Palintir's weren't evil spying tech. They were originally Zoom for coordinating the far flung domains of the Numenoreans. Only when the Minas Morgul palintir fell into the hands of Sauron did they become instruments of his corruption.
They then got Atlantis'd.
There's a few recurring themes in Tolkien's work - one of them is that marvelous inventions, created by clever people for good purposes, can either be turned to do evil - or the struggle to possess them will turn good people to do evil.
[1] In contrast to the rest of the Silmarillion, which was a cautionary tale of elven pride, hubris, and abuse/attachment to magical trinkets.
Only when Trump got on Twitter...