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If Palantir is an "analytics firm", I am a helicopter.

lol, you and I mate…

I think it's time for the EU to start denying US companies for security reasons.

That's right. They still want to spy on their citizens, mind you. They just don't want it to look bad, so they should go with someone local.

The Snowden files showed in great details how European countries used US intelligence to spy on EU citizens and then request that data through intel sharing, thus bypassing local and EU law. It was an effective way to get the benefits of spying on your citizens with a plausible deniability that it was the Americans who did it, and that the fact that data was shared is simply a fact of Nato and other deals between EU and US.

Obviously this is not something EU citizens want. If we wanted it, we would issue laws that gave the military and police the right to do it themselves. The only reason that this roundabout way came to exist is that such surveillance would not pass unnoticed by voters.

There are some "more local" alternatives. Sweden for example can (and as rumors goes, do) use neighboring countries like Denmark to spy on Swedish citizens by looking at network traffic that goes over the border. People have argued however that this is a bit worse of an deal since you don't get access to the larger intelligence network that US has, and you also have to trust your neighbors with possible sensitive data.

I don't think it's about how they look if they buy local, it is about accountability and stability.

and while accountability never was the strength of the US, it has became unstable and unreliable in the recent years. It would be stupid to just look away and act like it's not happening.

If they're local, then they're subject to GDPR, which carries massive fines and a private right of action that lets you sue the shit out of anyone who spies on you.

International surveillance, on the other hand, doesn't give two shits about GDPR. Likewise, in the US, they pay private firms and other governments to spy on their own citizens to get around the 4th and 5th Amendments.

Limiting spying to nation-state actors only - and prohibiting cross-border surveillance cooperation - would do an insane amount of good for plugging the data drain.

I recently learned there's a massive gap in collection of fines relating to data handling violations, due to a (not covered) mix of non-collection and going through legal processes. (over the past 6 years: 4+ billion in fines; 20 million collected) Seems like a problem, and further changes might come partly from it.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2026/01/12/data-protecti...

Fines so massive every company out there (including the linked website) takes the (rational) decision to not comply with it.

What makes you say they're not complying?

They make it mandatory to accept tracking for targeted advertising (or pay, which itself requires providing personal information). This is not compliant with the GDPR.

Palantir’s entire business model is a GDPR violation, isn’t it?

Palantir isn’t the linked website though?

Government spying is not subject to GDPR, just like you can’t ask the police what data they have on you. Whatever company gives them the tools will be exempt from any form of customer interference.

In which EU country do you not have Freedom of Information equivalent laws?

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Citizens want conformity among each other as well. We just use semantics that obfuscate; get a job, make money, be useful to local economy, pay taxes, follow laws, close tickets in a queue, etc etc

Submit your thoughts for social media to approve or shadow ban !

Submit your source code for validation

Submit your time for validation

"Ignore your eyes and ears; your agency has not been co-opted by some rando who has given themselves authority. You're a happy employee and we're family here until the company needs to pivot and we unceremoniously fire you, and keep your work for our profit." - middle management everywhere

You're just arguing semantics when the ground truth is right in front of our faces. In America obligation is everywhere for no guarantee of healthcare. The American public shows it's true colors by not protesting 24/7 for comprehensive single payer; platitudes, obfuscated euphemisms for "thoughts and prayers", but happy to keep themselves off the hook.

See YouTube videos full of doctors wasting time and training on the phone with insurance employees "just following orders" denying care for treatable conditions.

American public is a joke and collectively useless. Trained to be helpless VHS cassette tapes of "knowledge" regurgitating whatever language they memorized at university.

This case is about Switzerland, though.

This is something that has made no sense to me for a while. Trump has done a very good job at telling the EU that the US will no longer back stop their security, and that they need to start taking care of that themselves.

Now, obviously the US very much likes the idea of selling a bunch of extremely profitable military and intelligence solutions to the EU, but it makes 0 sense.

If the US isn't backing the EU's security, and in some cases may actually be on the other side of a conflict, then it's insane for the EU to be dependent on US defence companies.

