They create tools that enable the government to infringe on the privacy rights of their citizens
If you don’t like the bullshit the government does, that seems like an issue you should take up with the government, no? You’re using a tech company as a scapegoat.
And that's the problem – they're giving governments tools that let them more easily and effectively infringe on the privacy rights of their citizens. Privacy isn't invaded when the data is collected, although that's a necessary step; it's invaded when a cop or bureaucrat queries that data to see what a citizen has done. Giving them that tool is morally complicit.
~ "That's not my department," said Wernher von Braun. ~
Quite frankly, I don't think any reasonable person would consider selling software to the government to be morally corrupt unless they were reasonably confident the government would use it for evil. Right now, nobody has made a compelling-enough argument to make me believe the government will use this software for evil.
As for compelling arguments... is the history of most of the world's governments not enough for you? In US, you can look at the census for a case in point: this data was used to chase draft dodgers during WW1, and to compile list of Japanese for internment during WW2. Curiously, by WW2, the federal census law had specific provisions preventing the Bureau from disclosing that information to any other government agencies, precisely to prevent this kind of use - Congress simply repealed those provisions. Nevertheless, the Bureau subsequently denied sharing that data and buried any leads, so we didn't have definitive proof until this century.
Or we could talk about COINTELPRO, PRISM etc.
There are popular licenses with such clauses.
This is software that will ostensibly cut down on errors and speed up processing times for things like asylum claims, but for some reason Github was called out as being complicit.
I think the argument against Palantir is better formed than an argument against Github based on specificity of the tool, but I think both are driven more by viral outrage than careful consideration of any moral calculus or actual hands-on knowledge of how the tools are used.
Palantir is _explicitly_ contracted by a government to create a tool for combining surveillance information to make tracking individuals more effective.
Github is providing tools (Github Enterprise IIRC) which is presumable being used to create tools which are used to track and deport individuals.
Other databases get used to track down, torture, and murder critical journalists - by dismembering them with a bone saw while they're still alive.
Remind me again which kind of database Palantir staff work on?
The software was also used to run double blind clinical drug trials - the acl granularity was great at that; you could have different roles for drug manufacturers, doctors, and patients, none of which had absolute information. Then trial supervisors could open up the data for analysis at the end of the trial.
At that same time, the ability to use GPS phones to upload data over unreliable networks was used when they teamed up with the Clinton foundation and Team Rubicon to improve disaster relief coordination for hurricanes.
Myself or coworkers (“Palantir staff”) worked on all of these.
Also, I'd like to point out that this isn't an "either or" situation. Obviously the government is involved, as they no doubt put out the contracts, but Palantir is the one cashing the check. They've created their entire business model around big secretive government contracts.