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Must respectfully say that this company should not be allowed to exist. We are outsourcing state level powers to a completely opaque private entity with zero ac

Must respectfully say that this company should not be allowed to exist. We are outsourcing state level powers to a completely opaque private entity with zero accountability. This can only end badly.

redcobra762 3y ago
What does “state level powers” even mean? And they’re hardly “opaque”, at least not any more than any other publicly traded company is, and held to similar account. What do you think they do that’s so above-and-beyond what a non-government organization should be able to do? I wonder if you’re falling for a lot of the marketing hype…
- p_j_w 3y ago
  > they’re hardly “opaque”, at least not any more than any other publicly traded company is Publicly traded companies are required to report certain financial facts about the company, but they’re still extremely opaque.
  - redcobra762 3y ago
    Yes, as a publicly traded company, but not especially so amongst those.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  >What does “state level powers” even mean? In this case espionage and surveillance, traditionally domains of the state. >What do you think they do that’s so above-and-beyond what a non-government organization should be able to do? They're not subject to privacy legislation and limitations that the police is. There's a concrete exapmle of this, commercial storage of license plate data in the US is largely unregulated, so police units that have legal limitations on how long they can hold citizen data simply go to the private market and buy that data from those firms. That kind of circumvention of the law and outsourcing of responsibility is probably a large part of the Palantir business model. Seems kind of insane to take your tax payer money and use it to buy surveillance data on you, a good chunk of which probably isn't even legal to otherwise collect and completely undermine the rule of law and democratic control of policing.
  - redcobra762 3y ago
    Espionage and surveillance is a misrepresentation of what Palintir does; every Fortune 500 company does similar if we use this definition. And they’re not police, so of course they’re not held to that standard, just like you or I aren’t held to that standard.
    - Barrin92 3y ago
      >And they’re not police, so of course they’re not held to that standard That's a strong claim given that Palantir has sold and deployed so called "predictive policing" technology to the police forces of New Orleans[1] (without city council knowledge, so much for the accountability) and even directly advertises itself as a defense company[2]. Their revenue is overwhelmingly contract with national governments, again mostly for police or defense work. That's not how you, I or most Fortune 500 companies do business. [1]https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predictive-policing-tool-new-orleans-nopd https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predict... [2]https://youtu.be/rxKghrZU5w8 https://youtu.be/rxKghrZU5w8
      - redcobra762 3y ago
        It’s in no way a strong claim, as the cleaning services of the New Orleans Police Department are also not police. And it absolutely is how you, I, and every other employed organization works. You seem to not understand what a contractor is.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
staplers 3y ago
Sounds like the perfect way for federal agencies to workaround the dirty work they can't legally do.
- steve1977 3y ago
  Nothing new then.
fnorder 3y ago
I agree with you, but every reason you just listed is a positive from the perspective of their customers. I think it's practically guaranteed that Palantir is, or will be, blackmailing officials. Even if they never do, any lucid official will be very conscious of stepping on the toes of a private intelligence company.
- kurthr 3y ago
  Or they can go the other direction and offer foreign powers protection for money. The incentives are aligned that way so it would require surveillance and conspiracy to prevent it from happening. Furthermore, collecting large amounts of information on your own population creates a lowest effort point of entry for an adversary to gather that info, and it's more useful to them.

Must respectfully say that this company should not be allowed to exist. We are outsourcing state level powers to a completely opaque private entity with zero accountability. This can only end badly.

redcobra762 3y ago

What does “state level powers” even mean? And they’re hardly “opaque”, at least not any more than any other publicly traded company is, and held to similar account. What do you think they do that’s so above-and-beyond what a non-government organization should be able to do? I wonder if you’re falling for a lot of the marketing hype…

p_j_w 3y ago
> they’re hardly “opaque”, at least not any more than any other publicly traded company is Publicly traded companies are required to report certain financial facts about the company, but they’re still extremely opaque.
- redcobra762 3y ago
  Yes, as a publicly traded company, but not especially so amongst those.
Barrin92 3y ago
>What does “state level powers” even mean? In this case espionage and surveillance, traditionally domains of the state. >What do you think they do that’s so above-and-beyond what a non-government organization should be able to do? They're not subject to privacy legislation and limitations that the police is. There's a concrete exapmle of this, commercial storage of license plate data in the US is largely unregulated, so police units that have legal limitations on how long they can hold citizen data simply go to the private market and buy that data from those firms. That kind of circumvention of the law and outsourcing of responsibility is probably a large part of the Palantir business model. Seems kind of insane to take your tax payer money and use it to buy surveillance data on you, a good chunk of which probably isn't even legal to otherwise collect and completely undermine the rule of law and democratic control of policing.
- redcobra762 3y ago
  Espionage and surveillance is a misrepresentation of what Palintir does; every Fortune 500 company does similar if we use this definition. And they’re not police, so of course they’re not held to that standard, just like you or I aren’t held to that standard.
  - Barrin92 3y ago
    >And they’re not police, so of course they’re not held to that standard That's a strong claim given that Palantir has sold and deployed so called "predictive policing" technology to the police forces of New Orleans[1] (without city council knowledge, so much for the accountability) and even directly advertises itself as a defense company[2]. Their revenue is overwhelmingly contract with national governments, again mostly for police or defense work. That's not how you, I or most Fortune 500 companies do business. [1]https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predictive-policing-tool-new-orleans-nopd https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predict... [2]https://youtu.be/rxKghrZU5w8 https://youtu.be/rxKghrZU5w8
    - redcobra762 3y ago
      It’s in no way a strong claim, as the cleaning services of the New Orleans Police Department are also not police. And it absolutely is how you, I, and every other employed organization works. You seem to not understand what a contractor is.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

staplers 3y ago

Sounds like the perfect way for federal agencies to workaround the dirty work they can't legally do.

steve1977 3y ago
Nothing new then.

fnorder 3y ago

I agree with you, but every reason you just listed is a positive from the perspective of their customers. I think it's practically guaranteed that Palantir is, or will be, blackmailing officials. Even if they never do, any lucid official will be very conscious of stepping on the toes of a private intelligence company.

kurthr 3y ago
Or they can go the other direction and offer foreign powers protection for money. The incentives are aligned that way so it would require surveillance and conspiracy to prevent it from happening. Furthermore, collecting large amounts of information on your own population creates a lowest effort point of entry for an adversary to gather that info, and it's more useful to them.