Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bmj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 281 posts

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

#231

Post by cucumber3732842 »

mmcwilliams wrote: post #134
rudhdb773b wrote: post #74

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.

You're under the belief that private actors can't influence state actors to use violence on their behalf, completely isolating them from responsibility? If a private business calls the police on a suspected trespasser and the police shoot that person, is the business held liable? Ever? Seems like they have the better end of the bargain than the state.

>and the police shoot that person, is the business held liable? Ever? Seems like they have the better end of the bargain than the state.

Are you insane? When if ever are the agents of the state held responsible. If anything the civil suit against the business is more likely to go somewhere.

The fact that the state may "pay out" does not mean it has any serious incentive not to shoot the person dead so long as such payouts don't become too regular.

I owe Comcast $200, according to them. I've "owed" it for years. Can you imagine if I owed any government agency the same sum for the same time. I'd be arrested and thrown in jail for non-payment and/or some sort of quasi-contempt charge if I refused.

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

#232

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jacquesm wrote: post #230
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Data collected privately absorbed by the government is a serious problem The data we’re talking about here are home addresses. HHS (or the IRS) having home addresses isn’t what most Americans would or should consider problematic.

This isn't about 'Americans' but about the negative set of HHS records compared to the records taken from for instance the IRS. Putting the one next to the other yields the names of individuals that were otherwise not standing out. ICE/Palantir/DHS should not have access to health records. The main reason for that is that people who are in the country may still require healthcare even if they have no other ties the U…

> ICE/Palantir/DHS should not have access to health records

Totally agree. Where I disagree is in saying the government shouldn’t have these records. Like, no. The government knowing where I live is not only fine but also sort of necessary. Just because it has some data doesn’t mean it can abuse it.

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

#233

Post by buellerbueller »

londons_explore wrote: post #7
petterroea wrote: post #6

Private surveillance is so much more scary than regular government surveillance because they have every incentive to invent new ways of surveilling you that they then try to sell to governments, or private actors who want to influence the world. It's like classic government surveillance but every company you interacted with and every app you use may at some point turn on you and use your data against you, just becaus…

> Private surveillance is so much more scary than regular government surveillance because ... ... because the private sector tends to be far more competent and able to get shit done fast and effectively.

The private sector is good at being a wealth extraction machine, that's all. The other things it does are merely incidental to that. As Cory Doctorow has pointed out, the private sector is now in its enshittification phase. I'd point out that this is likely because the marginal wealth extraction of improving things is lower than the marginal wealth extraction of enshittfying things: making mature products better is harder than making mature products worse. Capitalism rewards no morality; it rewards wealth extraction.

The government, however, has historically been constrained by a constitution that had been updated and interpreted according to the popular sentiment of the day.

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

#234

Post by jacquesm »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #232
jacquesm wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about 'Americans' but about the negative set of HHS records compared to the records taken from for instance the IRS. Putting the one next to the other yields the names of individuals that were otherwise not standing out. ICE/Palantir/DHS should not have access to health records. The main reason for that is that people who are in the country may still require healthcare even if they have no other ties the U…

> ICE/Palantir/DHS should not have access to health records Totally agree. Where I disagree is in saying the government shouldn’t have these records. Like, no. The government knowing where I live is not only fine but also sort of necessary. Just because it has some data doesn’t mean it can abuse it.

The government is not one entity and it is perfectly possible for one sub-entity to have certain data and for another not to be able to have that same data, in fact from being prohibited to have access (let alone use) that same data. Palantir is used as a way to gain access to data that should otherwise not be accessible and the fact that it isn't the health data itself is immaterial: it was collected in the process of providing healthcare and as such should be protected. That's the legal base, not to enforce immigration law. Unfortunately the USA does not have the equivalent of a GDPR (and even if it did it would have probably been killed by now).

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

#235

Post by Ylpertnodi »

ubermonkey wrote: post #122

There is no morally defensible reason to work for Palantir.

Do you purchase unilever products? Nike shoes? Etc, etc, etc.

Not to be flippant, but morals are variable.

Two of my kids are into investing, and some of their choices are 'morally indefensible', to me.

