COMMENTARY BY POGOWASRIGHT
In 2019, hundreds of academics and participants at a Privacy Law Scholars Conference held at UC Berkeley protested the conference accepting sponsorship from Palantir because of Palantir’s work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). As a result of the protest, Palantir sponsorship was no longer accepted in subsequent years.
The protest was part of a broader protest against Palantir’s contract with the government and activities.
With mixed feelings at the time because there were things Palantir was involved in that I appreciated, I, too, signed the letter.
Now I’m glad I did.
And if anyone harbored any doubt that Palantir has turned to the dark side or that the protesters were wrong, Palantir’s newest actions should eliminate any doubt.
New reporting by Eva Dou for The Washington Post reports reveals:
For years, Alex Karp, Palantir’s CEO, had declared the data management company to be “involved in supporting progressive values,” saying he has repeatedly “walked away” from contracts that targeted minorities or that he found otherwise unethical. Even as Palantir took on extensive data management contracts for the federal government, the company said it was not willing to allow its powerful tools to broadly track immigrants across America.
That commitment no longer holds. Palantir’s software is helping U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement track undocumented immigrants and deport them faster, according to federal procurement filings and interviews with people who have knowledge of the project and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details. The software, Immigration OS, plays a key role in supporting the administration’s mass deportation campaign, which President Donald Trump has stepped up in recent days with such measures as pausing immigration applications from nationals of 19 countries.
Read more at The Washington Post.