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Journalists wary of travelling to US due to Palantir surveillance
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoPalantir's role or non-role aside, the idea that we're even looking into whether people wrote about a student protest is absurd. The "combating antisemitism" cover story for all of this is incredibly cynical.
- idontwantthis 1y agoAll it takes is a quick observation that the literal swastika swinging Nazis are all on Trump’s side to see the truth.
- kreetx 1y ago[flagged]
- jakelazaroff 1y agoUnder a normal administration that actually would be unexpected, yes.
- kreetx 1y ago[flagged]
- jakelazaroff 1y agoThe "normal administration" to which I'm referring would be almost any administration in US history other than the current one. Freedom of speech is — at least putatively — a bedrock principle of the US. In fact, the same Secretary of State who deported this man from the US for his speech (amongst dozens of other such deportations[1]) has announced a policy meant to prevent other countries from doing the exact same thing.[2] "Free speech for me, but not for thee." [1]: https://truthout.org/articles/rubio-brags-hes-championing-free-speech-as-he-hand-picks-protesters-to-deport/ https://truthout.org/articles/rubio-brags-hes-championing-fr... [2]: https://www.state.gov/announcement-of-a-visa-restriction-policy-targeting-foreign-nationals-who-censor-americans/ https://www.state.gov/announcement-of-a-visa-restriction-pol...
- cmurf 1y agoFascists consider applying double standards that enable them to enjoy what they deny others, virtuous. Not a logical fallacy. The purpose is to dominate.
- kreetx 1y agoAFAIK, the speech is still free. The denied person seems to be a foreign national and by all looks of it, an activist, taking part in university protests. It doesn't seem all that surprising that he got denied entry.
- jakelazaroff 1y agoMan, if we can't agree that "freedom of speech" includes protection from legal consequences for something you say then there's really nowhere to go from here.
- kreetx 1y agoWell, he appears to have been a protester at Columbia University in 2024, and he is also not a citizen. If you yourself are a citizen, I'm sure you can express your views and not be sent anywhere. You can also vote to get people in power who are more to your liking, or even attempt be one of those people yourself.
- jakelazaroff 1y agoNone of this is relevant to what you're trying to argue ("AFAIK, the speech is still free").
- kreetx 1y agoHe can still express his opinion and he can still protest. In your opinion, should anyone be able to travel to the US to protest? Would you set an upper limit to this process, or should any amount be allowed?
- jmye 1y ago> and am just observing it from quite a distance You have remarkably strident opinions about a country, and its laws and norms, that you claim to be unfamiliar with and not a part of.
- eyesofgod 1y ago[dead]
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoDo you think journalists don't have sides and don't have effects on politics? Riddle me this: why do you think journalism is protected in this country if it is definitionally politically inert?
- aspenmayer 1y agoThe founders were proto-shitposters who ran a psyop on the public with the same technology used to print the daily paper. They knew what they were doing. I agree with you, by the way. To a certain reading, this guy is creating a valuable resource in the attention economy: controversy. Give them a medal and a journalism grant.
- kreetx 1y agoThis person is from another country and is rather an activist than a journalist, and he also can continue to express his views to this day. Does it not make sense to you that a country (i.e, its citizens) don't actually want foreign activists to come and steer its politics? Sounds like a recipe for country take-over if done at scale.
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoMy recommendation is that when you're inquiring about another country's laws or norms, you actually open your ears to what they're telling you instead of just repeatedly asserting your own (as you admit) completely ignorant perspective.
- kreetx 1y agoAnyone foreigner around the world has the right to assemble in the US? I don't think these are the laws that the US has.
- sorcerer-mar 1y ago[flagged]
- MangoToupe 1y agoDoes anyone anywhere qualify in this if your understanding? What does it mean to live here and not have an effect on on US politics? Can we use this same rationale to deny folks with dual citizenship office if they seek it?
- brookst 1y agoIt’s terrifying that anyone would not only accept forbidding travel to critics, but also thinks it’s normal. From de Toqueville and Dickens to de Beauvoir to Žižek, the US used to welcome and embrace criticism. Have we really become as thin-skinned as North Korea?
