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Paul GrahamCriticized Palantir's $30M ICE contract as 'infrastructure of the police state'

Paul Graham publicly criticized Palantir Technologies over its $30 million ImmigrationOS contract with ICE, urging programmers not to work for 'the company building the infrastructure of the police state.' He pressed a Palantir executive to commit not to build things that help the government violate the US constitution.

Scoring Impact

TopicDirectionRelevanceContribution
Immigration Openness+towardsecondary+0.50
Surveillance Technology-againstprimary+1.00
Overall incident score =+0.745

Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.66)

Evidence (2 signals)

Confirms Criticism Apr 21, 2025 documented

SiliconANGLE reported on Graham's criticism of Palantir's ImmigrationOS contract

SiliconANGLE covered Paul Graham's criticism of Palantir Technologies over the $30 million ICE contract for the Immigration Lifecycle Operating System (ImmigrationOS), which will give ICE 'near real-time visibility' on self-deportations and help track deportations and visa overstays.

Confirms Criticism Apr 18, 2025 verified

Posted on X criticizing Palantir's ICE work and urging programmers to avoid the company

Paul Graham posted on X that 'it's a very exciting time in tech right now. If you're a first-rate programmer, there are a huge number of other places you can go work rather than at the company building the infrastructure of the police state.' He also pressed Palantir executive Ted Mabrey to commit publicly not to build things that help the government violate the US constitution.

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