10 ms·

> In-Q-Tel, a non-profit venture-capital firm established by the CIA Good old Mussolini style fascism is steaming full speed ahead in the land of the free.

MrZongle2 13y ago
Sssh, we've got to keep the children safe by recording all the minutia of your online life. Because terrorism.
- ilyanep 13y ago
  This is a reddit-level shitty comment. Unless you agree that the CIA has no right to exist (and you'd be insane [one of the nicest words I can think to put here] to think so), I fail to see why it's bad that the government would contract to people who can do things 100% more efficiently. Also the form of "shh...don't bring your logic here" comments is especially discussion-killing and really doesn't belong here. Full disclosure: I work for Palantir, but I speak for myself, not the company.
  - MrZongle2 13y ago
    Fair enough. I'll dispense with the snark and provide a more specific summary of my thoughts on the matter: 1) Not everybody who works for the government (either directly or as a contractor) is a power-hungry closet totalitarian. In fact, these people are rare. 2) Nevertheless, these people exist, and the ambitious ones often claw their way to the upper echelons of whatever organization they work for. Their goals are likely not as diabolic or lofty as overthrowing a country or subverting the Constitution, but rather to check the requisite boxes their bosses deem important and to further their own careers by "empire building". 3) The by-product of these goals can result in the waste of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, if they over promise and under deliver. They may exaggerate the scope of a problem in order to make their pet solution seem all the more critical. Technical problems have more taxpayer dollars thrown at them, to ensure a fix. Legal restrictions are tackled by lawyers, who seek to find workarounds. 4) In the end, rules are bent and billions are wasted to solve a "problem" that really wasn't a serious problem. Most of the hands that touched the "solution" did not intend to waste money or subvert laws, but either believed that the end result was for the greater good or simply didn't care one way or the other. I see Palantir in this light: not an evil entity, not a shadowy puppet master plotting the demise of America. But they happily accept contracts from agencies full of men and women far more interested in checking boxes and furthering personal careers than any effect it may have on spending or the personal liberties of strangers. I see them in the same light as I do the people who built the backscatter machines used by the TSA in the airports: an interesting tool being misused by the wrong people in power. Individuals who work on a project that can be turned against their fellow citizens and sleep well at night because the work is interesting or the pay is good have none of my sympathy and are earning an increasing amount of my contempt as the scope of unconstitutional government espionage becomes more and more clear. The CIA -- as well as any other government agency -- is an organization and has no inherent "right" to do anything, including exist. I don't care about efficiency if it means that my children and their children grow up in a country where every electronic record associated with their lives is harvested and analyzed so they may supposedly be safer from "bad guys". A pox on anyone who supports this guilt-by-association, pro-precrime, "efficient" America. It is an Orwellian hell. How's THAT for a comment?
mathattack 13y ago
If you're going to have a CIA, and they're going to have technology, why not have them look outside their corporate walls to create it? I can't imagine that a big government organization is capable of creating groundbreaking technical innovation better than small groups of hungry silicon valley individuals.

MrZongle2 13y ago

Sssh, we've got to keep the children safe by recording all the minutia of your online life. Because terrorism.

ilyanep 13y ago
This is a reddit-level shitty comment. Unless you agree that the CIA has no right to exist (and you'd be insane [one of the nicest words I can think to put here] to think so), I fail to see why it's bad that the government would contract to people who can do things 100% more efficiently. Also the form of "shh...don't bring your logic here" comments is especially discussion-killing and really doesn't belong here. Full disclosure: I work for Palantir, but I speak for myself, not the company.
- MrZongle2 13y ago
  Fair enough. I'll dispense with the snark and provide a more specific summary of my thoughts on the matter: 1) Not everybody who works for the government (either directly or as a contractor) is a power-hungry closet totalitarian. In fact, these people are rare. 2) Nevertheless, these people exist, and the ambitious ones often claw their way to the upper echelons of whatever organization they work for. Their goals are likely not as diabolic or lofty as overthrowing a country or subverting the Constitution, but rather to check the requisite boxes their bosses deem important and to further their own careers by "empire building". 3) The by-product of these goals can result in the waste of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, if they over promise and under deliver. They may exaggerate the scope of a problem in order to make their pet solution seem all the more critical. Technical problems have more taxpayer dollars thrown at them, to ensure a fix. Legal restrictions are tackled by lawyers, who seek to find workarounds. 4) In the end, rules are bent and billions are wasted to solve a "problem" that really wasn't a serious problem. Most of the hands that touched the "solution" did not intend to waste money or subvert laws, but either believed that the end result was for the greater good or simply didn't care one way or the other. I see Palantir in this light: not an evil entity, not a shadowy puppet master plotting the demise of America. But they happily accept contracts from agencies full of men and women far more interested in checking boxes and furthering personal careers than any effect it may have on spending or the personal liberties of strangers. I see them in the same light as I do the people who built the backscatter machines used by the TSA in the airports: an interesting tool being misused by the wrong people in power. Individuals who work on a project that can be turned against their fellow citizens and sleep well at night because the work is interesting or the pay is good have none of my sympathy and are earning an increasing amount of my contempt as the scope of unconstitutional government espionage becomes more and more clear. The CIA -- as well as any other government agency -- is an organization and has no inherent "right" to do anything, including exist. I don't care about efficiency if it means that my children and their children grow up in a country where every electronic record associated with their lives is harvested and analyzed so they may supposedly be safer from "bad guys". A pox on anyone who supports this guilt-by-association, pro-precrime, "efficient" America. It is an Orwellian hell. How's THAT for a comment?

mathattack 13y ago

If you're going to have a CIA, and they're going to have technology, why not have them look outside their corporate walls to create it? I can't imagine that a big government organization is capable of creating groundbreaking technical innovation better than small groups of hungry silicon valley individuals.