- gosub100 1y agoYou're free to have an opinion but not from the consequences of that opinion. Sound familiar?
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoNice! Such a great gotcha if you've never read the Constitution or spent 30 seconds thinking about how freedom of speech works. You're free to have an opinion and be free from state-sanctioned consequences. You are not guaranteed to be free from private parties choosing not to affiliate with you, calling you mean names, or banning you from their platforms... for the obvious reason that protecting that right would require that the state compel specific speech from private parties, which... See Step 1! All of this should have been covered by about 8th grade. Were you paying attention?
- brookst 1y agoI hope you’re just trolling and not genuinely that oblivious. Terrifying either way, I suppose. The US has failed, and the people who killed it read like 4chan.
- gosub100 1y agoI'm using the same arguments as my opponent. There is no unity in this country and the "progressive" party caused it.
- brookst 1y agoNixon’s southern strategy was progressive? And you really don’t see how complaining about lack is unity and blaming those people for it is completely risible?
- 4ndrewl 1y agoI can't imagine how insecure and fragile a country must be to be afraid of checks notes opinions on substack.
- kreetx 1y agoHe also partook in protests in Columbia University last year, so in that sense he's a little more than person writing on the internet.
- whatshisface 1y agoFreedom of assembly.
- kreetx 1y agoSure, but with societal unrest don't you think there is a limit on how many foreigners you want in the country to be tilting the scales?
- djur 1y agoNo. Freedom of expression is a human right, not a privilege of citizenship.
- kreetx 1y agoAnd he can continue to express himself, or can't he?
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoSure, just like an American snatched off the street and sent to prison can still express himself in prison.
- kreetx 1y ago
- tootie 1y agoFreedom of speech is not a right bestowed on citizens but an encumbrance on the government. They cannot set policy based on protected speech. Nor is there any definition of journalist that precludes having a point of view.
- kreetx 1y agoThis person continues to be able to speak freely. He also took part in the protests of Columbia University and by the looks of it wants to continue his political agenda in a foreign country. If this happened at scale then then foreigners could come (perhaps even be imported to the US, if this were a known-to-be-usable loophole) and steer the politics of a country in some other direction. It looks like the government is trying to avoid that and, if I were a citizen, it's what I would expect it to do.
- tootie 1y agoThat's a really bizarre take. You think it's acceptable to deny entry to someone based on your assessment of their political opinions? Given the very directly related context that Columbia students with visas and greencards are being detained and facing deportation explicitly for their political opinions, you can't conclude this is anything other anti-speech policy. There is absolutely no threat to life or property stemming from their speech. Meanwhile, expressly pro-genocide political figures with documented history of violent crimes like Ben-Gvir are freely admitted and allowed to rile up mobs.
- kreetx 1y agoI don't know the specific reason for denial for this particular person. I just generically don't understand why why would you want students like this in the country. The citizens, sure, vote, assemble, etc. to express your view.
- sorcerer-mar 1y ago> I just generically don't understand why why would you want students like this in the country. You don't need to understand. Your understanding is irrelevant. That's why we put it in the Constitution!
- thenthenthen 1y agoThey were looking in my spam folder and giving me a hard time for what they ‘found’ there, absolutely bonkers
- hungmung 1y agoWas this in customs? Are you an American? Just curious.
- WarOnPrivacy 1y agoBased on a previous post of his, I believe he was traveling here from China. While that may help explain the unproductive, unconstitutional behavior he experienced (now normalized at our borders), it does not excuse it.
- thenthenthen 1y agoI am European, traveling from Europe to New York. They picked me from the line. Then the guy got bitten by his own dog. [edit] I just realise this was 10 years ago, time flies :O
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- maeil 1y agoCynical? No my friend, it's what authoritarian dictatorships such as Russia and the US have been doing for years, it's their default! [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#Allegations_of_Nazism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation_in_the_Russian_...
