8 ms·
How Palantir is mapping the nation’s data
- s5300 1y agoVery cool how we’re letting a private company become the modern day SS. Especially hilarious when the dude in charge literally grew up in an ex-Nazi stronghold in Namibia. Should be an absolute red mark to have this company or any affiliated with it in your CV. Absolutely anti-societal.
- yesbut 1y ago[flagged]
- Spooky23 1y agoA: By acting in contempt of the law.
- bobbane 1y agoOnly partially. As long as the third-party doctrine is valid in the US, they can claim that they're just integrating data from private companies with existing government records. And those third party companies can, if they choose, tell Palantir to pound sand if they don't have warrants. The real problem is those third parties know a LOT about us, and it's essentially impossible to opt out of their data gathering. License plate scanners and credit bureaus, anyone?
- coldtea 1y ago>And those third party companies can, if they choose, tell Palantir to pound sand if they don't have warrants. And then those third party companies, if they're interesting enough to Palantic or those using Palantir, might get cancelled state contracts, or surprise tax audits, and other pressures... totally unrelated "of course"
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoTechdirt was a repost of a The Conversation article from August. Some more discussion on a related story then: What does Palantir actually do? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44894910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44894910
- tomhow 1y ago> Techdirt was a repost of a The Conversation article from August. Thanks, redirected from https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/11/how-palantir-is-mapping-everyones-data-for-the-government/ https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/11/how-palantir-is-mapping-...
- 0points 1y agoOne of the most elusive big companies today, imo. The CEO was present on the most recent Bilderberg meeting.
- estearum 1y agoHe is not just present but has been on the organizing committee for a long long time.
- goldforever 1y ago[dead]
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- AIorNot 1y agoI mean look at the name of the company for pete's sake: Palantir? Sauron indeed..so much of the valley is enabling the surveillance state at all levels of society. Silicon valley was supposed to do no evil, no wonder this generation hates tech bros
- anthem2025 1y agolol, Silicon Valley has always been evil.
- LastTrain 1y ago/Almost/ always
- themafia 1y agoSilicon valley is a place. Government contracting is an activity. The two should be very far apart and yet somehow they're joined at the hip.
- scottyah 1y agoGovernment contracting is the only reason silicon valley exists. It'd just be another valley.
- bruckie 1y agoAlways have been. In large part, government contracting is what created Silicon Valley. https://steveblank.substack.com/p/if-i-told-you-id-have-to-kill-you https://steveblank.substack.com/p/if-i-told-you-id-have-to-k...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- slt2021 1y agogarbage company with a garbage business model
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- sporkxrocket 1y agoWorth watching the interview with Palantir CEO Alex Karp where he's confronted about their role in the genocide of Palestinians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mhNLTy5pbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mhNLTy5pbQ
- thegainz 1y agoEw, even his response is so gross. Blames Palestinians for their own genocide and casually dehumanizes the protestor.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mrlongroots 1y agoI think Palantir is highly misunderstood. As a technology, it is just database joins. It is just that they are able to pull in data from everything from S3 to SAP to ArcGIS, and provide analytics, visualization etc. on top to provide global visibility into any system. The visibility can be "show me all illegal immigrant clusters" or "show me bottlenecks and cost sinks in CAHSR construction". When we offload the moral impetus for society from politics to technology, we also squander control. Tech is tech and can be used for both good and bad. It is not that a strategy that aims to cap downsides by preventing the proliferation of technology is inherently bad, but it is doomed to fail. The evidence for dysfunction is not the existence of Palantir but in the failure of the watchdog layer of society (also called the government).
- mgh2 1y agoThey are just a data company capitalizing on the AI hype - when the AI bubble pops, they will too. When ChatGPT launched, Palantir's stock started climbing by selling its "AI platform". The cycle follows a marketing funnel: AIDA - awareness, interest, decision, action. https://www.smartinsights.com/traffic-building-strategy/offer-and-message-development/aida-model/ https://www.smartinsights.com/traffic-building-strategy/offe... FUD: Awareness and interest (AI) - at the initial stages, doomer marketing by big tech to government about its dangers and regulations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt FOMO: Decision and action (DA) - After selling, it is all about investing in infrastructure and adopting the technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out Sentiment shift: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44870777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44870777
- mingus88 1y agoThe palantir bubble will not pop as long as Thiel and his folk are embedded in USG. The stock took off when Trump/Vance came in and Vance is thiels pick Their primary technology predates any AI hype by a decade at least, and their strength has always been in deploying great engineers.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- reilly3000 1y agoI for one support our frontline data warriors. They are doing God’s work. Please don’t send a kill drone after me. I was drunk when I said the other stuff, not thinking correctly. It will never happen again.
