[Guardian] This week, Berkeley Law School is hosting its annual Privacy Law Scholars Conference, a gathering of academics, advocates, government officials, lawyers, business people and others dedicated to digital privacy ‐ privacy in the age of the internet and increasing surveillance. This year, as every year since 2011, that conference will be sponsored by Palantir Technologies, a secretive data-mining company that, among other things, has been active in aiding the Trump administration’s separation of migrant families.We are demanding that the school cut its ties to Palantir, a company deeply embedded in the current administration’s crackdown on immigrants. We are not alone. More than 140 academics yesterday released a letter calling on the conference to reject Palantir as a corporate sponsor. Palantir employees have also "begged" the company’s CEO to cancel its contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Tech workers protested against the company’s contracts with immigration agencies two years ago. Immigration activists rallied outside its headquarters last summer, and Stanford students flyered Palantir employees as they went in for breakfast earlier this month, asking them to stop separating families.
OOooooo! 140 Academics!
Standing by to watch any institution associate itself with Palantir is unacceptable. We all become complicit in giving the company credibility that softens its image.
Palantir provides software to Immigration and Customs Enforcement that has been called "mission critical" by the government’s own documents. Earlier this month, documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that Palantir software was used by federal agents to investigate family members of children who had crossed the border alone. Agents were explicitly instructed to "arrest the subjects and anybody encountered during the inquiry who is out of status".