[dmix]

> signed up with surveillance company Palantir

Just to nitpick, Palantir isn't doing surveillance like Flock. They do data integration the way IBM does under contract for the governments. Some data pipelines include law enforcement surveillance data which get integrated with other software/databases to help police analyze it. There's no evidence they are collecting it themselves despite recent headlines. It's a relatively minor but important distinction IMO.

https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-what-the-company-does/

[trinsic2]

They are providing the software to do surveillance, They are definetly bad actors, you can dance around this all you want, but they are in it.

[conradev]

It is an important distinction.

It’s the same with Facebook selling user data. Neither selling your data, like the carriers do, or selling the ability to target you with your data, like Facebook does, are very nice. But legally they are separate things that need to be regulated differently. As is the case with Flock and Palantir.

[sixothree]

I'm not so sure Facebook is an apt analogy. Have we forgotten all the times Facebook has actually sold personal data?

[gjsman-1000]

Nice assertion. Please provide citations, substance, or anything other than “you’re wrong definitely.”

[nickthegreek]

https://gizmodo.com/palantir-ceo-says-a-surveillance-state-i...

https://gizmodo.com/palantir-ceo-uses-slur-to-describe-peopl...

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/palantir-ceo-defends-su...

[trinsic2]

Wow... See. I didn't even know it was this bad. You don't need much to silence these people that are supporting authoritarian collaborators.

[lesuorac]

I always just say Palantier is IBM 2.0

IBM of course has an problematic history.

[bigyabai]

Iunno, this seems pretty dystopian to me: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/report-ice-using-palan...

[charcircuit]

The government knowing where you live is neither surveillance nor dystopian.

[bigyabai]

That depends very much on how they use and disseminate that information.

[trinsic2]

The government is building databases of people and where they live, without consent of the governed. If that isn't is dystopian I don't know what is.

[SirensOfTitan]

Their data integration and sale allows for the government to surveil citizens without probable cause or warrants.

[dmix]

The solution is still no different than a decade ago. Far stricter laws on intelligence, federal and local police surveillance, and a reduction in executive power which oversteps checks and balances.

There will always be another IT company willing to do integrations even if Palantir dies. Software isn’t going away.

[SirensOfTitan]

Right. But this is about Anthropic -- a company frames itself as a responsible and ethical steward of LLM technology. They can't pretend that OpenAI is somehow morally bankrupt here while continuing to deal with companies that undermine peoples' civil liberties.

I'm also a little unsure what you're saying here. Are you saying that it's futile to rely on corporate leaders to commit to ethical acts, as there's always someone else who will debase themselves to make money? I think that solely relying on the state to regulate itself with respect to civil liberties is a fast path to despotism. The well-regulated state was always a partnership between ordinary people bravely standing up for their rights and the norms of the rules and laws that made it socially acceptable to do so.

If I'm grasping you correctly, I think you're right; however, this points to the rottenness of our culture's way of organizing labor: the optimization of the shareholder over everyone else leads to some really awful effects.

[ImPostingOnHN]

I think a company which provides a sensor fusion dragnet for a government-run mass domestic civilian surveillance system is at least as culpable (and odious) than the ones supplying the data.

[hedora]

It's funny you'd pick IBM:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

Though, I guess IBM did get away with lots of stuff that... Actually, did any supply companies in the WWII German war machine actually get in trouble for war crimes, or did they just go after officers and the people actually working in the camps?

The company selling punchcards that were used for logistics was apparently fine. What about the people making the gas canisters, or supplying plumbing fixtures? The plumbers? Where's the line?

Wondering, since this is increasingly becoming a current events question instead of an academic concern.

[DrSAR]

There were the so-called Subsequent Nuremberg Trials (12 of them). Among them were the trials of IG Farben (gas chamber supplies, Zyklon B) and Krupp (armament of the German military forces in preparation of an aggressive war)

I'm under no illusion that all the perpetrators of war crimes were held accountable but it's not a bad model.

[_jab]

Sure, but it's not as if the DoD was planning on using Anthropic to _collect_ the data either? I assume that the hypothetical DoD use case Anthropic shied away from dealt with the processing of surveillance data, just like what Palantir does.

[roywiggins]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/03/04/anthrop...

> The military’s Maven Smart System, which is built by data mining company Palantir, is generating insights from an astonishing amount of classified data from satellites, surveillance and other intelligence, helping provide real-time targeting and target prioritization to military operations in Iran, according to three people familiar with the system...

> As planning for a potential strike in Iran was underway, Maven, powered by Claude, suggested hundreds of targets, issued precise location coordinates, and prioritized those targets according to importance, said two of the people.

[clipsy]

> They do data integration the way IBM does under contract for the governments

Good thing IBM's data integration was never used for ill!

Oh, wait https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_World_War_II

[dmix]

Oracle started by building databases for the CIA

[gjsman-1000]

Basically it’s glorified Excel.

Take it out on the database purveyors, not Palantir.

[arduanika]

Sure, Palantir is just one tool in the chain, and it's a lot more boring than people make it out to be.

On the other hand, a comment like yours does smack a bit of "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down."