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ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

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191–200 of 281 posts

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would non state actors be any less scary? Non-state actors can't easily use violence to throw me in jail.

TikTok is blocking upload of ICE videos and Facebook is blocking posts with information about the ICE agents. Amazon just paid millions of dollars to put out a movie nobody wants about Donalds wife. Every major tech company paid millions of dollars for Donalds library at the beginning of all this for "the library" The surveillance non state actors are already doing anything this administration wants.

This isn't a counterpoint. The philosophical reason the state doing something is worse than a private company doing the exact same thing is that the state can imprison, bankrupt, and execute you. TikTok can't.

The argument isn't that it's good these companies are doing this - it's not. The argument is that it would be even worse if the state was doing it directly. There are more avenues to stop, nullify, and avoid this when it's a private enterprise than when it's the state.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#192
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

A concentration camp is a place where large amounts of Jews were killed. Using it to describe deportation where people aren't killed is offensive to some and full of fake drama to others.

That's an extermination camp. Concentration camps are just for segregating and isolating people from society. Like what US did to Japanese in the past.

And it has nothing to do with Jews.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says the data was 'surveilled' by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and HHS in the performance of Medicare/Medicaid claims, with that surveillance fed to Palentir. Palentir has certainly assisted, but the origin of the data collection here was public and then unleashed by the state to private entity.

> The article says the data was 'surveilled' by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and HHS in the performance of Medicare/Medicaid claims Does this imply that undocumented aliens subject to deportation have been making claims on Medicare/Medicaid monies?

> Does this imply that undocumented aliens subject to deportation have been making claims on Medicare/Medicaid monies?

No. HHS is broader than CMMS.

Like, if these data were being used to audit the CMMS roles for illegal immigrants, that would be something. That’s not what DHS is doing because I suspect they don’t want to have to produce a report that says this was a made-up bit of electioneering.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#194
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Palantir's mission is to exactly solve the problem you're describing: break through data siloes to get better information. Core of the platform are data pipelines that can move data from any silo into the palantir data lake, where it can be analysed. Their forward engineering project approach probably enables them to bypass the organisational boundaries between departments. Their top-down selling approach ensures man…

> break through data siloes to get better information This is the pitch of every consulting company ever. In this case, Palantir is doing VLOOKUP on healthcare records to get suspects’ addresses. They then put that in a standalone app because you can’t charge buttloads of money for a simple query.

Something I see often in technical circles (and I'm not accusing you) is the manufacturing of consent for ghoulish behaviour by describing it in a reductive way. I think there's a bias to consider sophisticated violations of civil rights as more nefarious than mundane ones.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#195
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've read is that they are not a product company. But they rather have a zoo of solutions. And they are hired by governments desperate to improve their IT, probably after the n-th issue going public. I highly doubt this would be legal in many states but who will (and can) check this anyway? Of course it's tempting to throw everything into one huge database. But Jesus, this is like interns writing the Softwa…

They almost exclusively hire fresh grads who need money more than ethics, and it shows in everything they do.

Exactly like any other big tech (Google, Microsoft, etc) or consulting (McKinsey, Deloitte, etc) company!

There really isn't anything special about Palantir the company. They have disrupted consulting on marketing alone (all this forward-deployed stuff is more fluff than anything) which is not unheard of, and continue to receive all this bad press due to their clientele and the kind of data they're processing. Government departments, military. They are happy to take credit for all the "conniving" allegations because it makes them look like they have a plan, and anybody with purchasing power involving with them knows it corresponds very little to the company operationally, i.e. what the company does.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's been quite clear for about 50 years now

Maybe, but there was also clearly an inflection point just over 12 months ago, and another 8 years prior.

For me it was when Eric Holder, the Attorney General under President Obama, straight-up ignored a Congressional subpoena. Maybe the actual event happened earlier than that, but in that moment I marked "rule of law" as a dead letter.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#197
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, retroactively manufactured cause for a warrant to find only the information you want. Also, don't forget that profit maximization means selling to the highest bidder, which might not be US govt. Certainly, there is means, motive, and opportunity for individuals with access to sell this info to geopolitical adversaries, and it is BY FAR the easiest way for adversaries to acquire it. It has happened before and it…

They've stopped obtaining warrants. ICE claims they can enter homes forcefully without a judge-signed warrant. Judges have released at least one victim seized this way.

Can you provide a news link to this? As I understand it, courts have historically followed the precedent that “you can’t suppress the body”, meaning even if the method of an arrest is illegal, you don’t have to let the person go if their arrest is otherwise valid.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#199

If I'm reading this correctly, they're just straight up violating the law. They're sharing information with ICE under an obligation to share information of aliens, but they're actually sharing everyone's information in an effort to identify aliens. That seems like a pretty slam shut case if there were any mechanism to investigate and prosecute it.

You are not reading this right. > There is no data sharing agreement between CMS and DHS on “US citizens and lawful permanent residents,” they added.

Which doesn’t quite say those data weren’t shared.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#200
post #167

If I'm reading this correctly, they're just straight up violating the law. They're sharing information with ICE under an obligation to share information of aliens, but they're actually sharing everyone's information in an effort to identify aliens. That seems like a pretty slam shut case if there were any mechanism to investigate and prosecute it.

Please stop using the word alien to refer to humans. It's dehumanizing and it leads to a path where you can justify humiliating, torturing, and murdering other humans. Which is already happening with ICE.

> Please stop using the word alien to refer to humans

It’s the legally-correct term.

For what it’s worth, I’m a naturalized American. When I was doing my citizenship paperwork, I found the term fun. The word doesn’t dehumanize. Murdering people does.

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