They have to bring this all local. We saw this early in the Ukraine war where significant amounts of resources got tied up in complex arrangements where the country that manufactured the equipment had a veto over whether the country who owned the equipment could provide it to Ukraine.

The US recently sanctioned a number of ICC judges and prosecutors, acting as a pathetic supplicant state for Israel[1].

https://www.state.gov/icc-sanctions

Any company operating worldwide that has a base in the US is legally required to cut all ties with these people. Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Google, Microsoft, and on and on. The US launched a trade nuclear bomb about some minor disagreement with the ICC, desperately trying to defend the war criminal (and just general criminal -- but don't worry, felon Trump is working to make sure he's pardoned for that, just like all the child molesters, drug dealers and sex traffickers that Trump is personally pardoning by the hundreds) Netanyahu.

For this reason alone, every country not the United States or Israel needs to be full bore ahead on replacing every single American dependency. The fact that the US is trying to use this to punish people prosecuting literal war crimes is absolutely disgusting behaviour, and is utterly intolerable. Ignoring that the US government treats American tech companies as extensions of the government (as much or worse than China, it should be noted. Literally enlisted tech executives from a number of companies in the armed forces, as Chairman Trump demands ownership stakes of all of the firms and their business), and the US government is a friend of no one.

And, it's happening. Everything the current pedo cabal is doing is the sort of short-term political win that is going to destroy the future of the US. Americans are still largely blissfully unaware and thinking this cabal of child rapists and self-dealing criminals (I believe Trump just gave himself $10B of taxpayer dollars...not even a murmur in the busted US) are just trolling the world, when really the US will be the biggest victim by far. Enjoy this brief moment of being the shining star, because the collapse is upon you. It turns out that the idiocracy has an expiry date.

[1] - While it shouldn't need to be said, Israel != Jewishness. Further, it isn't an antisemitic slur to note how absolutely Israel has a stranglehold over the US, constantly seeing the latter punching itself in the face in the service of that rogue nation. Utterly bizarre behaviour. The US is Israel's El Salvador, with a clucking crew of simpletons desperately looking for the boss to give them some accolades.

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You're correct in that Israel doesn't have a hold over the US (it would be silly to assume that a pissant country could have the resources to control the [at time of writing] most prominent country in world), but they are a US client-state and thus receive preferential treatment when it suits US foreign-policy in the Middle East.

I can agree with this statement. If anything Israel does whatever the US tells it to do and is completely dependent on US support. client-state sounds like a reasonable description of the current reality.

It could be either way around, really. On the one hand, Israel has no military force apart from what the US gives it. On the other hand, Israel has the Epstein tapes (not the files) so it might be rational for a majority of US politicians to just do whatever it asks for.

> is also totally antisemitic to say Israel has a stronghold over the US.

Sure. Ignore AIPAC.

Sure, build a false dichotomy that we either support Israel unconditionally or we hate Jews and support every antidemocratic nation in the eastern hemisphere.

Sure, further propagate antisemitism by intentionally conflating any criticism of Israel the government with the religion of Judaism.

I can be critical of Qatar and Saudia Arabia and China and Russia and Israel, for all the necessary reasons.

> Sure. Ignore AIPAC.

You mean American Jewry who uses their money as they see fit?

You do see a difference between Qatari money flooding the US and US money (from the Jews) advocating for things they want?

I have a problem with any advocates of foreign governments having an outsized impact on my country's elections.

I think the Cuban exiled community in Florida have too much of a hold on US politics as they leverage their local power a lot given FL is a swing state.

Weirdly, making this kind of criticism never warranted me a label of anti-Hispanic or anti-Cuban.

I would say it is borderline when you focus on the group rather than individuals. Also the Cubans haven't had the same history of racism as the Jewish people.

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AIPAC and CAIR do not have the same influence over US policy or politicians. Come on.

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Ah, now it's actually jealousy. Just moments ago you called making such an observation antisemitism.

Hilarious stuff.

If you were Jewish you would not find this so funny.

