The Anti-Palantir Manifesto
This article presents a manifesto arguing that programmers have a moral duty to resist mass surveillance systems built by corporations like Palantir. It advocates for the use of code as a tool to enforce privacy and protect citizens from state and corporate overreach.
Why it matters
It highlights the growing tension between private sector surveillance technology and individual civil liberties in the digital age.
Programmers working on the Internet have a moral responsibility to the entire world, not a single country. The Internet has been designed since its inception as a universal system for the sharing of knowledge without censorship. The Internet is not the property of any one government or nation. The Internet enables mass surveillance at a scale unimaginable to the Gestapo and the Cheka. Far too many programmers have wasted their lives building surveillance systems under the guise of Web advertising. Today, these web tracking systems are being used to monitor, control, and even kill humans by companies like Palantir that seek to combine state violence with corporate efficiency, and thus create a new form of technofascism. Surveillance justified by external national security threats will be turned against citizens inside the nation-state.
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