[emteycz]

Please re-read what I wrote. What I want is to argue the basic point - that surveillance is wrong and the government is overstepping a boundary. None of these can be argued against a corporation that simply sold the government what it asked for.

[jessaustin]

Surveillance in USA, like every other authoritarian institution in USA, is inherently asymmetric. The NSA lizards hear our intimate conversations, but we don't know a thing about NSA lizards. We'd love to vote against NSA, but that isn't an option. (Even protesting them seems a dicey option: how far can the Ft Meade fence snipers shoot?) For some reason some of the lizards have emerged from cover in the guise of a mysteriously never-profitable parallel construction firm, so naturally they're going to receive some of the scrutiny we would otherwise apply to their inaccessible brethren.

You have repeated ITT that you object to this, but you haven't given us a reason why. That invites speculation as to personal motivations.

[emteycz]

Oh, please, now you're saying I'm one of them? Wake up.

I simply want the problem fixed. The actual problem, not something that is not the problem and won't help, because the government will simply pick another contractor. The problem is the system and the government, not businesses, not corporations, and definitely not a specific firm.

You know, it's weird that so many so vocal people don't want protests against the actual issue and support senseless activism against a scapegoat. ;-)

[jessaustin]

Wake me up! Tell us something we could do to decrease surveillance by USA government personnel. Please don't suggest "voting", though. If the previous 15 elections hadn't already made clear how worthless that is, the current election is sure to do so.

Failing that, slight inconveniences for Palantir staff and investors may continue.

[emteycz]

I am the last one to suggest voting. I would suggest protesting against the government, and against the system. If more people recognized that that is the problem, we could finally stop voting and get fixing.

Sadly, this kind of activism suggests that private sector is the problem, and thus more government is needed.

[jessaustin]

USA government has a number of unfortunate qualities. Of course we should oppose these qualities in many different ways (certainly not limited to protest). We're not disagreeing with that. But, we can't draw a bright line between a never-over-several-decades-profitable "company" and the secret agencies who are its only clients and whose personnel is separated from its own by an unseen revolving door. Palantir is not clearly separate from those agencies. Protesting Palantir takes nothing away from effective opposition to abusive government authority.

At this level of the thread, we know that you don't like protesting Palantir. Unfortunately you haven't given us any other reason to think such protests are problematic.

[emteycz]

I did, but once again: IMHO this makes people think (a) private business is the problem, and leads them to believe more regulation and control is necessary, which is the opposite of what's needed to solve this problem of the state overreaching in control and regulation.