- gosub100 1y agoIt shows how quickly the far left abandons its charity cases once it finds greener pastures. Remember all the "end ___ hate" campaigns? Not when there's a new group to manipulate for votes.
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoI've responded now to several of your comments, but this is a common enough sign of miseducation among the terminally online that I'll respond again here: The far left is within their First Amendment rights to create "all the 'end ___ hate' campaigns" they want. The far right is within their First Amendment rights to create all the "hate _____" campaigns they want. Bystanders, commercial entities, private schools, your friends and family are allowed to be friendly with you or disown you per their own preference for which side you take. They're even allowed to call you mean names like "ignorant fascist incel" if they want. And you're allowed to call them mean names too! The government is not allowed to utilize state power to suppress either side of the hate or not-hate debate. It is not allowed to utilize state power to compel the "end hate" crowd to be nice to, give jobs to, maintain platforms for, or educate the "hate" crowd, nor vice versa.
- gosub100 1y ago> this is a common enough sign of miseducation among the terminally online "anyone who disagrees with you is obviously ill"
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoNo, I said that you have a very elementary misunderstanding that's common among a specific group of people. It's like saying, "the inability to add 1 + 1 is common among people who never attended an arithmetic class."
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- monkeyelite 1y ago[flagged]
- kstrauser 1y agoI just had some otherwise nice-sounding recruiter pings from Palantir-adjacent companies. I couldn’t do it. I found another role that’s everything I wanted and I can look at myself in the mirror.
- layer8 1y agoOn the other hand, you could aim for becoming a mole or whistleblower.
- kstrauser 1y agoThat’s a thing, to be sure, but there’s also the very strong possibility of becoming institutionalized and rationalizing the stuff you’re working on in the mean time.
- monkeyelite 1y agoYou mean you are worried about personally causing harm in that job? Or you are worried about saving face?
- kstrauser 1y agoThe former. I don’t want to work on things that make the world worse in ways I care about.
- monkeyelite 1y agoSo how did you make that determination of harm? Are you making the world worse being an accountant at palantir? What if the role was making systems safer and more secure?
- kstrauser 1y agoYou may safely assume that I had enough information available to me that I was able to make an educated decision.
- quacked 1y agoI think that the time may come in the near future where "proper" white collar Americans will have an obligation to flagrantly violate new laws and be arrested on purpose in order to create a critical mass of people who both have experienced the excesses of the regime and also are motivated enough to do something about it. This would have to be paired with colossally well-funded lawsuits, as during the Civil Rights movement. Closely related to this, I have been continually frustrated with the insistence of the left wing that it borders on immoral to take a job as a soldier, police officer, prison guard, or bailiff, and that there's no reason to raise any of their pay. That leaves the various armed forces around the country staffed with individuals who feel very little opposition to rote authoritarianism, corruption, and rule-by-force. There are relatively few individuals working in day-to-day policing or intelligence work that spend a lot of time thinking about the duty of agents of the state to follow its laws.
- cess11 1y ago[flagged]
- gruez 1y ago>And yes, it's immoral to become a cop Absolute wild take. Do you think every police department in the US oppresses minorities and infringes on civil rights or something? >just as it was immoral to become a european camp guard in the forties Even for the Allies? Given the prior sentence, I can't tell whether you're trying to allude to Nazi concentration camp guards, or actually think all camp guards are immoral.
- quacked 1y ago> Do you think every police department in the US oppresses minorities and infringes on civil rights or something? There are some people who not only believe this but can make very compelling cases that this is the case. It's a dead-end rhetorical argument; yes, it is actually possible for literally every precinct in the US to violate people's civil rights. The difference is that some people, like (I suspect) the person you're responding to, seem to think that the position itself--armed law enforcement officer--is archetypically immoral and should not exist as a function or profession in a civilization. This is naive to to the point of absurdity and underwrites most of the idiocy that's widely abound in anti-policing movements. In one breath they claim that "police" are as a class immoral, and in the next they proclaim that their political opponents must be "brought to justice" by armed people following a set of written laws. It's absurd!