- junkrat002 1y agoDouble plus good.
- user94wjwuid 1y agoIs palantir just a unifying api to google search history emails and Facebook messages and activities? I’m guessing it’s a query, background job, data request to these traitorous citizen civil liberty betraying American companies, comes back unifies the data set then allows you to run a needle haystack search on it?
- downrightmike 1y agoThe suck up everything. Probably also got all the gov't restricted data from DOGE. The gov't does store vast amounts of encrypted comms to decrypt later in secret datacenters. And then there's prism. They are afraid of normal people, its McCarthy hunting Reds while high on coke raised to the next power
- scottyah 1y agoOr like tableau- just connects a bunch of disparate databases that normally are very hard to connect and makes it easier to get relevant data. If every county has a different format for storing data on streetlight purchases, but there has been a code update on what makes them safe palantir tries to make it so one person can search for how many and where streetlights need to be replaced without calling up every county and writing custom scripts to parse 100s of DBMS's. I know this example is less exciting than spying on everyone but despite how they try to hype it up it's a lot more realistic use case.
- user94wjwuid 1y agoOr if you want to batch order data subpoenas
- greenie_beans 1y agoevil company ran by an evil man
- smashah 1y agoBy every measuring stick of "freedom", with the Palantir Cabal strangling D.C, I don't see how America can be considered a "free state" (as per the constitution) anymore. You cannot be free in a panopticon, no matter how reductive you try to be about it.
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- diogenes_atx 1y agoFor those who are looking for information and analysis about Palantir, there is an academic study about surveillance technology with useful information about the company: Sarah Brayne (2020) Predict and Surveil: Data, Discretion, and the Future of Policing, Oxford University Press. As the book explains, Palanatir is one of the largest companies specializing in surveillance data management services for law enforcement, the military and other corporations. Palantir does not own its data but rather provides an interface that runs on top of other data systems, including legacy systems, making it possible to link data points across separate systems. Palantir gathers its data primarily from "data brokerage firms," including LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters CLEAR, Acxiom, CoreLogic, Cambridge Analytica, Datalogix, Epsilon, Accurint. As Brayne observes, these data brokerage firms "collect and aggregate information from public records and private sources, e.g., drivers licenses, mortgages, social media, retail loyalty card purchases, professional credentials, charities’ donor lists, bankruptcies, payday lenders, warranty registrations, wireless access points at hotels and retailers, phone service providers, Google searches and maps geolocation, and other sources who sell your data to customers willing to pay for it. Yet it is difficult to fully understand the scope of the data brokerage industry: even the FTC cannot find out exactly where the data brokers get their information because brokerages cite trade secrecy as an excuse to not divulge their sources." Why is this a concern for people living in a democratic society with a legal system that supposedly protects individual freedoms? "Big data companies argue that their proprietary algorithms and data are trade secrets, and therefore they refuse to disclose their data, code and techniques with criminal defense attorneys or the public" (p. 135). This means that, "In many cases it is simply easier for law enforcement to purchase data from private firms than to rely on in-house data because there are fewer constitutional protections, reporting requirements and appellate checks on private sector surveillance and data collection, which enables police to circumvent privacy laws" (pp. 24-5, 41-2).
- AdieuToLogic 1y ago> This means that, "In many cases it is simply easier for law enforcement to purchase data from private firms than to rely on in-house data because there are fewer constitutional protections, reporting requirements and appellate checks on private sector surveillance and data collection, which enables police to circumvent privacy laws" Another way to phrase this is: Why transform government into Big Brother[0], with all the hassle of oversight and accountability this would entail, when outsourcing to Big Friends via handsome contracts will achieve the same result while enabling "plausible deniability" under oath? 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(Nineteen_Eighty-Four) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(Nineteen_Eighty-F...
- ggm 1y agoI would be very surprised if a future democrat government dismantled information sources built on palantir contracts. They might change aspects of oversight. They might diversify to avoid contract capture. Sorry to be blunt, but government tends to be amoral when it comes to public noise about things, and actual choices made. Agencies of all kinds from LEA out to health will ask for retained access to the joins over disparate data. The same across the UK, Europe and the OECD. Plantir is going to do very well, into the future. Some politics will force change. The EU will eventually get robust, onshore, self controlled data analytics and management.
