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Lawmakers Demand Palantir Provide Information About U.S. Contracts

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  • The Trump administration has already sought access to hundreds of data points on people through government databases, including their bank account numbers and medical claims. Mr. Trump could potentially use such information to police immigrants and punish critics, Democratic lawmakers and others have said. Privacy advocates, student unions and labor rights organizations have filed lawsuits to block data access.

    Republican lawmakers have also raised concerns about the Trump administration’s plans to consolidate data across government agencies.

    Palantir’s work on such a project could be “dangerous,” Representative Warren Davidson, Republican of Ohio, told the Semafor news site this month. “When you start combining all those data points on an individual into one database, it really essentially creates a digital ID. And it’s a power that history says will eventually be abused.”

    After The Times published the article about Palantir, the company said on X that the report “is blatantly untrue” and published a blog post denying it was a vendor on a project to unify databases across federal agencies.

    In a statement on Monday, the company said, “Palantir does not build surveillance technology, and we are not building a central database on Americans — nor will we.”

    Right, you just create new companies and collect that data from them

  • The Trump administration has already sought access to hundreds of data points on people through government databases, including their bank account numbers and medical claims. Mr. Trump could potentially use such information to police immigrants and punish critics, Democratic lawmakers and others have said. Privacy advocates, student unions and labor rights organizations have filed lawsuits to block data access.

    Republican lawmakers have also raised concerns about the Trump administration’s plans to consolidate data across government agencies.

    Palantir’s work on such a project could be “dangerous,” Representative Warren Davidson, Republican of Ohio, told the Semafor news site this month. “When you start combining all those data points on an individual into one database, it really essentially creates a digital ID. And it’s a power that history says will eventually be abused.”

    After The Times published the article about Palantir, the company said on X that the report “is blatantly untrue” and published a blog post denying it was a vendor on a project to unify databases across federal agencies.

    In a statement on Monday, the company said, “Palantir does not build surveillance technology, and we are not building a central database on Americans — nor will we.”

    Right, you just create new companies and collect that data from them

    Sauron Denies Request for Contract Information

    Reading a prepared statement from the tower of Barad-dûr, the Mouth of Sauron indicated today that the Dark Lord would not be complying with the demands of lawmakers to provide information on its contracts with the Trump Administration. The Messenger of Mordor further called the demands "ridiculous" and "unnecessary government intrusion into private affairs of Sauron, who does not answer to any higher authority, save that of his fallen master Morgoth." Furthermore, the statement chastised the lawmakers for contacting Sauron through the Palantir, which he described as "an illegal privacy breach," and said he planned to seek legal action for this invasion of his personal communications.

  • International Criminal Court hit with "sophisticated" cyberattack

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    A real mystery indeed.
  • French city of Lyon ditching Microsoft for FOSS

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    The important thing is that the doomsday device runs Linux
  • Uber, Lyft oppose some bills that aim to prevent assaults during rides