Yes, antisemitism is partly fueled by jealousy. The observation above that "Jews have a hold on the US" is antisemitism. Saying Jews are very successful because they work hard and they get stuff done despite all the hate is not antisemitism.

"He has not been convicted of any war crimes."

There is an arrest warrant out for him. He hasn't been convicted, but he should show up at that Hague and defend himself. When literally EVERY SINGLE DEVELOPED COUNTRY but the US and Israel is a member of the ICC, and those two happen to be largely the biggest perpetrators of war crimes, this "political theatre" act falls a bit flat.

Oh look, the US is committing terrorism and blowing up random boats again, even double tapping as yet another war crimin' activity. Howler. What a bastion of goodness. Yeah, positively no one cares what that terroristic plutocracy thinks is right or wrong.

"It is also totally antisemitic to say Israel has a stronghold over the US"

LOL, no it absolutely is not. The fact that Israel-apologists have to do this bit is pathetic business. It's intellectual garbage, immediately dismissible as a distraction.

The US relationship with Israel makes literally zero sense. Israel offers absolutely nothing to the US but geopolitical problems. Nothing. The US constantly burns actually valuable relationships in the service of that nuclear-armed international pariah.

Congresspeople will literally, directly say Israel first. One member proudly wore his Israeli military uniform in the House. Just bizarre, unfathomable behaviour time and time again, and if anyone showed that sort of bizarre loyalty to any other country they would be rightly declared a foreign asset and a traitor. Oh look, congress gave Netanyahu a four minute standing ovation, apparently for his largess of trying to drag the US into wars and demanding US taxpayer dollars. What a great guy.

Bizarre stuff.

As to democracies...are we pretending the US is a democracy, or that it has rules and laws? I suspect the midterms are going to disabuse you of that foolish notion.

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>This is standard antisemitic MO ... The intellectual garbage is coming from people who claim this is not antisemitic.

This is that fun catch-22 where Israel-defenders use Jewishness as a pathetic human shield over any criticism of Israel, or relations with the same.

It's worn out its effectiveness. At this point it just looks pathetic.

>Post 9/11 and with the rise of organizations like ISIS it also benefited the US greatly to have a partner in this unstable region called the middle east.

Jordan, Qatar, Iraq, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and on and on. Boy, if only the US had partners in the region. Bases all over the place. What they really need is to coddle the primary antagonist of the region and that should really help!

>friends support their friends

Lets recap all the things Israel has done for the US. I will summarize the entire list below-

...

-fin

This is an entirely one-way relationship. And it's a bizarre, supplicant relationship that just boggles. Try-hard patriots will literally declare "We only fly the American flag"...and then fly an Israeli flag.

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"Obviously you prefer to coddle with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Iraq, UAE and such"

Uh...do you think that's the dichotomy? Do you think it's one or the other?

The US has relationships with lots of countries. Give and take relationships.

No other relationships has the sort of pathetic supplicant behaviour that we see with Israel. American politicians are not hoisting Qatar or Saudi Arabia flags. They aren't giving pathetic fawning four minute standing ovations for random criminal leaders of those countries. They aren't saying "Qatar First" or telling their voters that their first order of business is visiting Qatar to show deference. That would be bizarre behaviour that would immediately raise enormous red flags.

What a bizarre take.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-formal...

I mean it's just a gift. No favors expected in return?

There are absolutely US politicians who are advocating for those other countries.

We already covered the not a criminal until proven guilty angle.

But yes, the US has considered Israel a close ally and friend and its leaders are well received in the US as are US leaders in Israel.

And yes, the not criminal leader of Saudi Arabia who had a journalist chopped up and violates the rights of his people is also received with great honors in the USA.

" The US is going after the ICC because it perceives the ICC to be working against its interests and for the interests of the non-free/non-democratic world. If the spinless Europeans weren't, eh, spineless, then they would be working with the US here. " Why? What are the interest of the free world?

"Every decent person and country should be standing with other countries that support democracy and freedom." Netanyahu has some problems with the constitutional court in Israel + corruption allegations. If he succeeds, Israel might become authoritarian and though there is a growing antisemitism some Israel consider leaving Israel because of him.