- pizza 1y agoWas a bit gob-smacked to find out that Alex Karp's PhD thesis [0] (2002 - cofounded Palantir 2003) derives from Theodor Adorno's theory of aggression. imo reading just the intro was so eye-opening for me about the origins of what is now a behemoth - that you can trace a line from critical theory to Palantir - that I think reproducing the first 3 paragraphs here is worth it; emphasis mine: > This work began with the observation that certain expressions have a drive-releasing effect, and this effect occurs not despite but because of their apparent irrationality. Expressions that blatantly contradict their own content offer actors the opportunity to formally acknowledge the normative order of their cultural environment while simultaneously expressing forbidden desires that violate the rules of this order. This, in turn, does not trigger cultural or social sanctions. On the contrary, such expressions solidify integration processes by making integration and its psychological costs bearable. Drawing from Adorno, I refer to such expressions as "Jargon." Jargon is not just a self-deception; it is a particular form of self-deception. It not only relieves the speaker but also integrates them into the circle of those who belong. Through Jargon, the present is embellished, rendered promising for the future, and thus made acceptable. > However, Adorno's descriptions of aggressive actions expressed in Jargon are conceptually challenging to grasp. They slip away under the scrutiny of a rigorously working scholar. The translation of such impressions into a durable conceptual model encounters the limits of various social scientific traditions and quickly runs into difficulties. As much as the advantages of transferring Adorno's critique into a different conceptual framework are apparent, there is a risk that by relinquishing Adorno's premises, their critical rigor may disappear. > Furthermore, this raises a series of questions that need to be addressed. For example, how can the complexity of modern society be taken into account without ignoring the instinctual elements of social action? What does an aggressive action expressed in Jargon actually look like, and what cultural significance would an action have that is transmitted through Jargon? Adorno's concept of Jargon can ignite a discussion about this. However, it leaves some problems untouched that I must address from my perspective. Adorno refrains from providing answers to such questions. He can afford to do so because he relies on premises that willingly accept a de-differentiation of the social world. Similarly, he does not discuss the specific cultural framework in which the aggressive action expressed in Jargon acquires its meaning. From the perspective of this work, it takes some imagination to understand how Jargon can play a role in integrating aggressive impulses within a coherent culture. The culture-specific transformation of aggression must also be a part of such an exposition. Adorno only partially acknowledges the cultural context in which this aggression expressed in Jargon acquires any meaning, or he does so in its subliminal form. It is evident that Adorno's approach is built upon precisely such culture-specific elements of the expression of aggression. [0] https://saismaran.org/Dr.Karp's-Thesis.pdf https://saismaran.org/Dr.Karp's-Thesis.pdf
- wallopinski 1y ago[dead]
- JCM9 1y agoCame across them a few times. There’s absolutely nothing special about the tech. If anything they’ve probably fallen quite a bit behind now. What is “special” is just a willingness to do things with data that others would consider inappropriate or unethical. There’s a market for that sort of thing.
- MengerSponge 1y ago“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
- AfterHIA 1y agoThank you for reading MengerSponge. Thank you. It means the world these days.
- ryandvm 1y agoThat's kind of always the secret to mega-success. You have to have 2 out of 3 of the following traits: 1. Exceptional skill 2. Luck 3. Lack of scruples
- conradkay 1y agoReminds me of this quote from Margin Call https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag14Ao_xO4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag14Ao_xO4c "There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first; be smarter; or cheat" Though I'm sure people who are first tend to view that as skill or being a visionary, not luck
- bumby 1y agoWhat bothers me is when people treat the third as some sort of virtue. I think operating in the ethical gray areas makes them feel smart instead of unethical.
- drnick1 1y agoIsn't the data Palatir is using already in the hands of various levels of government? If so, they are just doing glorified database joins. The real issue here is if they start incorporating private data that shouldn't be accessible to governments, such as location data collected by Apple/Google phones, social media posts, interactions with AI tools, etc. Ultimately though, users should blame themselves for giving such data to Facebook, Google, and others. It's been clear from the beginning that those services were free because they were mass surveillance machines in disguise, and that every data point collected would be monetized.
- jauntywundrkind 1y agoLawful Evil-y.
- saubeidl 1y agoIn a fair world, Peter Thiel would get the Jack Ma treatment.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]