- BergAndCo 1y ago[dead]
- gruez 1y agoWhat's with the title? It says "Journalists ..." (plural) when so far as I can tell it's the story of one journalist. While I'm sure there's at least one other journalist wary of traveling to the US, that's not the story at hand, and HN guidelines prohibit editorializing of titles.
- add-sub-mul-div 1y agoEvery thread getting littered with these hall monitor complaints about titles is worse than clickbait could ever be.
- jakelazaroff 1y agoIf anything, I think the title severely understates what happened here. It's not journalists "wary" of traveling to the US, it's a journalist literally getting deported for writing about a protest movement.
- anthony_d 1y agoI just started looking but I can’t find any supporting evidence for this story. The part where someone says “we both know why you’re here” just sounded like a cheesy movie line. The journalist mentioned that while being detained he met a woman who was on day 4 of detention… what exactly are the logistics of how they were handling detention? It all just sounded so implausible. It reads like someone trying to spin a story to convince others of what they already wanted to believe, or maybe that kid in grade school who tells stories he read or saw, but swaps himself for the main character. Why should I believe this person more than any random internet crank?
- refulgentis 1y agoI'm sorry to write at length, I just feel so deeply in this moment. I've never seen such a stark denial of reality that has been reported widely recently, that also relies on a sweeping idea that we can't trust anyone ever, i.e. we cannot discern the difference between a random internet crank and a not-crank, and given that, there's no reason to ever explore anything we haven't accepted ourselves. I don't think I'll be able to bridge the gap by lecturing or pointing things out or huffing about journalism. But I have no choice but to try something, because I care for you and for us. I guess what I'd say is, to keep from lecturing, it's very normal to be in detention for multiple days once you've tripped the first wire. There's been many stories like this shared, you can see some of the effects [here](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=05c894fd792d1e12&rlz=1C5OZZY_enUS1162US1162&sxsrf=AE3TifNW7rjpAFcZ9BdVEqq_F8QegYQKqg:1750008856791&q=cbp+detention&tbm=nws&source=lnms&fbs=AIIjpHxU7SXXniUZfeShr2fp4giZrjP_Cx0LI1Ytb_FGcOviEiTm5uW1q0uNfK7KsnoL8hUty_Nww_xBrtNM8kFbkB3gIgrdYz8cnbX0sxjF4-bC3LzWcf4zFglHS2eRudPV9rCYm34Azq6wuBYmavvGmff9qGZD7D29a2VPaozjHyKTe4fA7zUCo6E7f2fJxAdVcqZdmcEqZUgEuZ9SF4z6Ie_BQivjuw&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwiHtIqC-_ONAxVojIkEHakZJAMQ0pQJegQIExAB&biw=1404&bih=943&dpr=2 https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=05c894fd792d1e12&rlz=1...), no tricks, no bias, just a search for "cbp detention" in Google news. Some headlines: ‘Like a jail cell’: Family of six detained at Washington state border facility for more than three weeks, German tourist held indefinitely in San Diego-area immigrant detention facility, Green card holder from New Hampshire 'interrogated' at Logan Airport, detained, ‘Felt like a kidnapping’: Wrong turn leads to 5-day detention ordeal
- JKCalhoun 1y agoA thought experiment I have been having asks if we should instead open it up to the public. For some reason I have been fixated on license plate readers (probably not a bad parallel to Palantir?). Plenty of people on HN justifiably decry license plate readers due to their violation of our privacy (to be sure there's an argument to made though since you are technically "in public" when driving — your privacy protections might be on shaky legal grounds). But if license plate readers are already a reality (we know they are), why should only private actors have that data? This would make sense if we completely trusted those private actors, of course. The opposite could be a public, open-source license plate reader that caught on (people using dash cams + open software) — the data sent to a collective, public database. (Perhaps the software strips out personal license plates — only logging tags of official or government vehicles?). My first reaction is the degree to which that could be abused by ... stalkers? Truly a bad thing. But then I ask myself to what degree the private license plate readers are perhaps "being abused" (or will be more and more) and we don't even know about it. As I say, a thought experiment that I find myself seeing merits both for and against.