As we used to say when we were kids, if your grandmother had wheels she would be a bus.

Yes, Israel's democracy is under threat, very much fueled by those same external forces impact other western countries, social media and such.

The interest of the free world. In my opinion. Is to promote freedom and not give power to countries that are not free or democratic (which is most of the world). The UN primarily represents the non-free forces and its institutions similarly the same.

https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/523711/Iran-elected-as-vice...

We need to fight for democracy in Israel and the US just the same way we fight for it everywhere.

Israel is a ethno-state and an apartheid regime. Don’t call this a Democracy, please.

It is a democracy within its legal internationally recognized borders. There is no apartheid in Israel. It's no more "ethno-state" than let's say Japan or Switzerland, in fact it is a lot more ethnically diverse with 2 million Arab citizens.

There is the problem of the occupied territories (which Israel's law considers occupied in alignment with international practices) where people in limbo due to the unresolved status. That's not apartheid (despite Israeli citizens being treated differently in those territories). Maybe legally and morally questionable but how we got here and why we can't fix this is also relevant.

> Israel is a ethno-state and an apartheid regime. Don’t call this a Democracy, please.

Ireland and Poland (as well as many other countries) are ethno-states too. Did they stop being democracies?

Last I checked, the vote of israeli non-Jews counted the same way as the israeli Jewish one.

How can Israel be an apartheid state if Arabs in Israel routinely take highest positions in both public and private sector? It makes zero sense.

No. Poland is not an ethno state, neither Ireland.

Ofc they are. The right of return in those are for poles or Irish only (respectively).

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Tl;Dr version: Israeli Propaganda version of the facts.

Instead of saying that something is propaganda, you can disprove factually incorrect points with evidence.

NH is not reddit or twitter.

Even if you buy Palantir’s claim of unfair framing, this is poor optics: the left defaults to “Palantir = big bad bully,” the right to “Europe = censorship,” and this fight manages to trigger both at once with Palantir looking very clumsy in the middle.

Oh come on there won't be anybody on the right calling this censorship, its one of their biggest donors.

The point is the right won't be able to easily defend them, on this particular issue they've crossed into "enemy" territory.

The realm of PR doesn’t require intellectual consistency. Besides “defending someone” online or in the media does very little to affect case outcomes.

https://archive.ph/xobOu

The reporting in question is a few articles on palantir here:

https://www.republik.ch/suche?q=Palantir

Unusually difficult to find the site, maybe because it’s a small Swiss magazine written in German and I’m in the US doing a search on google. Interestingly, Palantir has a website called Republic that beats Republik in SEO for “Republik”.

Those pesky Swiss with their rights and freedom of press, must be really annoying for poor little thiel, while he just wants to sell surveillance to all sides.

But seriously why should we (valid anywhere in Europe) buy such stuff from US, heck even take it for free. We can go straight to China with same logic, would be cheaper and have about the same amount of backdoors or remote kill switches. US admin publicly wished for subversion and dissolution of EU and making whole Europe a weaker continent, something folks like putin would greatly appreciate.

that sounds good in theory, but in practice almost every country in europe has already fully bought into Palantir tech so you are a bit late with that. Europol has used "Palantir Gotham" for a decade at this point. The idea of western nations national sovereignty is an illusion. Most european journalists wouldn't need to be told not to report badly about Palantir, that's the only thing that makes this story an outlier.

> Europol has used "Palantir Gotham" for a decade at this point.

Europol did use a customized version of Gotham from 2016 up until 2022 where they decommissioned it and has replaced it in-house tools.

What the fuck are you talking about, they are well known to not be transparent about their private contractor dealings.

https://www.statewatch.org/analyses/2025/behind-closed-doors...

https://www.heise.de/en/news/How-Europol-is-cozying-up-to-Mi...

What you say can be true while what I say is valid in the same time. US gov is currently very hostile to whole Europe, way more than say to China and I don't see any option for a change in this in future. This is the approach US population prefers.

