What about OSS projects like R and Python that also enable ICE to analyze data to find people.
Is the expectation that Palantir should not sell software to ICE?
No, can you explain it? It sounds like a way to justify to yourself that "those people are bad", but you're "just doing your job". Are you principled about who you do business with, or not?
OK. Why is that worthy of a boycott? Your democratically elected governments create the laws, and determine the funding for things like beds and toys etc. Boycotts in some cases may make those conditions worse instead of better.
There will always need to be a border force. Wouldn't it be better to focus on improving conditions, increasing funding, and stopping people from crossing the border in the first place?
Under the last administration ICE was only targeting folks who had committed serious crimes, but now they're targeting all undocumented folk. A lot of our economy actually depends on these people, as they tend to be the ones picking vegetables and working in factory farms, preparing livestock for sale - nasty jobs most people don't want. Trump's golf courses and hotels have also knowingly employed undocumented folk, but they don't do much to the people employing undocumented folks (which is actually illegal - being undocumented is not).
Oh, and we're a country of immigrants. (Except the native folk.)
See https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/us/politics/fact-check-ic... for a bit more detail.
Most of us probably have no issue with the baker who sold Hitler his daily loaf of bread.
But many of us do have problems with Hugo Boss for designing Nazi uniforms, even though the design work would have been before most of the Nazi war crimes had occurred.
Does not resisting to the fullest of your ability constitute enabling evil?
Would you take Pablo Escobar's donation to build a children's orphanage?
Should gun store owners share the blame when a gun purchased in their business is used in a mass shooting? If you say no, what about if the gun is used in a mass shooting within 30 minutes of the sale and the shooter comes across as under distress, and the gun store owner is worried enough to call in a warning to the authorities.
Why did Bernie Sanders have to return Martin Shkreli's donation? Even if the donation doesn't buy any influence or soft power it allows the "bad" actor to clean their reputation.
From a political perspective there is also the reputation cost to consider. Even if you're morally fine with taking "bad" peoples money, having to answer "why is Shkreli funding you campaign" all the time has a pretty big political cost, even if you have a perfectly legitimate answer.
Having said that, some people do think Microsoft should refuse to sell to ICE too.
Palantir does bundle software and services. Their software is so complex, it is typically Palantir employees building the models and analytics.
source
I became familiar with them through their disease prevention activities trying to evaluate bug transmissions and food borne diseases.
Certainly, you can analyze innocent people, but it’s not like they are a face recognition camera company or something.
I’m not employed by Palantir and not a fan or anything, but am surprised at how mischaracterized they seem to be.
This is like saying Raytheon's core business is antennas. Yes, Palantir does data analysis, specifically for ICE, the military and the police.
I found this article [0] from 2018 that said half of its $1B in revenue comes from government and the other half from corporate.
So if every penny of government work comes from ICE and ICE-likes maybe that’s core.
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-16/palantir-...