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Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens

bloomberg.com

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Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens

#121

Post by your-nanny »

atom-morgan wrote: post #118
your-nanny wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I base my assertion on sentiments he has expressed, one if which was quoted in the Bloomberg article: >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’ in…

Yes, he's observing a trend and comparing its results to the ideal “capitalist democracy” that Thiel wish existed. Women, in general, aren't very libertarian especially on fiscal issues. He's not saying their rights should be taken away. I'll admit, it isn't the best worded statement in the world.

He isn't saying that they ought to never have been granted?

Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens

#122

Post by kalms »

dTal wrote: post #21
jondiggsit wrote: post #11

I’ve always thought - I don’t care if the NSA is spying on US citizens because their job is national security. The problem is when those tools trickle down. All of a sudden you have a local cop with too much time on their hands spying on you. But if you’re not doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t have anything to hide, right? Isn’t that how the saying goes?

Must be a nice way to live, having full faith that your government will always do the right thing. Relaxing.

Welcome to Denmark.

Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens

#123

Post by noopps »

your-nanny wrote: post #85
atom-morgan wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do question his commitment to freedom. But a misogynist?

I base my assertion on sentiments he has expressed, one if which was quoted in the Bloomberg article: >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’ in…

some context from his response to the article. https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...

"I had hoped my essay on the limits of politics would provoke reactions, and I was not disappointed. But the most intense response has been aimed not at cyberspace, seasteading, or libertarian politics, but at a commonplace statistical observation about voting patterns that is often called the gender gap.

It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better.

Voting is not under siege in America, but many other rights are. In America, people are imprisoned for using even very mild drugs, tortured by our own government, and forced to bail out reckless financial companies.

I believe that politics is way too intense. That’s why I’m a libertarian. Politics gets people angry, destroys relationships, and polarizes peoples’ vision: the world is us versus them; good people versus the other. Politics is about interfering with other people’s lives without their consent. That’s probably why, in the past, libertarians have made little progress in the political sphere. Thus, I advocate focusing energy elsewhere, onto peaceful projects that some consider utopian."

Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens

#125

Post by DataWorker »

chatmasta wrote: post #93
dpwm wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say I'm law enforcement and I have some information obtained in a way which wouldn't stand up even in the most farcical of courtrooms. What I can do is use surveillance tools to find a way to effectively entrap you, to gather evidence. Think of it like a tip-off that you're not allowed to have. Palantir specialises in providing tools to analyze and aggregate big data. If law enforcement has an interest in it, i…

If the data was sourced from public information that the target willingly posted online, does law enforcement even need to use parallel construction? Couldn’t they use the palantir data to obtain a warrant for more thorough searches? I too have a problem with business models that invade our privacy. But I think it’s a bit disingenuous to conflate “private information” with information that you voluntarily posted on t…

No, not really. We don’t expect all of our actions to be monitored and collected 24/7 throughout the course of our lives when going about our business offline and then used to entrap us. We should have a similar standard when it comes to our civil rights in the digital realm.

Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens

#126

Post by ideophobia »

opportune wrote: post #112
ideophobia wrote: post #82

I used to be intelligence analyst that utilized Palantir on a daily basis. Ask me anything.

To what extent are searches/queries/data-accesses performed by analysts logged and audited? Were there actual and official repercussions for looking at the data of family members and romantic interests?

From what I recall all activity is logged. We also had numerous external databases/tools that were essentially API connections to reduce the number of separate logins we'd have to do, and each of those databases had their own audit mechanisms. Long before we ever had Palantir in my department, we did have an employee who had misused a database for personal reasons. They were initially terminated but that was undone upon appeal. They were reprimanded either way and lost access to various tools/databases going forward for a long time. I know of many stories of police, for example, getting fired for abusing the NCIC databases for personal gain. Sadly it often falls on the agencies to self-police these issues, and most don't have anyone dedicated to this effort. So it really falls on the first line supervisors, of which some are great about it and some couldn't be bothered. I am of the opinion that all security, intelligence, and LE agencies should have an internal team solely focused on audit & review actions for internal abuse/misuse/privacy concerns, but that is a minority opinion from my experience.

Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens

#127

Post by athenot »

2close4comfort wrote: post #97
jonnybgood wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on exactly how Palantir is used for parellel construction?

New Orleans PD...there was an article about it here recently. That is PT/Palantir's vision of the future. It is going to be pretty damn hard to stop once it gets going hopefully Facebook being on the front page of MSN for a couple of days will we a reckoning because the things the average person does not realise would REALLY upset them.

On a positive note, New Orleans decided to not renew their contract with Palantir. I am not sure whether this is the result of that article or not.

Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens

#128

Post by ideophobia »

dx034 wrote: post #117
ideophobia wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was frustrated with management in my department and ended up leaving for private sector.

Is Palantir not considered to be private sector?

It is. I did not work for palantir though, I worked as an intelligence anaylst in public sector who used Palantir in my job. Palantir does not provide analysts, generally, they just sell the software. The forward deployed engineers help install and instruct, and sometimes they have people come on site to walk through analytical use cases, but generally they don't employ many, if any, actual full-time intelligence analysts, from what I saw.

Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens

#129

Post by dangerlibrary »

> The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services uses Palantir to detect Medicare fraud.

Having worked in this field, I can say that this is hilarious overkill. The vast majority (in dollar terms) of Medicare/Medicaid fraud is drug companies misreporting their Average Market Price (AMP), the critical variable in how much they get paid. In 2012, Glaxo settled(!) a small bundle of cases, some of which I worked on, for three billion dollars [0].

You don't need police-state surveillance of individuals, you need visibility into company transaction records.

[0] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/glaxosmithkline-plead-guilty-...

Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens

#130

Post by gnode »

pmlnr wrote: post #103
diskandar27 wrote: post #41

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

Definitely not, although that specific aspect - you _know_ you're being watched - makes life different, in some way, simpler. The rules are obvious, however, if they change, you might find yourself in a much worse situation, than in the West - for now.

> you _know_ you're being watched - makes life different, in some way, simpler.

Arguably, what happens when people are aware of surveillance is one of the worst parts of it. Following the Snowden revelations, there were noticeable chilling effects:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/27/new-s...

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