If we here use such tech, maybe we need to come up with our own (just FFS don't buy israeli stuff if we want to have any higher moral ground), its not magic just data analytics. And to be frank, I am more than happy if we don't have such capabilities, we have much more serious topics to focus on like russia probably starting another war in Baltics in few years - thats a real mortal enemy, not some left wing dissidents (unless heavily manipulated by russians but then you don't need palantir's solutions).

> This is the approach US population prefers.

Most of the population has very little leverage and is highly manipulated. It's the approach of a few who wield all of the power while the rest of us are either dismayed or distracted.

I sure hope Republik didn't write anything about Hulk Hogan ...

This is happening in Switzerland, Hulk Hogan would not have been able to destroy a relatively large media outlet with a single lawsuit there. The main outcome from this is that the Republik will have to print a correction if Palantir wins.

I do hope the Republik gains a few subscribers from this, because they absolutely rule.

I’d be here for them to re-expose the blood drinking and the curious murderous circumstances of a potential ex-lover myself.

Calling the company specialising in cyber espionage, data theft and generally human rights violations just an "analytics company"... Call it what it is cowards...

Always a pleasure to see Republik being featured in the press ahah, even if its too social-democratic to my taste. I know they've been struggling for some time, so hopefully the Imperial Juggernaut that is Palantir won't manage to bleed them too severly.

Probably worth also posting this for context: https://blog.palantir.com/korrektur-wie-das-online-magazin-d...

I especially like this part:

"Auch in diesem Fall hätte Palantir gerne mit den Autoren des Berichts zusammengearbeitet, um unseren Ansatz zur Entwicklung und zum Einsatz von Technologien zum Schutz der Privatsphäre und zur Wahrung von Rechten detailliert darzulegen." (In this case too, Palantir would have welcomed the opportunity to collaborate with the report's authors to provide a detailed explanation of our approach to developing and deploying technologies that protect privacy and uphold rights.)

It's not the function of the press to collaborate with the people/companies they write about.

It’s the same Trumpian playbook of attacking publications and using capital to censor, bully, and extract settlements. These companies are evil. But they are evil particularly because a class of ultra wealthy (the Epstein class) are allowed to amass wealth and power.

The deep state is their former name but I like your reference or the Epstein class which is far better at describing how both sides of the political aisle are compromised by the rich and powerful who know no laws or punishment for crimes any normal person would be subjected too.

How many leftists are in the Epstein files again? Chomsky (“manufacturing consent is an icky book in retrospect…), and then the next most left wing figure is… bill clinton? Or did I miss some folks?

It’s not the Bernie, AOC, Ilhan Omar class who’s in the Epstein files. Hell even Elizabeth Warren isn’t in them!

It’s really just one side. The left always will eat its own but in the context of disliking pedophiles they are spotless (in America, Europe is a whole different beast with Foucault et al and his ilk protesting French age of consent laws - but that was far before epsteins time)

The Epstein class is the capitalist class. It's important to name them correctly. Otherwise I fully agree.

Shame on Heise for this GDPR-noncompliant trash in their cookie pop-up:

> We offer you the option of rejecting individual data processing. If you have made a selection for all processing purposes, you can save it. Please note that consent to personalised advertising is always required for use without a Pur subscription.

Naah, no, you don't get to gate rejecting consent behind a subscription. Not even if that's your economic reality. The GDPR entitles people in Europe to opt out of surveillance capitalism, and if you can't make money in that environment, you deserve to go bankrupt.

Gimme dat shit for free.

You do you think pay-or-ok is not compliant? Ive not heard of a ruling against it.

https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-43/

> Consent is presumed not to be freely given [..] if the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is dependent on the consent despite such consent not being necessary for such performance.

https://noyb.eu/en/pay-or-okay-explained-why-more-and-more-w...

> the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) is working on a binding opinion on 'Pay or Consent', which will determine whether Europeans continue to have a realistic option to protect their privacy online. If the approach is legitimised for Meta, companies across all industries could follow suit - which would mark the end of genuine consent to the use of European's data.

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