Private surveillance is so much more scary than regular government surveillance because they have every incentive to invent new ways of surveilling you that they then try to sell to governments, or private actors who want to influence the world. It's like classic government surveillance but every company you interacted with and every app you use may at some point turn on you and use your data against you, just because someone realized "hey, I bet we can sell this data"
We are really seeing the fears of data collection from the 2000s and 2010s come to fruition as privatized surveillance now. Cambridge analytica should have been the warning shot but it wasn't enough.
Part of the Miranda warning is "anything you say can and will be used against you." I think of the "will be" part as a lie, because they're usually not that diligent or competent even when they're that malicious. But it's still a good heuristic when it comes to giving your PII to the government. I used to be an outlier conspiracy theorist for believing that. To those coming around to it, welcome.
The "small government" conservatives really showed their true faces in 2025 and 2026. Anyone espousing these ideas will not be taken seriously by me going forward.
Both Trump presidencies have really shown how little check there is on the White House when it comes to coordinating among these agencies. Heck literally one of the first the things he did in Jan 2016 is try to find out which park ranger posted a sparse inauguration photo. It wouldn't even occur to me that he was the de facto boss of millions of people in this way
Cause consider the previous status quo. It was considered somehow scandalous for Bill Clinton to have an opinion on what his AG Janet Reno was doing
Remember: every bit of data collected through a google-analytic, doubleclick, etc. link can potentially be abused for this as well. Techies have a responsibility as well. Remove them from your applications, or replace them with safer alternatives, and don't log (meta-)data just because it might be useful one day.
How are Palantir so effective (as this article is alluding)?
From a cynical British perspective, when I think of government departments and civil servants. I think inefficiency, data siloing, politics and lack of communication between departments and also internally not communicating between teams. Not withstanding a lack of cooperating and willingness to change.
Did Palantir have a political mandate, or can they just cut through the bureaucracy or bypass it with technology?
If I'm reading this correctly, they're just straight up violating the law. They're sharing information with ICE under an obligation to share information of aliens, but they're actually sharing everyone's information in an effort to identify aliens. That seems like a pretty slam shut case if there were any mechanism to investigate and prosecute it.
From the leftist-Communist rag (/s) Wall Street Journal:
> It started out that way. At the beginning of 2025, 87% of ICE arrests were immigrants with either a prior conviction or a criminal charge pending, according to ICE data obtained by the Deportation Data Project. Only 13% of those arrested at the beginning of 2025 didn’t have either a conviction or a pending charge.
> But the criminal share of apprehensions has declined as the months have gone on. By October 2025, the percentage of arrested immigrants with a prior conviction or criminal charge had fallen to 55%. Since October, 73% taken into ICE custody had no criminal conviction and only 5% had a violent criminal conviction, according to a Cato Institute review of ICE data.
What is not clear to me from the article is what data they are getting from CMS. The article references Medicaid data, but everyone that has access to Medicaid is legally present in the country. They have to be to qualify. Some possiblities:
* They are going after people legally here on temporary visas such as SIV that give them access to medicaid
* They are going after people that are not on medicaid and have no insurance but received care (either emergency care or charity care) at a hospital or clinic that takes medicaid (I don’t know if hospitals capture this information for CMS).
I am sorry, but what did you expect? Since before Snowden we knew this was coming and this dystopian future is here only because we didn't care enough to do something about it.
Now, where are all these 'I don't have anything to hide people?' I don't see them anywhere...
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 38.3 ms ] threadWe are really seeing the fears of data collection from the 2000s and 2010s come to fruition as privatized surveillance now. Cambridge analytica should have been the warning shot but it wasn't enough.
Cause consider the previous status quo. It was considered somehow scandalous for Bill Clinton to have an opinion on what his AG Janet Reno was doing
From a cynical British perspective, when I think of government departments and civil servants. I think inefficiency, data siloing, politics and lack of communication between departments and also internally not communicating between teams. Not withstanding a lack of cooperating and willingness to change.
Did Palantir have a political mandate, or can they just cut through the bureaucracy or bypass it with technology?
ICE using Palantir tool that feeds on Medicaid data (eff.org) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46756117
> It started out that way. At the beginning of 2025, 87% of ICE arrests were immigrants with either a prior conviction or a criminal charge pending, according to ICE data obtained by the Deportation Data Project. Only 13% of those arrested at the beginning of 2025 didn’t have either a conviction or a pending charge.
> But the criminal share of apprehensions has declined as the months have gone on. By October 2025, the percentage of arrested immigrants with a prior conviction or criminal charge had fallen to 55%. Since October, 73% taken into ICE custody had no criminal conviction and only 5% had a violent criminal conviction, according to a Cato Institute review of ICE data.
* https://archive.is/https://www.wsj.com/opinion/mass-deportat...
Under Obama 3M illegal immigrants were removed, and there wasn't all of this drama.
(Hint: this isn't about public safety or illegal immigration.)
* They are going after people legally here on temporary visas such as SIV that give them access to medicaid
* They are going after people that are not on medicaid and have no insurance but received care (either emergency care or charity care) at a hospital or clinic that takes medicaid (I don’t know if hospitals capture this information for CMS).
* ?
I guess they just needed a Dumb Fuck to do whatever they wanted, Lifelog and whatever
Why won't you protest against current citizenship rules, since it's clear you want them to be changed?
edit: I see it's just a simple "f** ice" and "you need to go" case. I'll show myself out
Now, where are all these 'I don't have anything to hide people?' I don't see them anywhere...
Laws and protections do not just apply for citizens. They apply anyone in the United States.