We've had the discussions since they were old enough to be taught 'right' from wrong.

Their aims are to increase the money they have, not to make anyone feel better, or judge others' choices.

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

#236

Post by sawjet »

kelipso wrote: post #151
ipaddr wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitation or punishment.” Do we know what is happening to these people? What their conditions are? Why do we not hear from them afterwards?

We do hear from them. Why are you worrying that we don't(without evidence)?

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

#237

Post by jmyeet »

Here's what people should take from all this: the Constitution isn't a magical document that guards your rights. It's a piece of paper. Judge, particularly Supreme Court judges, are political actors, not some neutral paragons of legal scholardom that come dwon from their Ivory Tower every now and again to hand down missives and maintain order.

The classic example of the mental gymnastics do won't punish any of this is civil asset forfeiture. It's legalized theft. The Fourth mandment quite literally starts with:

> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated ...

You might think if you are stopped by police and you have cash on it, that it is your "effects" and it can't be seized without any crime but you'd be wrong. The legal theory surrounding this is that it is a civil action against property, not a criminal action against its owner, even though the basis for the civil action is a crime that not only doesn't have to be proven, it doesn't even have to be alleged.

Medical info is just one prong of a massive effort to acquire all sorts of personal information, seemingly to build a database so citizens can be targeted. If you think it's going to stop at immigration enforcement, you're crazy. Examples:

- AG Pam Bondi has sought voter rolls from the majority of states [1], which most recently came up as a random demand to end ICE terrorism in Minnesota [2], which has so far refused to hand over that information. Consider where Minnesota sits in the estimated number of undocumented migrants [3]. Why is ICE there and not, say, Texas or Florida?

- DOGE previous accessed (and alleged copied) all the data from the Social Security Administration [4]. Why? What's happened to it? Who has it now?

I personally believe this has long reached the point that in a just world, Palantir employees would be prosecuted and sent to jail. Palantir is (allegedly) knowingly providing the means to kill journalists and target people while they're at home so a missile strike will also kill their entire family [5][6].

This "immigration enforcement" goes well beyond undocumented migrants. Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident married to a US citizen, was targeted for organizing peaceful protests against Israel's genocide.

At this point if you don't see how all these things are interconnected, you're burying your head in the sane.

[1]: https://stateline.org/2025/07/16/trumps-doj-wants-states-to-...

[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/26/pam-bondi-mi...

[3]: https://immresearch.org/publications/50-states-immigrants-by...

[4]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/whistleblower-responds-aft...

[5]: https://www.972mag.com/ai-surveillance-gaza-palantir-datamin...

[6]: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

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

#238

Post by rob74 »

ahzhzvH wrote: post #139
elric wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are really seeing the fears of data collection from the 2000s and 2010s come to fruition as privatized surveillance now. Cambridge analytica should have been the warning shot but it wasn't enough. I remember protesting against data retention laws in the early 2000s. People thought we were nuts for using historical examples about the Nazis abusing all kinds of records to hunt down Jews. History was never going to…

> Nazis abusing all kinds of records to hunt down Jews. History was never going to repeat itself that way Kinda ironic but I think you’ve got the current situation a little backwards. Karp (who is Jewish) has boasted about Palantir being used to hunt down the “far right”: https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/28/palantir_boss_fii_spe... I think it’s very important to focus on how data collection of this nature is bad,…

Ok, so Palantir was used to prevent terror attacks in Europe, which would have presumably led to (even more) popularity of the far right. Palantir is also being used by the current far-right US administration (who, unlike the Nazis, like Jews and are even in part Jewish, but hate immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ people, liberals etc. etc.) to hunt down immigrants based on their medical data. I fail to see how these two are connected, except for the same tool being used in both cases? This is actually one of the fears that data protection advocates had all along: first, these tools will be used to catch terrorists, then mostly harmless illegal immigrants, and then anyone else the regime doesn't like.

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

#239

Post by JohnFen »

gortok wrote: post #197
carefulfungi wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://apnews.com/article/ice-arrests-warrants-minneapolis-...
Post reply on HN