- darkmarmot 1y agosee the novel kiln people and the transparent society essays by David Brin
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mindslight 1y agoOpen what up? This event isn't about finding some needle in a hackstack, but about power structures using unaccountable "AI" to create chilling effects on the freedom of speech. The public having a go-to list of journalists who committed wrongspeak about Israel wouldn't particularly change much, beyond facilitating the extension of this authoritarian dynamic into the corporate world in a uniform way.
- 1shooner 1y agoI once had a firepit conversation with the Floc coordinator of a small US city's PD. A big part of the value he saw in Floc was being able to query the data within some window (maybe 30 days?) then no longer being responsible for it. If the government had the data, then they'd need to respond to FOIAs for the data. Not only would that be an administrative cost, but it would also show the public how invasive the mass surveillance is. He clearly was not concerned about civil rights, he just wanted the convictions. He was also proud of paying more for some kind of exclusive license to the data, that Floc wasn't going to sell his surveillance data to other entities. I never really believed that.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jamesgill 1y agoPalantir. Valar Ventures. Mithril Capital. Lembas LLC. It’s remarkable to me how someone like Thiel could be such a fan of Lord of the Rings, with its central themes of the corrupting influence of unchecked power and good triumphing over evil and evil’s will to control and dominate—then decide to become Gollum.
- dylan604 1y agoIn all of these types of stories, "evil" rules for long enough that makes it appealing for those with the same views. Sometimes, it's generations before "good" overcomes. Plus, each one of the "evil" leaders feel like they are special and different. It's easy to understand why. You just need to be able to see it yourself.
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoBecause it's only evil when your opposition/competition is doing it. You're always the hero in your own story and for you the actions are justified because you're doing it "for good". The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Hitler was also a fan of works of art with themes of peace and harmony. The world, at the highest levels of competition and leadership, doesn't run on morals, it runs on unscrupulous force, conquest and domination. See: the human history for the past infinity years. Those who tried to maintain peace on morals instead of force, got eliminated form the gene pool. People should remember this more often.
- ben_w 1y ago> See: the human history for the past infinity years. Those who ran on morals instead of force, got eliminated form the gene pool. People should remember this more often. Fortunately not so; some time around 50-100kya, humans rapidly became a whole lot nicer to each other.
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoKya? No idea what you mean.
- like_any_other 1y agoThe US is just following the European example of "responsibly" moderating speech [1], instead of blindly sticking to the 1st amendment, as they were so often called to [2]. [1] https://www.gbnews.com/news/renaud-camus-banned-migration-views https://www.gbnews.com/news/renaud-camus-banned-migration-vi... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/what-europe-can-teach-america-about-free-speech/537186/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/what-eu...
- blacksmith_tb 1y agoDoes that say Camus had his phone seized? He was denied being allowed to come and speak, not to visit as a journalist, which also strikes me a fairly different case (whatever you think of his positions, or whether they should be debated or silenced). It seems unlikely to me that a journalist who'd written flattering things about the AFD would be treated so badly trying to visit Germany?
- like_any_other 1y ago> Does that say Camus had his phone seized? I'm confused where this question is coming from. Do cases have to be exactly the same to draw parallels? > It seems unlikely to me that a journalist who'd written flattering things about the AFD would be treated so badly trying to visit Germany? Germany is a bad example, as they're deporting and planning to even revoke citizenship based on speech: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/14/germany-orders-deportation-of-pro-palestine-activists-what-you-should-know https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/14/germany-orders-depo... https://theintercept.com/2025/03/31/germany-gaza-protesters-deport/ https://theintercept.com/2025/03/31/germany-gaza-protesters-... https://www.dw.com/en/germany-could-withdraw-citizenship-due-to-antisemitism/a-72104457 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-could-withdraw-citizenship-due...
