Reprinted and edited with permission from The Dignity Virus

By Alex Garland and Hannah Saunders

Activists nationwide showed up at Palantir offices on July 14—Palantir Purge Day— to demand that governments sever financial ties with the software giant for profiting from human rights abuses in Palestine. Seattle activists with Jewish Voice for Peace staged a sit-in at the Palantir office in South Lake Union, successfully blocking the entrance for two hours until police showed up to arrest people.

“Palantir is selling surveillance technology to corporations and government, fueling fascism at home and the genocide in Gaza,” one protester said. “Palantir profits off the genocide in Gaza by providing advanced training artificial intelligence to the Israeli Government and the Israeli occupation forces. This means Palantir provides the technology to kill people…individual citizens who are starving and standing in lines trying to get aid and food for their families. More aid workers have been killed during this genocide than in all the wars of the last 30 years.” 

Hossam Nasr, a former Microsoft worker who said he was fired “for organizing a vigil on campus to honor the lives of Palestinians,” spoke out about how major tech companies have become “effectively…weapons manufacturers.”

Nasr is now an organizer with No Azure for Apartheid, which is a movement created by Microsoft workers who are demanding the company’s direct and indirect aid in Israeli genocide and apartheid cease, and said companies like Palantir “saw an opportunity in death and destruction, and killing of Palestinians to make profits.” Nasr singled out Palantir as the one leading the charge, noting how the CEO has publicly highlighted their joy and pride about their technology killing Palestinians, which is also being used to locate and kidnap our neighbors stateside. 

He detailed how Palantir built its businesses by embracing government defense contracts, noting how contracts with the US government and the Department of Defense helped them win the war in Iraq, with partnerships deepening since.

Palantir’s incestuous relationship with the Trump regime

One of Palantir’s co-founders is Peter Thiel, an outspoken evangelist who funneled millions of dollars to Vice President JD Vance, according to Middle East Eye. And numerous DOGE employees have previously worked at Palantir or have ties to the company, like Luke Farritor, who currently works as a software engineer. 

Farritor studied computer science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln before dropping out to become a Thiel Fellow in 2024; The Thiel Fellowship offers kids 22 and younger $200,000 over two years to drop out of school and pursue other work. Since joining DOGE, Farritor has gained access to dozens of Health and Human Services systems, like the department’s grant payment management service, and the human resources management system, among others. 

Earlier this year, DOGE raided several federal agencies and demanded data, which it claimed was necessary to identify fraud, waste, and inefficiencies, but activists and organizations have repeatedly rang alarm bells about security and privacy concerns relating to Social Security numbers and financial records: Not only can this lead to an increase in identity theft and fraud, but it also risks data leakages to private companies and foreign governments.

Mijente, a LatinX advocacy group and hub, has also been tracking Palantir’s work with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) since 2018, and said Palantir “has been used to fuel raids, detentions, deportations, and mass surveillance for years,” in a June 25 post.

Earlier this spring, Palantir was granted $30 million to build a surveillance platform for ICE, called the Immigration Lifecycle Operating Platform, or “ImmigrationOS.” The Immigration Policy Tracking Project, which documents each immigration policy by the Trump regime, stated that this software design has three main functions:

• Creating more efficient deportation logistics by making improvements to how people are identified and removed from the country.
• Streamlining the identification and apprehension of people who are prioritized for deportation, like “violent criminals,” visa overstays, and gang members.
• Tracking and reporting self-deportations with “near real-time visibility.”

Mijente emphasized how ImmigrationOS will combine all sensitive data across federal agencies that have been obtained by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), like the Social Security Administration, IRS, and DHS, to map out people’s lives. Mijente also stated ImmigrationOS will use people’s data against them, like paying taxes or applying for visas.

“For them to identify what they claim are immigrants or refugees or whatever, they have to surveil everyone. Your data is in that system— even if you’re a law-abiding legal citizen,” Nasr said.

Protestors at the Palantir Purge pledged to keep organizing against Palantir and other tech companies, and stated that they would not rest until Palestine is free.