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    California is not Colorado nor is it federal No shit, did you even read my comment? Regulations already exist in every state that ride share companies operate in, including any state where taxis operate. People are already not supposed to sexually assault their passengers. Will adding another regulation saying they shouldn’t do that, even when one already exists, suddenly stop it from happening? No. Have you even looked at the regulations in Colorado for ride share drivers and companies? I’m guessing not. Here are the ones that were made in 2014: https://law.justia.com/codes/colorado/2021/title-40/article-10-1/part-6/section-40-10-1-605/#%3A~%3Atext=§+40-10.1-605.+Operational+Requirements+A+driver+shall+not%2Ca+ride%2C+otherwise+known+as+a+“street+hail”. Here’s just one little but relevant section: Before a person is permitted to act as a driver through use of a transportation network company's digital network, the person shall: Obtain a criminal history record check pursuant to the procedures set forth in section 40-10.1-110 as supplemented by the commission's rules promulgated under section 40-10.1-110 or through a privately administered national criminal history record check, including the national sex offender database; and If a privately administered national criminal history record check is used, provide a copy of the criminal history record check to the transportation network company. A driver shall obtain a criminal history record check in accordance with subparagraph (I) of paragraph (a) of this subsection (3) every five years while serving as a driver. A person who has been convicted of or pled guilty or nolo contendere to driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol in the previous seven years before applying to become a driver shall not serve as a driver. If the criminal history record check reveals that the person has ever been convicted of or pled guilty or nolo contendere to any of the following felony offenses, the person shall not serve as a driver: (c) (I) A person who has been convicted of or pled guilty or nolo contendere to driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol in the previous seven years before applying to become a driver shall not serve as a driver. If the criminal history record check reveals that the person has ever been convicted of or pled guilty or nolo contendere to any of the following felony offenses, the person shall not serve as a driver: An offense involving fraud, as described in article 5 of title 18, C.R.S.; An offense involving unlawful sexual behavior, as defined in section 16-22-102 (9), C.R.S.; An offense against property, as described in article 4 of title 18, C.R.S.; or A crime of violence, as described in section 18-1.3-406, C.R.S. A person who has been convicted of a comparable offense to the offenses listed in subparagraph (I) of this paragraph (c) in another state or in the United States shall not serve as a driver. A transportation network company or a third party shall retain true and accurate results of the criminal history record check for each driver that provides services for the transportation network company for at least five years after the criminal history record check was conducted. A person who has, within the immediately preceding five years, been convicted of or pled guilty or nolo contendere to a felony shall not serve as a driver. Before permitting an individual to act as a driver on its digital network, a transportation network company shall obtain and review a driving history research report for the individual. An individual with the following moving violations shall not serve as a driver: More than three moving violations in the three-year period preceding the individual's application to serve as a driver; or A major moving violation in the three-year period preceding the individual's application to serve as a driver, whether committed in this state, another state, or the United States, including vehicular eluding, as described in section 18-9-116.5, C.R.S., reckless driving, as described in section 42-4-1401, C.R.S., and driving under restraint, as described in section 42-2-138, C.R.S. A transportation network company or a third party shall retain true and accurate results of the driving history research report for each driver that provides services for the transportation network company for at least three years. So all sorts of criminal history, driving record, etc checks have been required since 2014. Colorado were actually the first state in the USA to implement rules like this for ride share companies lol.
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    Same, especially when searching technical or niche topics. Since there aren't a ton of results specific to the topic, mostly semi-related results will appear in the first page or two of a regular (non-Gemini) Google search, just due to the higher popularity of those webpages compared to the relevant webpages. Even the relevant webpages will have lots of non-relevant or semi-relevant information surrounding the answer I'm looking for. I don't know enough about it to be sure, but Gemini is probably just scraping a handful of websites on the first page, and since most of those are only semi-related, the resulting summary is a classic example of garbage in, garbage out. I also think there's probably something in the code that looks for information that is shared across multiple sources and prioritizing that over something that's only on one particular page (possibly the sole result with the information you need). Then, it phrases the summary as a direct answer to your query, misrepresenting the actual information on the pages they scraped. At least Gemini gives sources, I guess. The thing that gets on my nerves the most is how often I see people quote the summary as proof of something without checking the sources. It was bad before the rollout of Gemini, but at least back then Google was mostly scraping text and presenting it with little modification, along with a direct link to the webpage. Now, it's an LLM generating text phrased as a direct answer to a question (that was also AI-generated from your search query) using AI-summarized data points scraped from multiple webpages. It's obfuscating the source material further, but I also can't help but feel like it exposes a little of the behind-the-scenes fuckery Google has been doing for years before Gemini. How it bastardizes your query by interpreting it into a question, and then prioritizes homogeneous results that agree on the "answer" to your "question". For years they've been doing this to a certain extent, they just didn't share how they interpreted your query.
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    Hold on let me find something[image: 1b188197-bd96-49bd-8fc0-0598e75468ea.avif]
  • 210 Stimmen
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    In 2025 it would be anything above 3.6 million. It's a ton of money but here's a list of a few people that hit it. https://aflcio.org/paywatch/highest-paid-ceos Now if they added in a progressive tax rate for corporate taxes as well.... Say anything over 500 million in net profit is taxed at a 90+% rate. That would solve all sorts of issues. Suddenly investors of all these mega corps would be pushing hard to divide up the companies into smaller entities. Wealth tax in the modern age could be an inheritance tax. Anything over the median life earnings of individuals could be taxed at 100%. So median earnings in my area is $65K * 45 years (20-65k) = $2.93 million.
  • autofocus glasses

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    Hm. Checking my glasses I think there is something on the top too. I can see distance ever so slightly clearer looking out the top. If I remember right, I have a minus .25 in one eye. Always been told it didn't need correction, but maybe it is in this pair. I should go get some off the shelf progressive readers and try those.
  • UK government withholding details of Palantir contract

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    Of all the partners you could have picked. Eek.