{"id":36981,"date":"2020-09-04T16:36:56","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T16:36:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/packetstormsecurity.com\/news\/view\/31544\/Palantir-Filed-To-Go-Public.-The-Firms-Unethical-Technology-Should-Horrify-Us.html"},"modified":"2020-09-04T16:36:56","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T16:36:56","slug":"palantir-filed-to-go-public-the-firms-unethical-technology-should-horrify-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/palantir-filed-to-go-public-the-firms-unethical-technology-should-horrify-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Palantir Filed To Go Public. The Firm’s Unethical Technology Should Horrify Us"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I<\/span><\/span>n 2017, the Trump administration<\/a> first set its sights on a target it would return to repeatedly in the coming years: immigrant children.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thousands of kids were crossing the border alone, often seeking to reunify with families living in the United States. The journey is harrowing for children, but the alternative is life in a separated family \u2013 an easy choice for most parents, who often pay to bring their kids across.<\/p>\n

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But this presented officials with a question: how to implement the president\u2019s anti-immigration campaign promises against child migrants?<\/p>\n

The answer was simple: go to the source by prosecuting and imprisoning their parents. Criminally charge the parents as smugglers, separate them from their families, and others would be dissuaded from bringing their children across, officials hoped.<\/p>\n

The mechanism was equally simple: the Trump administration turned to Silicon Valley to map out the family relations of these children. Specifically, they turned to Palantir, an analytics firm founded by the Trump supporter Peter Thiel, according to a government document<\/a> unearthed via the Freedom of Information Act outlining the plan.<\/p>\n

Palantir is well known in the defense and policing worlds. Its product allows users to better visualize data and is used by states the world over. It has $1.2bn in government contracts, including $92m with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which carried out the border deterrence operation, considered a \u201chigh\u201d priority for the administration.<\/p>\n

By June 2017, the operation had begun. In a few months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents arrested 443 people using Palantir\u2019s software \u2013 including the parents, family members and other sponsors of unaccompanied children, as well as any undocumented people encountered during the operation.<\/p>\n

Though the operation was eventually deemed a failure \u2013 almost none of those arrested could be prosecuted \u2013 officials were sold on the tactic of deterring migration by targeting parents. As a direct result, the Department of Homeland Security implemented \u201czero tolerance\u201d a year later, separating thousands of children from their families.<\/p>\n

The seeds of the darkest episode of the Trump administration were planted in that initial border operation, a fact with renewed relevance today: last month, Palantir filed to go public. Its government contracts make up just over half of the company\u2019s revenue (53.5%) but it\u2019s a growing portion: government work increased 76% from the previous year, compared with 27% for non-government work.<\/p>\n

It is poised to become one of the largest tech offerings of the year. And though the company is still losing money<\/a> after 17 years \u2013 $580<\/a>m in 2019 alone<\/a> \u2013 its direct listing planned for the end of September is extremely concerning.<\/p>\n

The rise of Palantir is a dangerous development. In the United States, its tools have mostly been deployed against immigrants and Black communities, but that may change: as we saw in Portland, DHS is willing and able to carry out the whims of the president to enact terror on the general public. The same is true for the department\u2019s contractors.<\/p>\n