- MandieD 1y agoComplicated thing: had a certain Austrian who complained about the German government silencing him instead been deported and forbidden to return after his prison sentence, the world might have been a very different place.
- AndrewKemendo 1y agoHelp me make sense of this as an old timer because I’m lost Everything described in the thread has been going on since the Patriot Act was signed in 2001. As early as 2010, I was able to look up ANY IMEI/IMSI combo in Proton and see all links to other IMEI/SI collected worldwide. By 2013 I could query those in Palantir on a Secret or SCI level depending on who held the data which would also aggregate and provide to me OSINT, LE reports or other data associated with those id What’s new here? Is it just that more people know about it now? All the stuff I described above was public information as to both “capabilities” and used as casus belli for warrants (US) or kinetic actions (OCONUS).
- thrance 1y agoWhat's new is they've started using all of that more aggressively to detain people who objectively, without the shadow of a doubt, have done nothing wrong but somehow displease the party.
- JeremyNT 1y agoThey've had these authoritarian toys for a while, but they've been careful to use them more subtly in the past. This administration is, as with everything else, discarding the "norms" based restraint that previously applied to their use.
- AndrewKemendo 1y agoFully disagree. This was entirely what snowden was trying to make public and he was a broken record on precisely what I described above. Everything I wrote can be validated that it was available for the world to see by 2013.
- refulgentis 1y agoGenerally, in my lifetime (at 37 years old now), wide political awareness starting around 2004, Patriot Act / mass government data conversation was more about "This can be abused!", the most concrete story I had ever even close to the topic was by my junior year english teacher (17 years old) relaying that someone told her someone googled "how do terrorists make a bomb" and the FBI paid them a visit. Here, I'm a bit stunned to see we're investing in screening and detaining visitors if they seem to hold an opinion that doesn't imply any sort of violent threat.
- saveusfromkikes 1y ago[dead]
- maeil 1y agoThe title does not do the content justice. Since Snowden it's been known to the entire world, even outside of HN, that the US government has had this capability for decades now, with mass dragnet surveillance of all internet traffic. What has changed is that now they're actually using this to a degree that even China generally does not do. If a German had written a comment in support of the Hong Kong protests on Facebook at some point in time, they're extremely unlikely to get denied entry to China over this, despite them almost certainly having even stronger capabilities and databases to easily find this out.
- Spooky23 1y agoSnowden showed that the tools were available to intelligence agencies operating under questionable rules. Now the coordination of those agencies is led by a Russian agent, and poorly trained keystone cops have access, courtesy of Palantir. Also note that the IRS and Social Security data is protected and access is a serious crime. So the responsible Feds are long fired or resigned.
- WarOnPrivacy 1y ago> Also note that the IRS and Social Security data is protected and access is a serious crime. So the responsible Feds are long fired or resigned. The access was given to Palantir. Your statement is dismissive in a way that suggests this dangerous situation no longer exists. Are you asserting that Palantir no longer has access to this data?
- Spooky23 1y agoNo, im suggesting that what Palantir is illegal, the IRS and Social Security staff bullied into allowing it are likely felonies on providing it to the company. My statement was confusing. The employees who were responsible stewards of this data have either been fired or resigned in protest.
- WarOnPrivacy 1y ago> that the US government has had this capability for decades now, with mass dragnet surveillance of all internet traffic. This is an important point. The Bush admin established systems to surveil ~everyone in the US (not suspected of a crime) in bulk. Bulk surveillance is the well known, core component of systems intended to harm people (in bulk). This got a pass from Bush supporters (inc me at first). It got little-to-no strong pushback elsewhere. The Obama admin massively expanded Bush era surveillance systems. This got a pass from nearly everyone (excepting a period after the Edward Snowden revelations). Not holding a reasonable PotUS accountable - this gifts power to the unreasonable ones that follow.
- Sporktacular 1y agoThis guy thought deleting his posts would make a difference... but he's sure it's Palantir. They've been doing this using all sorts of social media OSINT tools for a decade or more. Okay, he's annoyed but that's not a license to make stuff up.