinely don't see any evidence of the same kind of dysfunctional power dynamics.

During the interview process I asked a number of questions about ethics and transparency, and the interviewers responded positively and encouraged me to continue asking hard questions, which gave an impression it's a trait they valued.

After joining, I haven't seen any evidence of people fearing to express a dissenting opinion about either technical or ethical subjects. And I've personally witnessed a consistently high level of professionalism and respect, including respect and empathy for the protesters who want Palantir to sever all ties with ICE.

I don't think Palantir continues to work with HSI due to a lack of questioning, on the contrary, I think what's happened is that deeply questioning the ethical and practical implications of continuing or discontinuing contracts with HSI doesn't lead to such a clear-cut, black and white answer about what the right thing to do is.